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Via Andrew Leonard at Salon, who seems to take this rather more seriously than it deserves. Wikipedia says “The Crunchies is an award ceremony, run by TechCrunch, which celebrates the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year“. Apart from a strong whiff of the stuff I use in my tomato planters, I don’t pretend to understand that… but then, neither does John Oliver, and he takes their money anyway. Since I know Mr. Oliver has fans among our commentariat, here’s his performance, for your enjoyment / edification.
Possibly related, four-page story by Kevin Roose in NYMag:
… There are a lot of power pretenders in tech right now, but [Shervin] Pishevar is not one of them. He has become the Valley’s official information broker, a fist-bumping, name-dropping super-connector who seems to be everywhere simultaneously. He’s a tagalong on the Hollywood party circuit, where he’s taken private jets with Justin Bieber and brought Ashton Kutcher in on start-up investments. And he’s gotten close with White House adviser Valerie Jarrett through a series of tech CEO round-tables he spearheaded that brought Silicon Valley bigwigs to Washington to talk shop with the president…
Lately, Pishevar’s passion, and that of a few like-minded technologists, is to translate Silicon Valley’s ethos of innovation and disruption into a political force, a coalition that can bring new ideas to staid industries and energize depressed regional economies. Bending Washington’s ear should be simple—after all, politicians love money, as Hollywood and Wall Street have long known. But merging the interests of a bureaucracy-choked public sector with a tech industry that until now has largely ignored the political realm has turned out to be a tough sell for both camps. The government has been slow to embrace the idealistic mind-set of the Valley, and a large swath of the tech elite still believes it doesn’t really need Washington in order to thrive…
Early Morning Open Thread: John Oliver Yells at TechNerdsPost + Comments (106)