TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 NYC

TechCunch Disrupt 2010 in NYC was huge. One of the main reasons it had appeal to me was a “Hack Day” in which developers had 24 hours to build an app fom scratch. This hack event occurred on the weekend of May 22-23. Then the 3 day event of TechCrunch Disrupt in which the selected StartUps competed in May 24-26. I competed in both events. For HackDay, I had several developers tell me I would win “HackDay”, I didn’t but I gained high praise for what I accomplished from the developers. In the StartUp Battlefield I helped build an application for MovieClips which placed in the top 5 and ended up being a finalist. So to me it was a very productive week.

I got to meet Michael Arrington and Erik Schonfeld from TechCrunch, these guys had written articles on my work for Joost and Hulu.

Michael Arrington – Will Joost Address The Copycats?
Erik Schonfeld – Hulu Gets An Unofficial Desktop App In MyMediaPlayer2

I got to meet Marissa Mayer – Vice President, Search Products & User Experience from Google.


Marissa sat down with me to go over the “Youtube Builder” I had created for TechCrunch HackDay.
All I can say about Marissa is how brilliant she is, as soon as I addressed a feature she was ” oh you are trying to create a … “, obviously I can’t disclose the feature but wow. I was impressed.

On the first day of the conference I looked back and I saw a familiar face, Liz Gannes. Liz was the first writer to cover my video players. She was so nice and it was great to meet her.
What If Joost Were a Web App?

Boxee’s CEO Avner Ronen was speaking at the conference and he was being interviewed by some press. I ran into him and introduced myself “Hi my name is Paul Yanez I build video…” and he replied I know who you are. I thought that was the coolest thing. We spoke for several minutes and exchanged numbers and I look forward to continuing our conversation.

10 minutes before the StartUp Battlefield I was backstage coding. Probably the craziest and coolest thing I have done in my professional career. Meanwhile I had press trying to video record me in an interview.

I got to meet the TechCrunch writers MG Siegler, Leena Rao, Robin Wauters.

OMG, Evelyn was such as pro throughout the Hack weekend and the conference it was so cool to meet her.

Zach and Rich are the coolest cats in this space and they rocked TechCrunch Disrupt. They made it into the Final Five.

The Graffiti felt right being in NYC again.