Its hard to believe, but TechCrunch50 is less than two months away. We’re knee-deep in the applications right now, and I can tell you it is hard to cull them down. It is really impressive how many good new startup ideas are out there.
Today, we are announcing our latest line-up of TechCrunch50 Experts: Joi Ito, Chad Hurley and Loic LeMeur. They will join Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Mark Cuban, Chris DeWolf, Marissa Mayer, and others on our panel of experts in judging and advising the presenting TechCrunch50 startups.
If you want to come to the conference (and, admit it, you do), I’d encourage you to buy tickets now, as we are expecting this year’s conference to sell out as it did last year. Here are some details:
EARLY BIRD PRICING ENDS ON JULY 15 (this saves you $1,000). Visit the TechCrunch50 web site for information on all aspects of the conference. We are hearing that hotels are starting to fill-up for the second week in September. Planning ahead will save you from having to ask to sleep on Mike’s couch . . . (anyway, that’s probably where I’m sleeping).
For companies that do not meet the criteria of a TechCrunch50 entrant (basically, your company is already launched), we are offering Exhibitor Packages. These are interactive sponsorships for relevant companies or products that want to showcase their brand and services to the TechCrunch50 attendees and media.
We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco, September 8-10.
Joi Ito
Joichi Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons, and founder and CEO of Neoteny, a venture capital firm focused on personal communications and enabling technologies. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. In 1997 Time ranked him as a member of the CyberElite. In 2000 he was ranked among the “50 Stars of Asia” by Business Week and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT. In 2001 the World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” for 2002.
Chad Hurley
Raised near Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, Hurley received his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating, he joined eBay’s PayPal division, primarily focusing on user interface. It was there that he met Steve Chen and Jawed Karim with whom he founded YouTube, a video sharing website, in 2005.
YouTube quickly became one of the web’s fastest-growing sites, and was ranked as the 10th most popular website just a year after its launch. There are reportedly 100 million clips viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded every 24 hours.
Hurley currently serves as Chief Executive Officer and was voted 28th on Business 2.0 magazine’s “50 people who matter” list in 2006. That year, he and Chen sold YouTube to Google, Inc. for $1.65 billion in stock.
Loic LeMeur
Loic is the CEO and visionary behind Seesmic, founded in 2007, with the goal of transforming online video into a medium for threaded, interactive video conversation. Prior to Seesmic, Loic incubated several other start-ups including four French companies: Ublog, (merged with Six Apart in 2003) and RapidSite, (acquired by France Telecom in 1999) two popular blog companies, B2L, an interactive agency in 1999 (acquired by BBDO) and LeWeb, one of Europe’s leading web conferences for businesses and web 2.0 innovators in 2005.
Loic serves as a board member on the RSS Advisory Board. He is also an active investor and mentor to entrepreneurs and contributes to the World Economic Forum blog, which he founded. Originally from the South of France, Loic lives in San Francisco, California.
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Very Cool ! Looking forward to it !
Sounds like it will be a fun event. Some awesome startup company commentary here… http://www.gothamtechminute.blogspot.com
thank you Michael, Jason and the TC50 team for having me this year again as an expert. I am honored to be in such a good company. By the way it is my birthday today so a great way to start this day
Congratulations Loic, hope your life gets the best of it!
Can’t wait for TechCrunch 50!!!
Mike this is shaping up to be a great conference, guess you CAN successfully compete with DEMO.
.rb
Loic — Bonne Anniversaire!
congrats guys, and happy b day to loic !!
Nath
http://www.themostpowerfulcompany.com
better these guys then kevin rose that has no coding skills
Great stuff! TechCrunch50 will be a blast!
Keep up the good work and looking forward to more TC50 action!
Best regards,
Darren Lee
AdExcel.com (in alpha)
At least Joi is smart and capable of fulfilling this role with grace, intelligence and objectivity. What are the other clowns there for?
The only guy who deserves to be on that panel is Mark Cuban. He is one of the early pioneers who helped create the computer industry, and practically invented the concept of multimedia distribution over the internet. The other guys were all just copycats, who lacked the true vision needed to create a truly successful company.
What happens if I buy 2 early bird tickets and get selected for TC50? Then I get 2 tickets for free. Can I then get a refund for the tickets I BOUGHT earlier?
Sorry, I’ve seen Loic speak and he’s a quack. Shouldn’t be in this group…
I agree with Someone.
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Tall singles waiting to hook up @ http://www.tallchat.com
How old is Loic’s pic here? On recent Seesmic posts, he looks a tad more sparse in the nooddle and much better fed. Should Phreadz’ve participated, how would a lemure vote? … ‘Birds of a feather etc. etc … ‘ just a thought!
Chad Hurley didn’t go to Penn. He went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Very different institutions. The fact that he’s such a success in business is actually more impressive considering an entire education at IUP (including housing and food) costs less than one year at Penn.