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Steve O'Hear

Technology Journalist, TechCrunch · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

journalistfounderexecutiveinvestor@sohear ↗ohear.net ↗

Steve O'Hear was a European technology journalist who spent over a decade at TechCrunch covering startups and venture capital. He also co-founded the Q&A platform Beepl and directed the Silicon Valley documentary In Search of the Valley.

14statements → 3claims → 0claims resolved → 3.57/5average certainty → 2.21/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources →

3 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 assertions · 1 opinion · 9 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Steve argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.3 / 5 directness 4.7 · coherence 4.6 · precision 4.1 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 15 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

278 words/min while actually speaking · 18.1 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,596 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host 3/10
setup questions received 85%

Everything Steve O'Hear said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Hear: Building Consumer Startups Is Significantly Harder in Europe
“When you write about this stuff every day, you're under no illusions about how difficult it will be, about how arduous the fundraising process will be, and how most consumer startups fail, right? Especially coming from Europe, it's much harder.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 5:26 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: Fundraising Creates Conflict When Founders Pitch VCs
“There's, like An absolute conflict of interest in that stage when you're fundraising, because essentially you're telling your VC, in a way, you're trying to tell them what they want to hear, because you want to close the round. But the minute you close the rou…”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 8:11 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Opinion
O'Hear: Press Outlets Like TechCrunch Do Not Make or Break Startups
“And I don't think TechCrunch or anyone like TechCrunch Makes or breaks a startup. I think that's a slight myth.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 12:03 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: US Single Market and VC Reach Accelerate Consumer Startups
“I think because America is a single market with one language, and you've got a lot more high-profile VCs on Twitter, you know, other, like other entrepreneurs, that they can, like, amplify your message a lot quicker in the consumer space.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 6:34 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Hear: Europe's Tech Sector Historically Excels in Enterprise Software
“If you look at what Europe does best, or has historically done best, it's a lot of enterprise software, and sort of less You know, less consumer and less sexy.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 6:51 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Hear: TechCrunch Coverage Drives Initial Investor and Media Interest
“Is I think the biggest impact my coverage made on a startup was often that we would, like my coverage would either lead to the first interest the startup had from investors or from mainstream media.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 11:06 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: Great Products Earn Press While Weak Products Fail Regardless
“If you make a really awesome product, you'll get found out by the press because we can't ignore it. And if you make a bad product, You'll get found out by your customers or users, regardless of how much publicity you've gone out.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 12:22 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Disclosure
O'Hear: Widespread PR Coverage Made Little Difference for Startup Beeple
“Beeple was covered everywhere. Like, because of my journalist background, we got in anywhere from CNN to Next Web, TechCrunch, obviously Fast Company magazine. Like, we were, at one point, we were everywhere for about two days, and I can tell you it made very …”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 12:40 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: Unrestricted Early Community Onboarding Loses Conversational Tone Control
“You think that the way to launch a community is just to like invite everyone in. Everyone's welcome and the more the merrier, right? Especially when you're trying to grow your user numbers. But it's really interesting how, if you're not careful, you do lose co…”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 14:37 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: Media Publications Enforce Tighter Editorial Control as They Grow
“I think as publications grow, then more structure or more editorial control is put in place, and we just seem to strike a really good balance.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 16:59 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: Cheap Listicles Subsidize Expensive Long-Form Journalism
“So, I don't know BuzzFeed's model entirely, but I would imagine that perhaps The listicles, in a sense, subsidize the long-form content, because the latter is much more expensive to produce.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 18:37 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: Citing Prior Press Coverage Is a Major Pitch Red Flag
“When someone says, hey, you should, like, cover my product or my startup, because we've just had coverage in, and then they list five other publications. That is probably the biggest red flag, you know, because we like to be first.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 20:25 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: Audio Journalism Captures Authentic Content Omitted From Text Articles
“When you write that up in, in, in text, you often leave some of the best bits on the cutting room floor, and I think when you do audio, you can afford to leave more of that in”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 25:22 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear
Insight
O'Hear: To Become a Journalist, Start Calling Yourself One
“He was basically like, Steve, there's way worse writers than you, and he was like, if you want to be a journalist, just start calling yourself a journalist, so that's what I did.”
Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 ▶ 2:25 20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 VC FF 021: From TechCrunch to Founder to TechCrunch with the legend, Steve O'Hear Nov 13, 2015 17m
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