TechCrunch has misplaced one among its beloved former colleagues. Steve O’Hear, who wrote for TechCrunch for greater than a decade out of his hometown of London, has handed away after a brief sickness. He was 49.
It’s laborious to place into phrases the outstanding expertise that Steve was. Born with muscular dystrophy, he spent his life in a wheelchair and had important well being, mobility and accessibility points, however he was simply one of the vital productive journalists any of us have ever labored with.
Steve introduced his A-game to this group each day he labored right here and was an enormous a part of what made (and makes — you possibly can learn his 3,210 posts, a veritable magnum opus, right here) TechCrunch nice.
Steve was a dogged information hound who broke tons of tales. He additionally wrote grand options, spoke fact to energy, and was, fairly merely, an authentic and unmistakable voice.
Steve first joined TechCrunch in 2009, employed to assist create a footprint for TechCrunch in Europe and conversely give the early tech ecosystem right here publicity to the remainder of the world.
Steve was fearless and greater than a author. Effectively earlier than he got here to TechCrunch, in 2004, fascinated with the gravity pull Silicon Valley was clearly exerting so far as Europe, he traveled to California with two buddies searching for what made it tick and made a movie about it. You’ll be able to see that movie right here.
He was additionally an enormous music lover who reveled in that world, too, constructing audio {hardware} and making music himself (as a keyboard participant).
Like lots of people who find yourself writing about startups, he additionally had a robust entrepreneurial streak. He left TechCrunch in late 2011 to co-found a semantic Q&A/search platform referred to as Beepl. Alas, it didn’t toot sufficient horns. Ultimately, Steve adopted the nice TechCrunch boomerang and got here again right here.
Steve was a pure at TechCrunch, deftly dealing with the 2 sides of what it means to work in a high-performing crew.
He was fiercely unbiased, aggressive and happy with his work, relentlessly pursuing tales, twisting arms, growing leads and spilling the beans — (often!) with a smile, however taking no prisoners, and with out struggling fools. He was additionally a consummate crew participant and buddy, collaborating and serving to others with their work. In our completely distributed digital workplace, Steve was a beautiful particular person to banter with on Slack about ridiculous issues we’d seen.
As tech grew and TechCrunch grew, so did Steve’s profile. He was a wonderful on-stage interviewer and he took on some iconic and a few difficult, but in the end inspiring topics over time.
He finally acquired the bug to do one thing completely different once more and took a giant veer again into startup land, working for fast commerce participant Zapp.
The laborious and quick guidelines of startup life turned him in a special route finally, and he as soon as once more began his personal enterprise, a communications consultancy referred to as O’Hear & Co. Because the agency stated earlier, their plan is to proceed with the imaginative and prescient Steve had.
It’s an enormous loss, and he’s gone too quickly. Our hearts, and our deepest sympathies, exit to his former colleagues, his buddies, his spouse Sara, and his household.
– Mike Butcher and Ingrid Lunden
(Some extra phrases beneath from the crew as they arrive in. As we wish to say right here, please refresh for updates.)
Connie Loizos, editor in chief of TechCrunch
I spent seven years working with Steve and whereas we had been hardly ever in the identical place on the similar time, he appeared ubiquitous within TechCrunch, producing a formidable quantity of labor about up-and-coming founders in London and Berlin significantly, but in addition actively partaking in our personal inside social channels to flag the information he was protecting, share suggestions for others to chase down, and sometimes, good-humoredly, complain – as all of us do within the information enterprise – about our rivals.
He cared about TechCrunch, and TechCrunch cared about him. Amongst his parting phrases to all of us, in 2021, had been these: “Thanks to everyone for making me feel valued and giving me the freedom to keep on learning and keep on scooping. If I had to give any advice to newcomers (not that you asked for it): TechCrunch is an amazing platform and like no other in this biz – use its special powers to do your best work and it will give you back double.”
Natasha Lomas
I solely met Steve — professionally and in particular person — after I joined TechCrunch in 2012. However I quickly realised I had already come throughout this man on ‘the socials’, as he may need jokingly riffed again then. His energy of character and love of hustling meant he may play Twitter like a DJ dropping the massive tunes on the membership. After all, he anticipated nothing lower than the gang to go wild. Mic drops had been his bread and butter.
In particular person his character was no much less massive, no much less magnetic than his social media self. Whereas, professionally, I discovered — to my delight — I had acquired a colleague who was beneficiant to a fault. At all times comfortable to listen to from you and genuinely to be a sounding board for story concepts. He additionally had a mentor’s keenness to assist anybody who didn’t have his labyrinthine experience of the ins & outs of VC funding — which was, in fact, many of the remainder of his colleagues. Exterior the fold I think he didn’t endure fools gladly. However for a man of his whip-smart intelligence you’d count on nothing much less. Pricey Steve, we already miss you a lot.
The information of Steve’s demise is an actual shock. He hardly ever talked about his well being. It was identical to Steve to play that down – as a result of he was busy turning the amount up on the remainder of the world.
Devin Coldewey
I labored with Steve on and off for a few years, and whereas we solely acquired to speak in particular person a handful of occasions (as it’s with a lot of my colleagues and buddies right here), I can credit score him with igniting my curiosity in protecting accessibility. After all he coated numerous different matters deeply, and I additionally realized about interview method from watching him. However he was a nicely knowledgeable, and passionate advocate for accessibility and critic of the tech trade’s traditionally relatively slack method to this important subject. He set me proper loads of occasions over time and I used to be unhappy to lose his experience when he left TechCrunch; even sadder now that I’ll by no means get his perception once more.
Romain Dillet
Steve was additionally the epitome of a curious particular person. Whenever you thought you had him found out, together with his witty persona, he would shock you with an sudden transfer. Within the late 2010s, he utterly immersed himself in a brand new ardour — music.
After spending a small fortune on synthesizers, sequencers and different music gear, he went as far as to file an album. You’ll be able to nonetheless hearken to Steve’s — or maybe I ought to say Otis ‘Max’ Load’s — album on Spotify and Apple Music.
He described these ten songs as his “debut solo/concept album with friends.” This phrase alone completely encapsulates Steve’s persona. He didn’t simply need to file an album; it needed to be an idea album. And it wasn’t only a solo album, it was a solo album… with buddies.
Loving music is one factor, however loving music a lot that you simply need to make music with buddies and launch it to the world is one other. Steve had an irresistible urge to share his love of music with others.
And sure, ‘In Between Floors’ was presupposed to be his debut album…
Steve was a inventive power with a lot to share with the world. A lot of his headlines and musical preparations are nonetheless out there on the web. That’s the fantastic thing about the net, a medium he cherished as a result of it gave him the superpower to achieve such a large viewers. It let him do what he cherished. So let’s do the identical.
