TechCrunch Now Has An Office That Isn't My House

The collision of two important recent events has resulted in something wonderful – TechCrunch now has offices in downtown Palo Alto.

The first event: the city of Atherton, where I live, decided to put the hammer down on me running a business from my home. Apparently some of the neighbors complained about the traffic or something. Legal action was threatened.

The second event: the wholesale destruction of the office rental market in Silicon Valley gave us the opportunity to pick and choose our space and cut a great deal.

I’ll miss having TechCrunch at my house, where my commute time was measured in seconds and I was always surrounded by fascinating people who dropped by for interviews.

But there was the downside, too. There was absolutely no separation from my work and personal life. And for some reason crazy (usually European) entrepreneurs felt the urge to stop by at any time without warning and, if I didn’t answer the door, simply break in. And having TechCrunch staff wander into and out of my house at random times wasn’t always great, either.

Until 2006 most of our events were still at my house, until they grew too large to host them there (the last one had 600 people and a wedding tent in the back yard).

So now we have a real office (with a really nice deck for events) in downtown Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley. My commute time is now ten minutes, which still isn’t bad. Hopefully I’ll see you there sometime soon.