Alexia Tsotsis is the co-editor of TechCrunch. She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the media industry.
After four years of living in New York and attending courses at New York University, she returned to Los Angeles in order to continue her career in new media, first as LA Weekly’s Internet culture reporter, and then as SF Weekly’s web editor. Before she joined TechCrunch, Alexia ran the SFweekly.com website while staying on top of memes, the tech scene, and human behavior in the digital age.
At TechCrunch, Tsotsis covers early stage startups, and has had the opportunity to interview everyone from Groupon’s Andrew Mason to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Most recently Tsotsis made the Forbes “30 Under 30: Rising Stars of Media List.” Her Twitter bio reads, “Breaks news, hearts.”
I own Aol stock, diversified investments via ETFs and Mutual Funds, and shares in Facebook. I’m also in a relationship with a VC at General Catalyst Partners. Whenever there is the potential for real or percieved conflict in what I write about, I promise to bring it up, and link back here.
In case you’re not vigorously refreshing our Disrupt NY events page like we are, TechCrunch Disrupt is coming up. We’re receiving a record number of Startup Battlefield applications and watching the last batch pour in before the deadline on Monday. We’ve also started to announce some amazing special guests and speakers. Tickets for this year’s show can be found here. → Read More
With each fleeting moment, we inch closer to Disrupt NY. Today we’re excited to announce that Kevin Ryan will take Disrupt’s stage in late April, joining our ever-growing list of speakers, which so far includes Ben and Ken Lerer, David Lee, and Ron Conway among others.
We just wrote about the rise in company builders, in which seasoned and successful entrepreneurs create studios to innovate… → Read More
VCs like to go around asking the same questions: “What’s cool? What startups do you like?” Recently, the consensus answer to those questions is a startup called Vurb.
Vurb is a contextual content engine, a platform that connects and compiles relevant information from services like, but not limited to, Yelp, LinkedIn, Google Maps, Amazon and so on. Nothing quite like it exists on the market. → Read More
It’s unfair to take a particular moment in time, slice it, and pass judgement on that particular slice. Yet that’s our precise function, as chroniclers of news, and our role in the startup community.
Like many others, I read the news this week that Vegas-based ecommerce site Ecomom will be shutting down. As I read the story, I remembered interviewing the hopeful CEO Jody Sherman for his original… → Read More
In an effort to show the rest of the corporate world how “cool” and “spontaneous” their jobs are, hipster office workers around the globe have been making “Harlem Shake” tribute videos this week. Perhaps because we spend the most time online, the startup community is the dryest kindling to create viral video fire: In addition to Facebook, Google, Groupon, Path and Intel, yes Intel, have succumbed… → Read More
It’s the most wonderful time of year … Because Disrupt New York is getting closer! We’re now wrapping things up behind the scenes, and the show is shaping up to be our best ever — We know, we know, we always say that. Today we’re honored to be announcing three more luminaries who will take the much vaunted Disrupt stage in late April.
Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha, SV Angel’s David… → Read More
Multiple Facebook employees just shared this clip of a bunch of Facebookers doing the “Harlem Shake” dance at their HQ. Supposedly some of the Instagram team and COO Sheryl Sandberg participated, but I can’t spot them (Oh, but please try your best to). I wonder if Zuck is the Smiley Face lemon balloon guy ..? → Read More
AOL (owners of TechCrunch) today is taking one more step to build out its content empire: it has officially confirmed the acquisition of technology reviews site gdgt — first reported by TechCrunch nearly two weeks ago. Gdgt itself is announcing the news on its own site, and a spokesperson from AOL has also confirmed the news to TechCrunch directly. → Read More
Okay so maybe you and two million of your closest peers made “LinkedIn’s Top 1% most viewed profiles for 2012.” But are you on “Forbes 450 under 30″? Or “TIME’s 100 best randomly assorted names of people, with a few from Silicon Valley”?
Well, you’re probably also not on this list of “People who have achieved incredible things in tech” either but you might want to check, just in case. I… → Read More
Note: This is the second friend in a row whose funding I’m covering this week. Looks like my friends are doing okay for for themselves despite the Series A Crunch. Have at it, comments.
Storenvy, a platform for people who’d like to build custom storefronts and marketplace for people who’d like to discover them, is announcing its Series A funding today. The $5 million round was led by Intel… → Read More
Today, we’ve learned that Pope Benedict XVI, sovereign of the Vatican and leader of the Catholic Church, will be stepping down from those roles.
Benedict, voted one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME, did not give many details as to what he would be doing after the papacy. Sources tell us that he has some “things in the works” and will share them in the coming weeks. → Read More
StyleSeat, a scheduling platform for hair stylists and other beauty professionals, is launching its “To You” feature in San Francisco today. To You is the product I told StyleSeat founder, and close friend, Melody McCloskey that I wanted her to build for me; A way to book same-day or later stylist appointments to wherever. → Read More
In an obvious move to position the company towards a planned 2014 IPO, Twitter has today enabled LOLcats translation capabilities for its user profiles.
The translation of the sometimes obtuse service into the tired but still kind of funny LOLcats meme is meant to serve as a stepping stone in the startup’s efforts to eventually please the fickle financial markets. This is the latest in a… → Read More
Here’s an unpopular opinion, especially on TechCrunch: The Valley needs a new Valleywag.
On any given day, beneath the hype cycle of startups threatening to launch, then getting their VCs to blog/tweet about their launch threats, then pre-launching, then fueling PR/hype about their pre-launches, then putting up a special access code on select blogs, then their official launches,* some darker… → Read More
We’re proud of the fact that some of the tech scene’s most innovative thinkers and problem solvers are going to be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC this year, and are happy to be making our first speaker announcement today.
We’re also psyched to host NYC Startup Battlefield for the fourth year in a row. So hurry up and submit here if you’re working on something great and would like… → Read More
It seems as if, in our particular slice of time, many spheres of industry are coming to a breaking point; Will we be focused on marginal costs and continue doing things the old way, or chuck existing systems and focus on the new? Government is one of these spheres, healthcare is another, so is transportation, and also education. TechCrunch is committed to accurately covering this tumultuous time… → Read More
Editorial independence is kind of a polemic at TechCrunch. When our corporate parent, a sister or an advertiser might have an issue with a story, we write it anyways. So we have an offer to make to the writers at CNET.
Its parent company, CBS, has decreed that CNET’s latest Aereo review, barring something changing, will be its last. A disclosure statement on a recent news article about the… → Read More
In doing research for a post on “The Enterprise Cool Kids” at the tail end of last year, I interviewed Silicon Valley veteran Marc Andreessen about where he thought the enterprise was headed.
While excerpts of that interview made it into the post, the transcript of the entire interview was so good it deserved to be published in its entirety. → Read More
No, this isn’t a guest column by Aaron Levie. Though he and his startup Box, the poster child of the “sexy enterprise,” are definitely included in the bunch. “You should definitely kick Aaron off the list. Just to mess with him,” Zendesk founder Mikkel Svane commented when he heard what we were writing. With VCs voting with their feet and eschewing consumer startups… → Read More
The Crunchies are next week and we’ve already sold out the beautiful Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco…. Well, we had sold out, but then we found a little more space in the balcony. We opened up that space, so you can still buy a few more tickets if you’re fast, right here.
And one other thing before the show starts — voting ends tonight. Please help us decide the hottest new thing… → Read More
Last week we reported on an SEC filing of a new $30 million raise for SV Angel, for a fund called SV Angel-III Growth P.
We’ve since heard from multiple sources that this $30 million is a Special Purpose Vehicle for SV Angel, specifically reserved to buy secondary shares in Pinterest for existing LPs. We’ve also confirmed with SV Angel co-founder David Lee that this is indeed the case. → Read More
There needs to be a word for when someone could effectively function as a parody of themselves, because this tendency is exaggerated in the age of social media.
Everyone knows someone who posts inspirational quotes to Facebook all day, or name drops incessantly on Path or uses dumb and arbitrary hashtags on Twitter #hashtags #on #Twitter. → Read More
This is the official Yahoo “employee welcome” kit. Except the employee in question, founder Tom Coates, doesn’t work at Yahoo. He used to. Over the past couple of months, Yahoo recruiters have reached out to ex-VPs, low level engineers and PMs who used to work for Yahoo with these packets, with the word “Back!” scrawled on them in black Sharpee. → Read More
There are a bunch of people in this meeting who I don’t know. I think they might work for TechCrunch. They don’t know who I am either. Half of the people in this room are sick, myself included. I’m going to go get a flu shot once this flu is over. Are you even allowed to do that? There’s a really funny Onion article on Twitter. There’s another really funny Onion article on Twitter. → Read More
Tred, a startup that allows you to order auto test drives to your home, is announcing a $1.7 million raise of seed funding today, from Fraser McCombs Capital, former Chairman and CEO of General Motors Rick Wagoner, Maveron Capital, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Founder’s Co-Op, Great Oaks Venture Capital and TechStar’s David Cohen. → Read More
Take a look at that “reach friends wherever they are now” image to the left. What’s missing between the iPhone and the laptop? Ding ding ding! You’re right! A tablet.
Okay, I’m sure it was obvious. In fact, many of you may have already assumed that Facebook has a version of its Messenger for iPad. Well it doesn’t, and seeing as though it took the company quite awhile to launch Facebook for… → Read More
Here we go again. There is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST in the tech news media. Well I just can’t believe how this could happen in an industry that pays bloggers to review products from companies that then get advertised on those bloggers’ websites which pay those bloggers’ salaries … Ohhhhh.
This time the victim of the business we’ve chosen is CNET.* CNET’s parent company CBS is in a lawsuit with… → Read More
Here is a delightful gif of Y Combinator’s Paul Graham throwing what looks like $50 up in the air, “making it rain” as the kids would say.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, or Lil Wayne, here is Urban Dictionary’s definition of the phrase. → Read More
It is sad that no one who reports on technology has the balls to straight up pull a Hunter S. Thompson at CES. I mean peel away from the PR stunts and parties and just do mushrooms and walk around the iLounge or that crazy room with the 4K HDTV screens, or that weird fluorescent light tunnel with all the cars. → Read More
Even though I once built a slideshow called ”Gadget Porn and Actual Porn,“ I have never been to CES. Because the fact is that, as every cool blogger has very creatively beat us over the head with today, CES is tragically unhip.
First of all, none of the actually important tech companies are there: Specifically, the “four horsemen” – Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook. Even Microsoft… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
