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Disrupt SF is right around the corner and is shaping up to be one of the biggest events of the year. We have already announced many speakers which include our very own TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Marissa Mayer, The Honest Company’s Jessica Alba and Brian Lee, super angel Ron Conway, Vinod Khosla, Marc Benioff, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Path’s Dave Morin, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, Kevin Rose, and many others.

Here is another chance for one lucky reader to win a chance to come join us! Not only will the winner receive a free ticket (valued at around $1,995*), but we are also going to give you a free Phosphor watch of your choice. Check them out. The winner can choose any watch on that site. The most expensive is valued at around $250.

So, here we go. If you want a shot at winning, all you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:
- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what your favorite summer song is

The contest will start now and end August 13th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet or comment once, or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the giveaway is over. Please note the free Disrupt ticket is for one ticket only and does not include airfare or hotel.

*Ticket prices increase to $2,995 on 8/24. More information here.

Because at this point everybody’s doing it, Box CEO Aaron Levie is going to be at Disrupt SF this September. Levie will be joining the other esteemed and as of yet unannounced speakers on our Enterprise panel.

Seeing as Enterprise is going through a revolution, a “consumerization” if you will, it promises to be a juicy discussion — sexy even.

Levie is best known for dropping out of USC to start his cloud storage company Box, which just raised a hefty $125 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. But he is also notable for providing much amusement and wisdom to anyone who follows him on Twitter, posting viral-ready tweets like “Linkedin beats earning estimates, saves the Internet” and imparting pithy startup wisdom like “Your goal should be to build a team so great that you’re unqualified to be on it.”

He is also, seriously, a bona fide magician!

Linkedin beats earning estimates, saves the Internet.—
Aaron Levie (@levie) August 02, 2012

Levie will join a full Disrupt lineup which already includes speakers like: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Brian Lee, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Jessica Alba, Dave Morin, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Vinod Khosla and many others yet to be announced.

This year’s Disrupt SF is going to be the bomb. We’ve got kickass speakers, the entire TechCrunch team and real worthy Startup Battlefield finalists onstage, battling it out for the top prize of $50,000 and the coveted Disrupt cup.

So, yeah, tickets to Disrupt SF are on sale here. And if you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here as always.

(Fight on Trojans!)

Aaron Levie
CEO and Co-founder, Box

Aaron Levie co-founded Box with friend and Box CFO Dylan Smith in 2005. The Box mission is to provide businesses and individuals with the simplest solution to share, access and manage their information. Aaron is the visionary behind Box’s product and platform strategy, which is focused on incorporating the best of traditional content management with an elegant, easy to use user experience suited to the way people collaborate and work today. Box is one of the fastest growing companies in enterprise software, used by more than 11 million individuals and 120,000 businesses worldwide.

Aaron is a tireless advocate of innovation and disruption in the technology industry, and he has spoken at numerous events, including Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Dreamforce, LeWeb, RSA, MobileBeat, GigaOm Structure, and DEMO. In addition, he has written several articles for major publications such as CNN, the BBC, Fast Company, Forbes, PandoDaily and TechCrunch.

Aaron studied business at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California before leaving to found Box.

Three trailblazing figures in educational technology are showcasing the future of learning at our upcoming annual conference, Disrupt San Francisco. Former New York education Chancellor, Joel Klein, will get into more of the details about the recently announced Amplify project, News Corp’s ambitious venture to create tailored, digital learning for the American education system. Bill Gates’ “favorite teacher”, Sal Khan, who founded the Youtube-based Khan Academy, will speak about his pioneering work in the “flipped classroom” and launch a new feature to his site. And Google fellow and CEO of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun, will discuss how he opened the walled garden of American higher education free of charge to students around the world.

These education leaders will join an all-star lineup at Disrupt SF Sept 8-12, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Matt Cohler, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Vinod Khosla and many others.

Come be a part of this amazing show. Tickets to Disrupt SF are on sale here. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here. Bios of the three education speakers below:

Joel Klein
CEO Education Division, News Corporation

In January 2011, Joel I. Klein became CEO of the Education Division and Executive Vice President, Office of the Chairman, at News Corporation, where he also serves on the Board of Directors.

Prior to that, Mr. Klein was Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education where he oversaw a system of over 1,600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $22 billion budget. He launched Children First in 2002, a comprehensive reform strategy that has brought coherence and capacity to the system and resulted in significant increases in student performance.

He is a former Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, Inc., a media company, and served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice until September 2000, and was Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton from 1993-1995. Mr. Klein entered the Clinton administration after 20 years of public and private legal work in Washington, D.C.

Sal Khan
Founder and Executive Director, Khan Academy

Sal Khan is the founder of the Khan Academy, a nonprofit with the mission of providing free, high-quality education for “anyone, anywhere” in the world. Khan graduated from MIT in 1998 with three degrees: two bachelor of science degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering/computer science; and a master of science degree in electrical engineering. He worked in technology in Silicon Valley until the first bubble burst, after which he attended Harvard Business School. After earning a masters degree in business administration in 2003, Khan became an analyst at a Boston based hedge fund.

In 2004 as a side project, Sal began tutoring his young cousin in math, communicating by phone and using an interactive notepad. When others expressed interest, he began posting videos of his hand-scribbled tutorials on YouTube. Demand took off, and in 2009 he quit his day job to commit himself fully to the not-for-profit Khan Academy. The Khan Academy website now provides self-pacing software and unlimited access to over 3,000 instructional videos covering everything from basic arithmetic to college level science and economics. It’s the most-used library of educational videos on the web, with over 5 million unique students per month, over 150 million lessons delivered, and over half a billion exercises completed. Over 10,000 classrooms around the world are also using Khan Academy to help build student mastery of topics and to free up class time for dynamic project based learning.

Khan was recently profiled by 60 Minutes and recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Sebastian Thrun
CEO, Udacity

Sebastian Thrun is CEO of Udacity, and research professor of computer science at Stanford University. He is also a Google Fellow and Vice President .

Thrun is a former Director of the Stanford AI Lab. He led the development of the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, and which is exhibited in the Smithsonian.

His research focuses on robotics and artificial intelligence.

We are excited to announce that Reid Hoffman is the next special guest to join our incredible lineup for Disrupt SF. During his two decades in Silicon Valley, he has helped build seminal Silicon Valley companies of our time, including PayPal and LinkedIn, and invested in dozens of others including Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Six Apart and Zynga. He now leads top venture firm Greylock Partners.

Meanwhile, our Disrupt speaker roster is getting packed. We’ll also be hosting new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Jessica Alba and Brian Lee, Vinod Khosla, super angel Ron Conway, Ben Horowitz, Marc Benioff, Kevin Rose, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and many others. You can view the full list of speakers so far here. Stay tuned for more announcements.

Come join us by getting your tickets to Disrupt SF here!

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here.

Reid Hoffman
Executive Chairman of LinkedIn
Partner at Greylock Partners

Reid Hoffman is Executive Chairman of LinkedIn Corporation and a Partner at Greylock Partners. In 2003, he co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service, in his living room. LinkedIn has more than 161 million members in 200 countries and territories around the world. Reid led LinkedIn through its first four years and to profitability as CEO and Chairman.

Reid joined Greylock Partners in 2009. Reid currently serves on the boards of Airbnb, Edmodo, Mozilla (Firefox), Shopkick, Swipely, Wrapp, and Zynga and has co-led investments in Coupons.com, Groupon, and Viki. Reid also leads the Greylock Discovery Fund, which invests in seed stage entrepreneurs and companies. The fund is an extension of Reid’s prior angel investing, which included Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, and Zynga. Reid focuses on the consumer Internet broadly, including marketplaces, networks, and platforms. Prior to LinkedIn and Greylock, Reid served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was also a founding board member.

Reid believes strongly in the ability for entrepreneurship and technology to improve the world. Reid serves on the boards of Kiva.org, Endeavor.org, DoSomething.org, and StartupAmericaPartnership.org. Reid also co-authored the best-selling book The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career.

Reid earned a Master’s degree in Philosophy from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, as well as a Bachelor’s degree with distinction in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Reid is also the recipient of an SD Forum Visionary Award in 2010 and was named both a Henry Crown Fellow by The Aspen Institute and an Endeavor Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011.

Disrupt SF is right around the corner and here’s another chance for you (or someone you know) to win a ticket! This is going to be one of the biggest technology conferences of the year and we have already announced some special guests and speakers including: Kevin Rose, Michael Arrington, Marissa Mayer, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Jessica Alba, Marc Benioff, and many more. Be sure to check out all of the speakers we have announced so far. And stay tuned, because we have a lot more surprises to come.

For those of you unable to buy tickets to this year’s show — this is a great chance for you to try and get one for free. Not only are we giving away a free ticket to Disrupt SF to one lucky reader, but we also wanted to include a fun something extra.

We are going to throw in a brand new Nest Thermostat. We’ve written about it numerous times, but basically the Nest is a thermometer that learns from user behavior and eventually adjusts the home’s climate control based on previous activity. Our own Matt Burns believes the Nest is “a game changer”, as do others.

If you want a shot at winning the Nest (valued at $249) and a free ticket to Disrupt SF (valued at $1,995), all you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what inspires you the most

The contest will start now and end August 5th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet or comment once, or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the giveaway is over. Please note the free Disrupt ticket is for one ticket only and does not include airfare or hotel.

It didn’t start with a monkey, or a tiger. Or even a million-dollar blowout with Snoop performing in a hazy fog. For me, it started with schwag. Lots and lots of schwag. So much, in fact, that in 2006 a group of enterprising tech folks at RubyRed Labs started a side company named Valleyschwag, selling leftover tech schwag for $15. You read that correctly; people would willingly pay a $15 monthly subscription to get poorly-sized, Hanes Beefy T’s with now-defunct tech logos on them. And it was positioned as an opportunity; to quote Michael Arrington on this very site, “sometimes it’s easy to forget that a lot of people out there don’t have the opportunity to get schwag from their favorite startups.” Times, how they have changed (though I still do cherish my Dodgeball shirt).

The Valleyschwag Hoedown was the first ‘tech party’ that I experienced in San Francisco. It wasn’t lavish, it lacked pretension, and I believe it may have been BYOB. There wasn’t an agenda; it was like-minded people getting together for a fun evening. In six short years, we’ve gone from a place where a cardboard rocking horse and unwanted mousepads helped create & launch a business – and one with a revenue plan, at that! – to a place where entire New York Times articles are written about the party scene in Silicon Valley. Bubble or not, the tech scene in San Francisco is a very different place than it was even a few years ago, which was a one of the many reasons why ten months ago, I left it behind and moved to NYC.

Since making this move, people often ask me what I see as the main difference between the two cities. To me, it is a question of positioning. In Silicon Valley/San Francisco, Technology *IS* the industry. To quote Nick Bilton, who I agree with on this statement, “This is a company town, like Los Angeles and the movies, or Washington and politics. Everything revolves around the tech industry; there is often nowhere to hide.” Contrast that with New York City; here, technology plays a major role in various industries including finance, fashion, media and more. It’s a component, and a major one at that, but not the only game in town.

Because of this, people — myself included — are finding the sheer size and diversity of New York an incentive to move here. I’m seeing more and more of my West Coast friends make the move East, joining startups, starting companies, even moving their companies back to New York, as Josh Miller from Branch recently did. Says Jonathan Basker, Head of People at Betaworks who moved from San Francisco two years ago, “There are a million wonderful things about the New York tech scene that I prefer to SF, but I think we forget sometimes that the biggest draw to New York is…New York.  I love my life here.  I love the diversity of experience, the people I’ve come to know and all the crazy random daily shit that seems normal to me now.  And professionally I love how those experiences balance against, broaden and enrich my work.”

And it’s this “diversity of experience” that helps us in the New York tech scene avoid the insularity felt in San Francisco, letting us step out of the reverberating sphere and listen to other voices and perspectives. It’s the exact opposite of the echo chamber that Silicon Valley is often accused of being.

It’s not just the entrepreneurs who are making this a great place to be. The local administration, powered much by Mayor Bloomberg, celebrates our local scene, both by creating favorable environments for startups and promoting the ones that are already here.

Yet in many ways, New York remains the underdog. (Miller agrees; justifies this by saying that “being second class keeps you humble and hungry.”) I would argue that we’re not necessarily second class, we’re just still getting started. Ron Goldin, founder of design firm AKKO, agrees: “Silicon Valley is like the oldest sibling that’s broken through a lot of the first’s. NYC is the younger sibling with something to prove. It feels like there’s a lot of growing that’s happening right now, which is really exciting if you’re the type that likes to be a part of something new.”

And it *is* exciting. The New York tech scene feels like San Francisco did six years ago, when I first moved there. Honeymoon period or not, I like how the energy of the city permeates into the feeling of our companies. There’s an inherent sense of community built in New York; as you’re sweating on the subway, stickily pressed up against other strangers trying to stay cool in near-100-degree temperatures, you know they’re just as miserable as you are. You’re both in this together, and I see this spirit prevailing in the startup culture as well. Us New York techies, we’re in it together, and I’d take the flip cup and beer pong tournaments over a monkey or a tiger, any day.

Aubrey Sabala heads up Marketing and Communications for Sailthru, a behavioural communications company proudly based – and founded! – in New York City.

[Image via the collections of the "Coal & Coke Heritage Center," Penn State University Fayette Campus, Uniontown, PA.]

It’s that time again. We are super excited to give away not only a free ticket to Disrupt SF, but we are also giving away a free Nexus 7 tablet to one lucky winner. I know, read on.

Disrupt SF is shaping up to be one of the biggest technology events of the year. It’s still more than a month away and we have already announced some undeniably incredible speakers that so far include: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, The Honest Company’s Jessica Alba and Brian Lee, Ron Conway, Vinod Khosla, Kevin Rose, San Francisco Mayer Ed Lee, and many, many more. We still have a ton more announcements to make until September, so be on the lookout for those.

Ever since the Nexus 7 was unveiled at Google I/O this year, everyone has been talking about it. Even our very own columnist MG Siegler, an outspoken Apple lover, couldn’t deny the tablet’s capabilities.

There will only be one winner for this giveaway. If you would like a chance at winning both the Disrupt ticket (a value of $1,995) and the Nexus 7 (a value of $199), all you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us why you want to win

The contest will start now and end July 30th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet or comment once, or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the giveaway is over. This giveaway is for U.S. residents only. Please note the free Disrupt ticket is for one ticket only and does not include airfare or hotel.

So Valley veteran Kevin Rose will be at Disrupt SF on September 8th – 12th! Rose will be joining our growing coeterie of distinguished speakers, all of which now include: my former boss Michael Arrington, Marissa Mayer, Vinod Khosla, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Ben Horowitz, Joel Klein, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Jessica Alba, Brian Lee, Path’s Dave Morin and Benchmark Capital’s Matt Cohler.

In his past startup lives, Rose was the founder of Digg and co-founder of Milk. He is now a Venture Partner at Google Ventures.

If you’re itching to join all these amazing peeps, and us, get your tickets now.

And there are still opportunities to showcase at Disrupt for those companies who didn’t make it into our final Startup Battlefield list. Be sure to check out Startup Alley and get your tickets here. And for all of the hardware startups out there, we’ve created a special chance for you to grab a little Disrupt SF floor space. Information and tickets can be found here.

And finally if you are interested in becoming a sponsor click on this. Until next post!

Kevin Rose
Venture Partner, Google Ventures

Kevin Rose is a Venture Partner at Google Ventures, where he primarily focuses on early-stage and seed investments.

Prior to joining Google Ventures, Kevin co-founded Milk, a mobile application development company in San Francisco. Previously Kevin was the founder of Digg, and co-founder of Revision3, and Pownce (acquired by Six Apart). In addition, Rose is the founder of Foundation, a private newsletter and podcast, and formerly was co-host of the tech news podcast Diggnation.

Well, the agenda for TechCrunch Disrupt SF is shaping up nicely, really nicely. And today we’ve got another two Valley thought leaders we’d like to announce: Path’s Dave Morin and Benchmark Capital’s Matt Cohler will be taking the stage in September to impart their perspectives on the state of the tech now.

Morin and Cohler will join our all-star speaker list which now includes: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Disrupt veteran Ron Conway, CEO of salesforce.com Marc Benioff, Ben Horowitz, founder of Khosla Ventures Vinod Khosla, Joel Klein, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and The Honest Company’s Jessica Alba and Brian Lee.

I know we say this every post, but this year’s SF Disrupt will be our biggest and boldest yet: We’ve received Startup Battlefield applications in record numbers and we still have many more surprises coming at you. So act fast and get your tickets now homeslices.

As CEO of Path, Morin is best known for successfully turning around the mobile startup, which started as a beleaguered photosharing app in a saturated market and is now experiencing a renaissance. Before Path, Morin worked at Facebook where he contributed to Facebook Platform and led the Facebook Connect project.

Matt Cohler is a General Partner at VC firm Benchmark Capital, which is responsible for early investments in some of today’s hottest companies including Instagram, Asana and Cohler. Cohler was also the 7th employee at Facebook where he later went on to become the VP of Product Management, helming the company through its critical growth phase. We can’t wait to have both with us at Disrupt SF.

So much excitement! What else are we excited about? In a reprise of his famous Yahoo CEO interview, Michael Arrington will do a one on one with Marissa Mayer where quite honestly anything can happen, Vinod Khosla will speak about investing outside the box and maybe John Biggs will drive around Startup Alley again like this.

It could happen. Get your tickets now.

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here.

Dave Morin
Co-founder & CEO, Path

Dave is an entrepreneur. Today, he is the Co-Founder and CEO of Path, the modern journal that helps you stay connected with family & close friends. Previously, he was an early member of the Facebook team where he spent several years working to make the Internet more social by contributing to Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect. Prior to Facebook, he spent several years learning design thinking and marketing while working at Apple.

Dave received a degree in Economics and Business from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dave has been a featured speaker at universities, conferences, and panels worldwide including South by Southwest, Future of Web Apps, Web 2.0 Summit, Fast Company Innovation Uncensored, Le Web, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Matt Cohler
General Partner, Benchmark Capital

Matt Cohler is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital. He’s responsible for identifying investment opportunities in Internet-related services, in addition to working closely with companies across the firm’s portfolio.

Previously he served as the VP of Product Management at Facebook, where he led the development of new strategic initiatives for the company. As the seventh employee at Facebook, Matt has worked with the team during many critical growth phases. Previously Matt was Vice President and General Manager at LinkedIn, where he was a member of the founding team. Prior to LinkedIn, Matt was a consultant in McKinsey & Company’s Silicon Valley office and worked in Beijing for AsiaInfo, the Chinese startup that built the infrastructure for the Internet in mainland China. Matt’s writings on the startup economy have been published in Harvard Business Review. He holds a bachelor’s degree with honors and distinction from Yale University.

We are incredibly excited to announce two more amazing speakers who will be joining us onstage at this year’s Disrupt SF — The Honest Company co-founders Jessica Alba and Brian Lee!

Alba and Lee will be joining our already impressive list of formidable Disrupt speakers, which so far includes: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Marc Benioff, super angel Ron Conway, Ben Horowitz, Vinod Khosla, Joel Klein, Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. We can’t wait and neither should you, so get your tickets here.

Alba and ShoeDazzle-founder Lee have partnered to create The Honest Company, raising $27 million in Series A funding for their shared vision. The Honest Company wants to make sure that parents have access to non-toxic, ecofriendly, beautiful and above all affordable family products. Alba and Lee will be talking onstage about their experiences building the startup, in addition to sharing their thoughts on the bright future of ecommerce.

This year’s Disrupt SF is seriously turning out to be one show you do not want to miss. We have already received Startup Battlefield applications in record numbers and have many many more announcements in the works. So stay tuned, and get your tickets while they’re hot!

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here.

Jessica Alba
Co-founder & President, The Honest Company

Jessica Alba is an actress, activist, mother, wife and entrepreneur. Known throughout the world for her acting career, the mother of two daughters launched The Honest Company in January 2012. In an industry consumed by toxic and harmful products, The Honest Company responds to the need for safe, effective, and affordable products for the home, children, and babies. Honest conveniently delivers fashionable, eco-friendly products that “families need most” right to your homes. Ranging from diapers and wipes to household cleaning detergents and a full line of body care products for children, all of the products were created with children’s well being in mind and designed to represent a friendly, healthy and sustainable future.

Jessica fell in love with acting at a very early age and became active professionally at the age of 12. After studying at the Atlantic Theatre Company with founders William H. Macy and David Mamet, she starred in James Cameron’s “Dark Angel,” gaining worldwide recognition. Her first starring role in a major studio film was the 2003 release, “Honey,” Universal Pictures’ contemporary urban drama that grossed over $60 million worldwide.

Brian Lee
Co-founder & Chairman, The Honest Company

Brian Lee, co-founder and CEO of The Honest Company, brings with him an unparalleled expertise in launching successful e-commerce brands that leverage technology and social media to provide consumers with a highly customized, informational, and entertaining Internet experience. Founding ShoeDazzle in 2008, Brian perfected this innovative business model while serving the company’s more than three million members and one million Facebook fans. Forbes Magazine ranked ShoeDazzle as number 21 on its Most Promising Companies 2011 list. Brian also co-founded LegalZoom in 2001, an online consumer legal services company that has grown into a $150 MM+/year business and was ranked number 27 as the World’s Most Valuable Startups by Business Insider in 2011. Brian was formerly an attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP and a former Manager at Deloitte & Touche, LLP before eventually earning the distinction as one of the 25 most notable Korean-American entrepreneurs by Forbes Magazine in 2009. Brian graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Economics/Business from UCLA and received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law.