We are thrilled to announce the next three expert panelists participating in TechCrunch50. Joining Marc Andreessen, Roelof Botha and Marissa Mayer as TechCrunch50 experts are Ron Conway, Sheryl Sandberg and Yossi Vardi. The experts will judge the fifty startups launching at the event, and then discuss each of the demos on stage as a group.
More details on the conference are here. TechCrunch50 is a three day conference where fifty new startups will launch over three days. There will also be a number of topical panels and workshops. The event will be held at the San Francisco Design Center, a huge and beautiful venue that can accommodate over 1,000 attendees with ease.
There will be 24 experts in all, more will be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets for the event can be purchased here (early bird pricing is available until July 15). The submission process to launch your startup is here.
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Ron Conway
Ron Conway is one of the Internet’s pre-eminent angel investors. He was the Founder and Managing Parter of the Angel Investors LP funds whose investments included Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware and Brightmail. Ron was names #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top “dealmakers” in 2006. Ron currently on investments with Baseline Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. He is an active advisor for a number of Internet companies and also very active in community and philanthropic activities, including Vice Chairman of UCSF Medical Foundation in San Francisco and co-chair of the “Fight for Mike” Homer and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Crunchbase profile. |
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Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg was named COO of Facebook in March 2008, and she manages business operations including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy, privacy, and communications. Prior to Facebook, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google, where she built and managed the online sales channels for advertising and publishing and operations for consumer products globally. She was also instrumental in launching Google’s philanthropic arm. Sandberg was previously Chief of Staff for the United States Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton. She was also a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and an economist with The World Bank. CrunchBase profile. |
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Yossi Vardi
Yossi Vardi is an Israeli entrepreneur most famous for being the original investor in ICQ – the first Internet-wide instant messaging system. Vardi has invested in over 50 tech companies in diverse areas of software, energy, Internet, mobile, cleantech, and others. Vardi has been an active civil servant in Israel through projects involving energy and infrastructure. He also co-founded Alon, an Israeli oil company. Vardi acted as an advisor to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program on issues of energy in the developing world. Vardi has received many awards including The Prime Minister Award, The Industry Award, Entrepreneur of the Year (Tel Aviv University), and the CEO!’s Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame from the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization. CrunchBase profile. |
Yossi and Ron participated with us last year as experts. We are honored to have them joining us again this year. Likewise, we could not be more excited to include Sheryl in this year’s expert line-up, to bring her Facebook and former Google perspectives to TechCrunch50.
Stay tuned as weekly announcements about experts and panels will be forthcoming, in addition to more surprises along the way.
How exactly can anyone be against a copyright holder.. they paid to create the content, and then someone goes and copies it, and puts it on display somewhere where you will not benefit in any way for the hard work and money that was put into your product. Why in the world should youtube be able to pull in ad dollars, and users, with content they paid $0 to create. I understand WANTING to watch the office on youtube, but atleast acknowledge to yourself that youre watching a stolen video that the creator didnt intend to be out there.
Brilliant! Love you guys for the updates. Been waiting for more news about TC50…. I think it’s going to be HUGE!!
I also read that Jason Calacanis wrote a blog post to boycott DEMO that is happening at about the same time with TC50. That guy is critical! But I am sure he is cool and awesome.
Keep the updates coming!
(Psst… I would love to see more posts on how new startups can gear up and perhaps qualify for TC50 or even future TC50 events. I am sure it’s going to help and motivate entrepreneurs who wants to take part in future TC50 events)
Ok that was magic… sorry, wrong article.
You are giving students a discount of two thousands dollars – but you do not have enough brains to realize that there are just as many struggling recent grads or adults who could also use that discount.
Also the ethical thing to do would be to give free pages to long time, intelligent commenters on your blog. You WANT those types of provocative, outspoken people there.
The vast majority of visitors will be generic, passive on lookers.
One pro active, intelligent visitor is priceless. Those few who intelligently comment on a blog that attracts hundreds of thousands of passive readers daily – are the true gems who are an asset to your convention.
Give them free tickets to all of your events – and consider providing transportation to the real creme de la creme. It will be to your benefit in the long run
Erick -
Is there a reason why the COO of Facebook is a judge on the panel? Impartial afraid not!