Billy Gallagher is a contributor for TechCrunch.
He is currently the co-student body president at Stanford University, where he is on track to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2014. Billy was previously the president and editor in chief of The Stanford Daily.
Disclosures: As a poor college student, I own no stock and have no financial interests in companies that I cover.
Being a current Stanford student, I know a number of founders and cover companies that are run by my peers. I never let these connections cloud my judgement on what to cover or how to cover it–if I did, I would spend so much time covering bad Stanford startups that I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
Look over to one of the upper corners of the room you’re in. What’s there? If you’re like me, probably nothing.
Three Stanford product design majors are building a speaker to take advantage of the wasted space and natural acoustics of the corners of your room. The Tiptop speaker is a small pyramid that can stand alone or fits into a mold made for the upper corners of a room. → Read More
Michael Arrington began moderating a panel at Disrupt NY today with Ron Conway, David Lee, and Brian Pokorny of SV Angel by noting that he was “pissed off” by investor Chamath Palipitiya’s comments on Monday that startup quality is at an “all time low.”
“I don’t agree,” Lee said, explaining that he thinks the ideas in the last 12-18 months have been bigger and bolder than those before them. → Read More
Snackchat! Taco Bell tweeted, “We’re on Snapchat” last night, urging their Twitter followers to add them for a “secret announcement” some time today. This is the first major brand to use Snapchat to reach customers and could signal the beginning of Snapchat’s monetization. → Read More
“The TLC protects the taxi industry. And I don’t think anyone in their right mind can deny that fact,” Sidecar co-founder Sunil Paul said to applause at Disrupy NY today.
Paul argued back and forth with New York Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) Deputy Commisioner of Policy and Programs Ashwini Chhabra, with Hailo’s Jay Bregman hopping in to discuss innovation in the New York taxi… → Read More
Paidpiper launched at Disrupt NY today, aiming to make your physical wallet, and presence, less necessary — in a good way.
Paidpiper aims to solve that problem with its consumer-facing app, Ok’d. Using Ok’d, you can walk into a store, snap a picture of a product, and send it to a friend, parent, employer, etc. and ask them to pay for it. → Read More
Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, spoke at the she++ conference last Saturday, discussing women in tech, his favorite new technology, and his thoughts on startup culture. The video is above and you can read highlights of his keynote here. You can also find highlights from the conference here and see how Facebook’s presence at the conference shows a key… → Read More
Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer and Director of Engineering Jocelyn Goldfein spoke at the she++ conference today, making Facebook by far the most represented company at the Stanford conference.
Their public remarks and comments shed light on Facebook’s aggressive strategy to recruit talented engineers to join their “deep bench” — the company’s greatest asset… → Read More
Marc Andreessen and Mike Schroepfer delivered keynote addresses today at the she++ conference, sharing their thoughts on women in technology and growing the pool of talented engineers.
“If we’re building technology that the whole population uses, then we should have people of all backgrounds building that technology so that they build it for the audience that is themselves,” he told me. → Read More
Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, delivered a keynote speech at the she++ conference today, sharing what technology is exciting him right now, what he thinks about current startup culture, and how Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, affected his view of Silicon Valley.
“I like to tell people that I’m beta testing the new Google Contact Lenses,” he… → Read More
One week ago, Reggie Brown filed a lawsuit alleging that he is a co-founder of Snapchat, a red-hot impermanent photo messaging app, and is entitled to an original one-third ownership stake along with co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.
What’s at stake? Snapchat won “Fastest Rising Startup” at the 2012 Crunchies and recently raised $13 million at a $70 million valuation. → Read More
Snapchat, the impermanent messaging app that won “Fastest Rising Startup” at the 2012 Crunchies, has finalized a $13.5 million Series A round led by Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky.
According to The New York Times, Snapchat is now valued between $60 and $70 million. → Read More
At Stanford, just under 21 percent of undergraduate CS majors, the school’s most popular major, are women.
Surrounding the school, Silicon Valley is starved for talented engineers, with companies aggressively recruiting Stanford undergrads with coding skills for high paying internships and full time jobs.
“Getting more girls involved in CS is probably the most impactful thing we can do… → Read More
Every time you ignore Bing, an angel gets his wings…
The Google Santa Tracker lets you follow Santa Claus as he delivers presents in real time. → Read More
Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel responded to Facebook’s new Poke app today with the brief statement, “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.” He declined to comment further. → Read More
Forbes released its annual 30 Under 30 lists yesterday and a stunning 15 of the 30 companies that people on the “Tech” list work for are Y Combinator alumni companies. Because multiple people from the same company are counted as a single entry on the list, Y Combinator actually counts 23 of the 40 people, rather than entries, on the tech list as alums. → Read More
Facebook is building a standalone app to compete with the red-hot impermanent photo-messaging app Snapchat, as reported by AllThingsD’s Mike Isaac late last night.
Facebook plans to launch its app by the end of the year; the app will function very similarly to Snapchat. → Read More
Snapchat, the popular impermanent photo-sharing mobile app, is rolling out a major new feature: video sharing. Users can now share 10-second videos the same way they share pictures — by taking the picture or video, setting a timer from 1-10 seconds for the content to disappear after the user opens it, and sending it to another user. I’ve used the feature in beta and I’m a big fan. The time… → Read More
Snapchat, an impermanent photo messaging application, soft launched a version for Android today. Co-founder Evan Spiegel tells me users have shared over 1 billion photos (“snaps”) on the iOS application.
Spiegel says that users share over 20 million snaps every day, a figure he says keeps growing. → Read More
Do you ever wish you could know when a sports game was really getting good? Like, imagine if a Monday Night Football game ended with a controversial Hail Mary touchdownterception that everyone was talking about, but instead of just watching it on Sportscenter or reading about it, an app would alert you when the game was getting dramatic so you could watch it live.
Spoiler alert: I’m not… → Read More
Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 went live at midnight and, true to form, they went like hotcakes. You may remember that it took 22 hours for the iPhone 4S and about 20 hours for the iPhone 4 to sell out of its pre-order, launch-day stock.
The iPhone 5 took just about 60 minutes. Yep. One hour after pre-orders went live, Apple.com adjusted shipping expectations from one to two weeks due to the… → Read More
The legendary* Vinod Khosla spoke with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington at Disrupt SF today and discussed some of the unordinary startups he has invested in, including an efficient lettuce picker, dairy-less cheese, and high-tech beef.
Khosla said one of the companies is trying to develop salt that is “as salty as salt” but with 50 percent less sodium to combat high blood pressure and other… → Read More
Facebook stock rose 8.9% to a high of $21.16 per share today, the first day of trading after CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s first public interview since the company’s IPO. The stock rose in after-hours trading immediately following Zuckerberg’s fireside chat at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco yesterday, and then jumped again when the market opened today.
The new high today is the highest the stock… → Read More
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said UberX, the lowest-cost option of the popular car service, is “probably at or above” rival Lyft in numbers. Kalanick discussed Uber’s struggles against regulators, expansion and competition with TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Tsotsis at TechCrunch Disrupt today.
“Competition is good,” Kalanick said. “If somebody can offer value at a cheaper price, they should. But that… → Read More
Think about when you go to a wedding (in my ripe old age, I have been to one) and you jot down a note in a big book for the couple. Imagine if instead you could record a video or audio message (or be boring and stick to the text) for them. That’s what Evergram offers. → Read More
YourMechanic, a peer-to-peer car repair marketplace that enables mechanics to fix users’ cars at their home or office, launched at TechCrunch Disrupt SF today.
It claims it will lower costs 30-50% from shops and dealers, offering an “Uber-like experience” where the mechanic visits you to service your car.
YourMechanic offers mechanic profiles, reviews from customers, a fair price… → Read More
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s talk with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington drove up Facebook stock 4.58% in after-hours trading today.
The stock closed at $19.43 today but rose to $20.32, up 4.58% (at the time of publication) in after hours trading, by the time Zuckerberg left the stage. → Read More
Kevin Rose reflected on his relationship with the media today at TechCrunch Disrupt.TechCrunch reporter Colleen Taylor asked Rose what he thought of the media, given that his career has been more public than most.
“Worst cover ever,” Rose joked about this famous BusinessWeek cover. → Read More
Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco, and Ron Conway, angel investor at SV Angel, spoke about Proposition E, a proposal to change the payroll tax in San Francisco at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco today.
“We have a payroll tax that taxes job creation in the city,” Lee said, calling it one of the most negative aspects of the city. → Read More
Recapp wants to make it more convenient to read sports news curated around your favorite sports and teams. The iPhone and iOS app, which I saw in TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley today, cracked the Top 50 in the App Store for sports a few weeks ago.
“Think of RECAPP as a Hulu or an iTunes,” Recapp’s blog reads. “You don’t go to all your favorite bands’ websites when you want to… → Read More
PayTap, a shared social bill-payment platform, launched today at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. Users can chip in to co-pay bills online and use social features to aggregate financial resources from friends and family for a flat $1 fee per transaction.
The company aims to reduce the cost of transferring money, take advantage of existing social networks to help users communicate, and allow users to… → Read More
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