Josh Constine

Josh Constine

Josh Constine is a Principal investor and Head Of Content at venture capital fund SignalFire. He invests in early stage startups across verticals with a focus on social apps, visual communication, remote work, entertainment & media, and tech’s transformation of new sectors. Constine also creates content for SignalFire, drawing on data insights from the fund’s predictive recruiting engine Beacon and invested advisor network of 75 top tech leaders. SignalFire is currently investing from its $200 million seed fund and $300 million breakout fund, and has backed startups like Uber, Grammarly, Ro, Alchemy, and ClassDojo.

Constine currently writes a weekly newsletter called Moving Product at https://constine.substack.com/ where he discusses big ideas facing the startup industry, the most exciting new tech products, and interviews top industry talent about the most important recent launches.

Previously, Constine was the Editor-At-Large for TechCrunch where he wrote over 3500 blog posts about social tech giants like Facebook and Snapchat as well as early stage startups across verticals. His work was cited on the floors of the Senate and House Of Representatives, and led to the shut down of Facebook’s Onavo market surveillance app.

Constine was formerly the Lead Writer of Inside Facebook through its acquisition by WebMediaBrands, covering everything about the social network.

Constine graduated from Stanford University in 2009 with a Master’s degree in Cybersociology, examining the influence of technology on social interaction. He researched the impact of privacy controls on the socialization of children, meme popularity cycles, and what influences the click through rate of links posted to Twitter. Constine also received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Stanford University in 2007, with a concentration in Social Psychology & Interpersonal Processes.

Josh Constine is an experienced public speaker, and has moderated over 190 on-stage interviews in 18 countries with leaders including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram’s founders, whistleblower Edward Snowden (via on-stage video conference), and U.S. Senator Cory Booker. He also delivers keynotes on how to pitch startups, press strategy for tech companies, and how to turn your passion into your profession. He is available to moderate panels and fireside chats, provide keynotes, and judge hackathon and pitch competitions. You can contact him at Joshsc [at] gmail .com

Constine has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, The Atlantic, BBC World Magazine, Slate, and more, plus has been featured on television on Good Morning, America, The Today Show, China Central Television, and Fox News. Constine was ranked as the #1 most cited tech journalist on prestigious news aggregator Techmeme from 2016 to 2020.

The Latest from Josh Constine

Facebook appoints Treasury’s Kimmitt as lead independent board director

Facebook has filled the lead independent board director role with former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and U.S. Ambassador to Germany Robert M. Kimmitt. His job will be to serve as the go-between c

Tech giants should let startups defer cloud payments

Google, Amazon and Microsoft are the landlords. Amidst the coronavirus economic crisis, startups need a break from paying rent. They’re in a cash crunch. Revenue has stopped flowing in, capital mark

Control each other’s apps with new screensharing tool Screen

It’s like Google Docs for everything. Screen is a free interactive multiplayer screensharing app that gives everyone a cursor so they can navigate, draw on and even code within the apps of their

Snapchat’s Zenly launches shelter-in-place leaderboard

Snapchat’s location-sharing app acquisition Zenly has gamified shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 outbreak. Today the app launched its Stay At Home challenge that shows a leaderboard of which

Instagram launches Co-Watching of posts during video chat

Now you can scroll Instagram together with friends, turning a typically isolating, passive experience into something more social and active. Today Instagram launched Co-Watching, which lets friends on

Under quarantine, media is actually social

The flood of status symbol content into Instagram Stories has run dry. No one is going out and doing anything cool right now, and if they are, they should be shamed for it. Beyond sharing video chat h

Hospital droid Diligent Robotics raises $10M to assist nurses

Twenty-eight percent of a nurse’s time is wasted on low-skilled tasks like fetching medical tools. We need them focused on the complex and compassionate work of treating patients, especially ami

Instagram founder launches gift card site for quarantined restaurants

Coronavirus quarantines are hurting local businesses, but Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger wants to help them keep revenue rolling in. Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn this week launched SaveOurFaves, a

Instagram prototypes Snapchat-style disappearing text messages

Instagram is finally preparing to copy Snapchat’s most popular feature, and one of the few it hasn’t already cloned. Instagram has prototyped an unreleased ephemeral text messaging feature

Facebook now lets most users opt-in to dark mode & desktop redesign

Facebook today officially rolled out its sweeping desktop redesign that offers dark mode, tabbed home screen and a cleaner profile. Facebook tells TechCrunch that “starting today, the majority o

The 20 best startups from Y Combinator’s W20 Demo Day

With world events overtaking the tech world’s preferences to meet for coffees and convene at events, Y Combinator skipped its famous two-day live Demo event and went for a radical experiment: no

Around is the new floating head video chat multitasking app

You have to actually get work done, not just video call all day, but apps like Zoom want to take over your screen. Remote workers who need to stay in touch while staying productive are forced to juggl

Beware of ‘ZoomBombing’: screensharing filth to video calls

The world is vulnerable to a new type of trolling as people turn to Zoom video calls to feel connected amidst quarantines. Jerks are using Zoom’s screensharing feature to blast other viewers wit

Facebook wrongly blocked some links, including coronavirus info

Facebook suffered from a massive bug in its News Feed spam filter, causing URLs to legitimate websites including Medium, Buzzfeed, and USA Today to be blocked from being shared as posts or comments. T

All the companies from Y Combinator’s W20 Demo Day, Part IV: Healthcare, Biotech, Fintech and Nonprofits

With YC's W20 Demo Day coming in at nearly 200 companies, we've decided to split our recap into multiple posts for easier reading. These are the Healthcare/Biotech, Fintech, and Non-profit companies.

All the companies from Y Combinator’s W20 Demo Day, Part III: Hardware, Robots, AI and Developer Tools

With YC's W20 Demo Day coming in at nearly 200 companies, we've decided to split our recap into multiple posts for easier reading. These are the hardware, AI/ML, and developer-focused companies

All the companies from Y Combinator’s W20 Demo Day, Part II: Consumer Companies

With YC's W20 Demo Day coming in at nearly 200 companies, we've decided to split our recap into multiple posts for easier reading. Here are this cohort's consumer-focused companies

All the companies from Y Combinator’s W20 Demo Day, Part I: B2B Companies

Y Combinator’s Demo Day was a bit different this time around. As concerns grew over the spread of COVID-19, Y Combinator shifted the event format away from the two-day gathering in San Francisco

Torch & Everwise merge into affordable exec coaching for all

While companies might pay for a CEO coach, lower level employees often get stuck with lame skill-building worksheets or no mentorship at all. Not only does that limit their potential productivity, but

To make locks touchless, Proxy bluetooth ID raises $42M

We need to go hands-off in the age of coronavirus. That means touching fewer doors, elevators, and sign-in iPads. But once a building is using phone-based identity for security, there’s opportun
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