TechCrunch50 is right around the corner. Please register for your tickets before we sell out!! You will not believe what we have planned for you this year (September 8, 9 and 10).
Today we are announcing four new luminaries who will be joining our distinguished team of TechCrunch50 Experts. We are pleased to announce that Henry Blodget, Josh Kopelman, Tim O’Reilly and Robert Scoble will be joining us in San Francisco in September. Bios for each of these TechCrunch50 Experts are referenced below.
As we move closer to the conference, we are encouraging everyone to book their hotel reservations (many hotels are already sold out) and register for the conference before we sell out. For companies seeking to launch and showcase products at TechCrunch50, please take a look at our Exhibitor Packages. If you have questions about sponsorships, please reach out to Heather Harde or Dan Kimerling. All media inquiries should be sent to Sarah Ross.
A special “thank you” to Symantec for joining us this year as a new TechCrunch50 partner. Welcome aboard to Symantec, the global leader in consumer security.
Symantec’s mission is to deliver next generation security solutions with protection that revolves around you, not just your computing device. Combining industry-leading security features with more than 300 new improvements, the newest versions of the company’s flagship Norton products — Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton AntiVirus 2009 – have been designed with a “zero-impact” performance goal, setting a new industry standard for speed and performance. Featuring innovative new technologies and features, the products are being engineered to deliver a superior customer experience that is light on system performance and strong on protection.
Henry Blodget
Henry Blodget is the CEO, Co-Founder & Editor in Chief of Silicon Alley Insider. He is currently CEO co-Founder, and Editor in Chief of Silicon Alley Media, Inc., a network of real-time business news and analysis sites.
From 1994-2001, he was an investment banker and equity research analyst at Prudential Securities, Oppenheimer & Co., and Merrill Lynch & Co. From 1999-2001, he was ranked one of the top Internet and eCommerce analysts on Wall Street by Institutional Investor, Greenwich Associates, and other third-party firms. From 1999-2001, he ran the global Internet research practice at Merrill, coordinating teams of analysts in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Josh Kopelman
Josh Kopelman is a venture capitalist and Managing Partner at First Round Capital.
Previously, Kopelman founded Half.com, which was acquired by eBay in 2000. He remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay’s Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual sales.
In late 2003 Kopelman helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world’s first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later.
In 2001 Kopelman co-founded the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit grant fund for social entrepreneurs. He also serves as a member of the advisory boards for Wharton Entrepreneurial Center and the Weiss Tech House at the University of Pennsylvania.
Robert Scoble
Robert Scoble is a leading blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft. He currently works for Fast Company as a video blogger. He is also the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.
Tim O’Reilly
Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O’Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the Web 2.0 Summit, the Web 2.0 Expo, the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, and the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Tim’s blog, the O’Reilly Radar, “watches the alpha geeks” to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is an activist for open source and open standards, and an opponent of software patents and other incursions of new intellectual property laws into the public domain. Tim’s long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.