Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups. Why? Because some of those startups are the next Googles, Facebooks and Twitters of the world, they just can’t afford the office space yet. Plus, entrepreneurs tend to be more insane (and interesting) than the average human. Within the Whacky World Of Startups, Rip focuses on music, social, mobile, sports, health and education – with an emphasis on the latter two.
He’s a really great guy, and you might like him, but only if you call him after 9am PT. Only. Otherwise, he can be a little bit stabby.
He gets a lot of email, most of it Viagra spam, but also a few pitches. So if you don’t hear back from him right away, the first and only thing you should do is take it extremely personally. That usually helps. Then write a strongly-worded email.
Rip has been quoted by various people at various times – some of them publications referencing his work – some of them people mistakenly re-tweeting him thinking he’s Rip Torn. VCs have been investing in the companies he writes about for three years now and still haven’t thanked him. That’s not why he does this, granted, but it still just doesn’t seem very polite, does it?
He enjoys writing about not only startups and things that are disrupting the disruptable disruptions, but ideas that are actually going to change the world. And make it a better place. That’s why he follows book larnin’ tech and next-gen stethoscope apps. Also because he is a hypochondriac and never graduated from 5th grade. HUZZAH!
You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com … but don’t send him copy-and-pasted press releases, or he’ll say mean and nasty things behind your back even if he’s nice to your face.
As to what he’s doing right now? He’s either transferring his life savings from Scramble With Friends tokens to Bitcoin or vice versa. Hard to say, really.
Disclosure: Rip does want you to endorse him on LinkedIn, but don’t tell anyone about it, it’s embarrassing. It also turns out he owns shares in a technology-focused ETF, though he has absolutely no idea what that means. However, Google informs him that it’s an index fund that includes Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Google, AT&T and Verizon. He does not hold any individual investments in these or any other tech companies. Or does he? Just kidding, he doesn’t.
Today, Amazon continued the trend, still finding itself in a bit of a hangover after missing expectations in Q4. The eCommerce giant reported earnings from Q1 after the market closed this afternoon, in which it saw cash flow increase 39 percent to $4.25 billion, compared to $3 billion for the prior year, while net sales increased 22 percent to $16.07 billion in Q1, compared to $13.18 billion in… → Read More
Matygo emerged out of Vancouver’s GrowLab accelerator in late 2011 to take advantage of the growing popularity of the “flipped classroom” philosophy in education, which, as Knewton describes it, seeks to invert traditional methods of teaching by delivering instruction online (through videos, etc.) outside of class, while moving homework into the classroom. Khan Academy is one of many examples of… → Read More
Over the last few years, Israeli IT startup Soluto has morphed from simply being PC software that helps users run diagnostics on their hard drives, to a web-based platform that aims to turn you into a one-person Help Desk. In other words, Soluto now allows anyone to offer remote tech support and run diagnostics, whether that be for your mom’s computer or dozens of customers. → Read More
Today, our lives are spread across a growing array of digital devices, from smartphones and laptops to tablets and connected TVs. While each device tends to perform certain tasks better than others, as we use tablets to read books and shop, laptops for work-related tasks and smartphones to check the weather, stocks and email, increasingly, our devices are working together in concert and becoming… → Read More
Ask any entrepreneur about what it’s like finding the right office space for their company, and they’ll probably respond with a grimace and some grumbling. Few light up at the thought of it. Founders have enough to worry about in trying to build an awesome product, please their customers, find quality talent and raise money without adding the struggle to find office space to the list. Part of the… → Read More
The price of airfare is an ongoing point of frustration for travelers, especially considering that it feels like airlines find every conceivable opportunity to shake you down for a few more bucks. Many startups and businesses have come and gone trying to find a way to give leisure travelers access to cheaper airfare, as airlines just keep shutting them down. The reason? Airlines make more money… → Read More
GroupTalent launched in December of 2011 to offer solace to the many startups struggling to find top technical talent. Some might stand opposed to this ongoing “talent drain,” while others will call it a full-blown war. Whatever you call it, startups today are hard-pressed to lure top developers and engineers away from the mighty perks and siren calls of companies like Google, Facebook and… → Read More
A/B testing has long been a fundamental part of developing applications and products for the web, and, with the explosion of smartphones, developers are naturally eager to use the process to test new designs and updates for mobile apps. The problem is that, traditionally, this has been tricky to manage, especially on iOS given Apple’s approval process, requiring app developers to wait weeks to… → Read More
According to Y Combinator’s estimates, today, there are more than 100 startup accelerators in the U.S., which is almost awe-inspiring considering that there were only four as recently as 2007. While the number of accelerators and incubators continues to rise, popping up in nearly every vertical, Education has been slower to get the memo. → Read More
Educational publishing giant, Pearson, has lately been making a push to snatch up (and incubate) promising young EdTech startups and concepts to help it compete in an increasingly tech-influenced educational landscape. Last May, Pearson acquired Certiport, the maker and marketer of IT and digital literacy products, for $140 million, followed by the acquisition of online learning services provider… → Read More
Netflix released its first-quarter earnings report today, and the company saw another period of strong growth, adding more than 3 million streaming members, bringing its total to 36 million. Domestically, Netflix saw 2 million new streaming members, which was relatively equal compared to last quarter and up from 1.74 million in Q1 last year. → Read More
The mobile health market is growing like a weed these days. According to mHealthWatch and eHealth Initiative, there are 31,000 health and medical-related apps on the market today. In fact, over the last year, the number of health apps jumped 120 percent, and hundreds of apps now hit stores every month. Yet, in spite of this exponential growth, the mobile health space is still in its “Wild West”… → Read More
Back in February, we introduced you to EvntLive, a new startup backed by Silicon Valley veterans that’s on a mission to create a scalable platform for broadcasting live concerts, from arenas to small clubs, backed by a library of recorded shows, profiles and music info. Of course, a platform for live concerts isn’t exactly a new idea. In fact, it’s been floating around for years, but those… → Read More
Today, over five million businesses are now using Google Apps to help their employees collaborate and connect via the cloud. In just a few years, the adoption of Google’s productivity suite has skyrocketed and, while small businesses have long been its core customer, adoption up the chain is increasing as well. At the same time, as the Google Apps ecosystem continues to expand and evolve, with new… → Read More
Last month, we reported that Crowdtilt, the Y Combinator alum that launched just over a year ago with plans to become “the Kickstarter for any group,” had raised $12 million in Series A financing from a group of notable investors, including Napster, Causes and Airtime founder Sean Parker and Path’s Dave Morin. → Read More
With the Era of Over-sharing and the Social Fire Hose upon us, the heft and value of privacy is changing — and, for better or worse, many argue that it’s diminishing. Perturbed by the access many companies (inconspicuously) have to our browsing history, former Googler Brian Kennish developed a Chrome Extension to address the browser privacy issue. Facebook Connect, as it was called then, disabled… → Read More
MinoMonsters launched in early 2011 on a mission to become the Pokémon of social games, allowing gamers to explore a world inhabited by bite-sized, furry monsters, taking them on quests and battling their friends. For this reason — and because founders Josh Buckley and Tyler Diaz were Y Combinator’s two youngest graduates at 18 and 17-years-old, respectively — the startup found some early buzz. → Read More
Services like HealthTap have proliferated over the last year as a way to let anyone with questions about their health connect with real, licensed physicians online and avoid the pain of waiting in line at the doctor’s office. While HealthTap and others are building up their health information databases to let people quickly find answers to a variety of health questions, the demand for personalized… → Read More
It’s a tough job market out there for college job applicants, and students are looking for any way that can help them stand out from the crowd. While an increasing number of students look to apply to jobs online, the information that might give students at improving their candidacy and landing a job isn’t something they want to share publicly, it’s confidential. As a result, most of this… → Read More
What is it with Stanford professors and Massive Open Online Courses (a.k.a. MOOCs)? For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, two of the three most popular MOOCs — Udacity and Coursera — were both founded by Stanford professors. Then there’s Class2Go, an open-source MOOC platform created by a team of Stanford engineers and professors, which recently “merged” with edX (the third member… → Read More
In an effort to improve the quality of K-12 public education, schools across the country have begun to adopt the Common Core State Standards, which are designed to align the diversity of state curricula under one consistent, standardized guidebook of what students are expected to learn — and teachers are expected to teach. Formally adopted by 46 states, which will be making the transition over… → Read More
Hip online eyewear startup Warby Parker has, over the last two years, been partnering with boutiques to open “stores-within-stores,” or small Warby Parker showrooms, where customers could try on their eyeglasses in 3-D. These showrooms popped up in L.A., Nashville, San Francisco and many others. Today Warby Parker officially announced its first, flagship retail store in SoHo in New York City. → Read More
Y Combinator grad ReelSurfer is an instant video editor, born out of its founders frustration of trying to find clips, quotes and scenes from their favorite movies on YouTube and other video sites. The process is probably familiar to you: Search for clip, don’t find it; if you do find it, it’s part of a larger clip, so you have to download, convert and clip the video yourself. → Read More
With the passage of the JOBS Act, the Crowdfunding Era began and since then these fund-raising platforms have been sprouting in every vertical — even education. Just two weeks ago, we announced the launch of AlumniFunder, which “gives alumni a platform by which they can invest in innovative projects created by students at their alma mater.” Today, we have another entry into the… → Read More
Props are owed to companies like Blackboard and Moodle for being early movers in the educational software space, particularly in helping catalyze innovation in learning management systems (LMS). The problem is, of course, they got their start over a decade ago, and haven’t always elicited raving reviews from students and schools. → Read More
Forrester recently predicted that the online retail market will grow to $370 billion over the next four years, up from $231 billion this year — a 10 percent compound annual growth rate. In other words, the message is clear: The eCommerce juggernaut ain’t slowing down any time soon. In 2013, every business needs some kind of online presence; the problem, of course, is that many small business… → Read More
While eCommerce has exploded over the last decade, digital marketplaces still suffer the same nagging user experience flaws they always have — particularly person-to-person marketplaces. It probably hasn’t been that long since you heard someone mutter “craigslist is creepy,” or lament about digital payments, security issues or about how it takes forever to sell something on eBay. → Read More
Another day, another Bitcoin-related investment, and further affirmation that VCs are hungry to invest in the ecosystem surrounding the decentralized digital currency. Today, OpenCoin, better known as the developer of open source payment protocol, Ripple, announced that it has raised an undisclosed angel round from Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel, Lightspeed Venture Parnters, Vast Ventures and … → Read More
Last year, Tim Sae Koo, Nikhil Aitharaju, Eunice Noh and Ryo Chiba launched HypeMarks to give people a less hectic way to consume social media. The startup aggregated tweets, articles, links and more shared by influencers and celebrities on social media accounts and, by grouping those by topic, aimed to give people a snapshot of an industry through the eyes of the people who know it best. → Read More
Software may be eating the world, but at present, it’s only been nibbling at entertainment venues and sports stadiums. With the wave of easy-to-use, mobile friendly payment solutions like Square, sweeping through eCommerce, vendors are well aware that they need to upgrade their clunky payment systems. But the problem, Brandon Lloyd tells us, is that most solutions on the market today require… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin, Germany
