So Long, Nick. We'll Miss You.

The list of former TechCrunch writers who’ve gone off to greener pastures grows longer today. Yesterday was Nick Gonzalez’s last day at TechCrunch – today he starts a new job at the San Francisco startup Social Media.

Nick started at TechCrunch in June 2006 and has worked along side of me, day and night, since then. For many months in early 2007 he was the only person other than me writing for the site. He was a perfect business partner, always steady emotionally as my temper flared at regular hosting outages, missed stories and pissed off readers. In addition to writing and general analysis, Nick also kept the site running and wrote any new code we needed. Basically, I worked him to death.

At some point late last year he simply burned out, telling me (jokingly?) “I just can’t write about another fucking startup.” I think we both knew at that point that it was time for Nick to move on to the next step in his career.

He soon had offers from a bunch of startups and venture capitalists, and I think he made an excellent choice with Social Media. I suspect he’ll give his reasons for joining, as well as some juicy gossip about TechCrunch, on his personal blog in the near future. For now, you can read his bio on our About page.

Nick joins ex-TechCrunchers Marshall Kirkpatrick (now at ReadWriteWeb), Natali Del Conte (now at CNET TV) and Ben Meyer (now at Facebook) who’ve abandoned us over the years. I miss working with all of them, and all are still very good friends.

You’ll be missed, Nick. Come by any time to write a post or two, for old time’s sake. And good luck at Social Media. They are very lucky to have you.

Update: Nick speaks.