Billy Gallagher
New York
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Billy Gallagher
Hacker Posts Hilarious, Offensive Messages From Seven MLB Teams’ Facebook Pages
Facebook pages for the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Miami Marlins, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, and Washington Nationals were hacked today, as someone updated the teams statuses to a variety of funny (or offensive–or both!) messages.
Copycat: How Facebook Tried to Squash Snapchat
Just before Facebook went public in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg had a bound red book titled Facebook Was Not Originally Created to Be a Company placed on every employee’s desk. The book, written by Zuckerberg himself, ended with an urgent, even ominous rallying cry: Consciously or not, Zuckerberg was channeling another book that is practically holy scripture in the cult-like startup world: The Innovator’s Dilemma, a 1997 volume by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen.
New group seeks to empower women athletes
Elizabeth Felix ’19 and Emma Lower ’19 decided last semester to create a new organization that “aims to empower women athletes in both varsity and club sports.” This organization — the Yale Women’s Athletic Council — held its inaugural gathering on Jan. 29 and has since met once more. This is the first organization on campus created solely for female athletes.
Inside Snapchat's secretive culture, where CEO Evan Spiegel has no public social media and employees share a 'Fight Club'-like privacy mentality
Evan Spiegel has been incredibly secretive since the early days of Snapchat, often refusing to share his vision for Snapchat with investors, reporters, and even employees. But as Snap approaches its first anniversary as a public company, Spiegel has admitted that he must improve on his communication skills, both internally and externally.
How Reggie Brown invented Snapchat
Reggie Brown carefully ran his fingers over the blunt, admiring its tightly rolled perfection. It was almost a shame to smoke such a work of art. He leaned back on the couch in his Kimball Hall dorm room at Stanford University as he discussed the weekend’s social events with two of his former fraternity brothers, David and Zach. The subject of the conversation moved on to the girls. A dreamy expression appeared on Reggie’s face.
Driver hired by Phillies
After a superb Ivy Championship-winning season that marked the best postseason performance by a Yale baseball team in 69 years, a member of the Bulldog coaching staff earned recognition for helping bring the team to new heights. Craig Driver, the team’s catching coach, is set to join Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies for the upcoming MLB season. At Yale, Driver also assisted with hitting, as well as recruiting.
Harvard’s season in review
To begin its 2017–18 season, Harvard was unable to repeat last year’s dominant 51–21 victory over Rhode Island, this time dropping a 17–10 decision. Despite a stellar performance by running back Charlie Booker, who rushed for a then-career high 139 yards — including runs of 50 and 57 yards — the Crimson were unable to keep their offense on schedule. This was particularly evident in the second half, as both teams remained scoreless.
NiftyThrifty Raises $2 Million From Tribeca Venture Partners, Others
NiftyThrifty, an online, pre-owned, vintage clothing store, announced today that it has raised $2 million from Tribeca Venture Partners, Signal Ventures, Greycroft, idealab and Howard Morgan. The Brooklyn-based company will launch in October as a membership website that sells vintage clothing. The company will target women exclusively at first, but will follow with apparel for men in a few months.
Zuckerberg Says He Was Too Afraid Of Taking Facebook Public
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today that he was previously too afraid of taking Facebook public. “I’ve been very outspoken about staying private as long as possible”, Zuckerberg said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt. “I don’t think it’s that necessary to do that.” He added that he was worried over the past year that employees would get demoralized by the down stock and would leave the company, but found that people kept their heads down and focused on building Facebook products.
A Year Of Spam: The Twoo Experience
Twoo, “the fastest growing place to meet new people,” has been spamming people for over a year. Users have been complaining that they get unsolicited emails from the app, that the app messages all of their contacts without their understanding, and that it’s unclear how to delete their accounts.
Zero To One: How Blake Masters Went From Being Peter Thiel’s Student To Co-Author
In the spring of 2012, Peter Thiel taught a class called CS 183: Startup, at Stanford. One of the students in Thiel’s class, Blake Masters, posted detailed notes on his personal blog that became an instant hit in the tech community. Now, Masters and Thiel have transformed those class notes into a book: “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.” This fall, Y Combinator is teaching a class at Stanford called CS 183B, and it features Thiel as a guest speaker.
Mashr Resurrects A Tinder Experiment To Make You A Match Maker
In May 2013, Tinder introduced Matchmaker, a way for users of the popular dating app to introduce their Facebook friends to each other. “Right now introductions are a very difficult process,” Tinder Ceo Sean Rad said at the time. “They’re slow, they’re socially awkward. This is socially a acceptable environment for you to make introductions in an easy way.” Matchmaker has since been phased out of Tinder, but a new startup, Mashr, is resurrecting the feature as its central thesis.
The Pac-12 Networks Are Going Live On YouTube Internationally
The Pac-12 conference is launching a live YouTube channel for international fans, featuring 24×7 coverage of the conference’s sports teams. Fans in 27 countries will be able to watch live games, studio shows, and re-broadcasts of games on the Pac-12 Network on YouTube starting on August 26.
Spiral Hopes To Nail Location-Based Communities
A new app called Spiral could change the way we connect with the people and places around us. The idea is pretty straightforward: users see a news feed of posts near them, and can add their own updates and comment on other people’s posts. Users can adjust their geographic filters to see posts from a larger or smaller radius. Spiral was founded by Gerry Giacoman Colyer, Jorge Pozas, Michael Ma and Daniel Shteremberg.
Hired Now Helps Tech Companies Find Executives
Hired, a startup working to make recruiting more efficient, has expanded to include a category for VPs of engineering and chief technical officers (CTOs). Engineering Management is now the company’s fifth vertical. Mickiewicz notes that while the new category will naturally be smaller than the original engineering vertical, it is a very profitable and important addition, as many companies look to expensive executive search firms when hiring for these positions.
Meet HelloWorld, An Easier Way To Share Your Location With Friends
Three years ago, Ernestine Fu was sitting at the iconic Philz coffee shop in Palo Alto studying for her Stanford exams. She tweeted about it, wondering if any of her friends were studying nearby. A few minutes later a stranger who had seen the tweet interrupted her to pitch his company. Talking about it years later, it’s clear this interruption was a turning point for Fu, as she explains how it changed her perceptions of social media from fun and personal to a public forum.
A Tale Of Two Patents: Why Facebook Can’t Clone Snapchat – TechCrunch
Facebook released Slingshot, its second attempt at an impermanent sharing app, last Tuesday. The app borrows heavily, in concept and features, from Snapchat, as well as smaller startups like Frontback and Look. Slingshot and Facebook Messenger feature the same photo and video recording interface–a very user friendly mechanism where you tap the main button to take a picture, and hold that button to record a video.
Yahoo News Digest Comes To Android
Yahoo’s popular News Digest app is now available on Android, and offers two new editions of content: International and Canada. Previously, the app, which gives readers twice-daily digests of news aggregated from other outlets, had only curated news around United States and United Kingdom interests. The app launched at the Consumer Electronics show in January, and the Yahoo team tells me user behavior has been very encouraging since then.
Founders John Zimmer & Logan Green Explain How Lyft Was Born Out Of Zimride – TechCrunch
Lyft founders John Zimmer and Logan Green shared the backstory of how they chose to sell off their original core business, Zimride, to focus on Lyft on stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt. Zimmer and Green started Zimride in 2007 as a peer-to-peer ride sharing company after Green was frustrated with stagnated public transportation.
Rotten Tomatoes Founder Positions New Site To Be “Google News For Movies”
Rotten Tomatoes founder Senh Duong has redesigned his new site, Movies With Butter, to be the “Google News for movies.” Movies With Butter originally launched with more of a Digg/Reddit strategy, allowing users to vote which stories would be on the homepage, but Duong says it didn’t work because the site couldn’t gain enough users to vote on the stories. He founded Rotten Tomatoes in 1998 and was quickly joined by a few of his friends, including Binh Ngo with whom he started Movies With Butter.
Stanford University Is Going To Invest In Student Startups Like A VC Firm
Stanford University is going to start directly investing in students’ companies. Stanford is also giving a $3.6 million grant to StartX, a non-profit startup accelerator for Stanford-affiliated entrepreneurs. StartX founder and CEO Cameron Teitelman tells me Stanford will only invest in StartX companies and alumni companies. University spokesperson Lisa Lapin tells me Stanford’s investment fund will have an uncapped size.
Stealth Startup Fantex Wants To Make It Possible For Celebrities To IPO – TechCrunch
If corporations can be people, why can’t people be corporations? A stealth startup called Fantex aims to allow celebrities and professional athletes to file for initial public offerings (IPOs). The quoted text and screenshots in this article are from the Fantex app the company had launched in the iTunes app store on August 27, in what was an apparent beta test. Fantex removed the app yesterday after the company declined to comment for this story.
Tesla Model S Earns Highest Safety Rating Ever From US Agency – TechCrunch
The Tesla Model S earned a 5-star safety rating, both overall and in each individual category, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The company claims that the Model S achieved a new combined record of 5.4 stars. Around 1 percent of cars tested by the NHTSA earn five stars in every category.
Y Combinator-Backed DoorDash Delivers Food Quickly In South Bay, Hopes To Expand Beyond Food – TechCrunch
DoorDash, a Y Combinator summer ‘13 company, delivers food from restaurants in Palo Alto and Mountain View in an average time of 45 minutes. Sound familiar? It’s a crowded space, but while competitors like Seamless and GrubHub offer users an app to order food from any restaurant that has its own drivers and delivery-system setup, DoorDash hires and manages its own drivers, so it can bring you food from restaurants that don’t have their own delivery drivers.
Nate Silver Is Leaving The New York Times For ESPN – TechCrunch
Nate Silver, the statistician who rose to national prominence for his scarily accurate predictions of the 2008 and 2012 U.S. presidential elections, is leaving The New York Times for ESPN. Silver will take the Five Thirty Eight brand with him to the sports giant, according to The Times’ Brian Stelter. Silver will have a number of roles at ESPN, from his stats-driven blogging to a regular role on Keith Olbermann’s new ESPN2 show. He will also reportedly have a role at ABC News in political years.
Hacker Scrapes Thousands Of Public Phone Numbers Using Facebook Graph Search
A hacker has exploited Facebook’s Graph Search to collect a database of thousands of phone numbers and Facebook users. Both parties agree that all the information was left public by users (even if the users themselves may still not realize it). But Facebook issued him a cease and desist after the hacker continued to scrape data and argued with Facebook that the availability of the information invades users’ privacy.
Mayor Bloomberg Tells Stanford Graduates To Go To NYC For Tech
“No other university in the world has so profoundly shaped our modern age,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today in his commencement speech at Stanford University. Bloomberg’s speech was relevant to both the tech and Stanford communities, and often self-serving, as he touched on entrepreneurship, immigration reform, and marriage equality.
No Women In CS? Well, Not For Long
“Dude, I think that girl sitting in front of us is a CS major.” “Nah, look at that glittery shit in her hair.” Bonnie McLindon, a junior computer science major at Stanford University, fumes as she works in CS 103, her hardest class at Stanford, office hours. The two guys sitting behind her are referring to the tinsel in her hair, a tradition of Stanford’s Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.
Letter from the editor: An end to email interviews
Effective immediately, The Stanford Daily will no longer conduct news interviews via email. Our colleagues at The Harvard Crimson recently announced an end to allowing quote approval from Harvard’s administration. Quote approval (allowing sources to edit quotes and strike some from the record after the interview) is a fairly straightforward violation of journalism ethics and is not employed by The Daily. However, email interviews are too similar to quote approval for comfort.
Facebook Redesigns Messages With Side-By-Side Layout – TechCrunch
Facebook announced today that it has redesigned Facebook Messages with side-by-side layout and easier search. The new layout shows a scroll menu of all your messages on the left, with the full contents of a selected message on the right. The style is similar to many email clients. Facebook says users can “bring conversations to life with multiple photos and emoticons.” Photos have long been a driving form of content for Facebook, so that’s no surprise but is a cool feature.
Uber Screwed Me (But At Least It Bought Me Breakfast!)
I’ve been in a wonderful state of bliss for the past week boating in North Carolina (did ya miss me? I missed you). But I came back today and I’m still pretty pissed at Uber for charging me $97 for a $65 ride to the airport last Friday. More importantly, the charge worries me about the company’s future. Last Friday I needed to get from my apartment (by AT&T Park) to SFO. Simple, right? I like taking Uber and while it’s more expensive than a taxi, it’s a lot more convenient.
Sikh Entrepreneurs Raise Over $100,000 In 48 Hours For Wisconsin Shooting Victims
As you surely know by now, a gunman entered a Sikh temple Sunday morning in Wisconsin and opened fire, killing six people and wounding three others, including a police officer. Later Sunday afternoon, two Sikh entrepreneurs, Savneet Singh and Jesse Pujji, started a campaign on the crowd-sourced funding site indiegogo to raise money for the victims. The response has been overwhelming.
Critic Of NBC Olympics Coverage Has Twitter Account Suspended for Posting Exec’s Email – TechCrunch
Twitter shut down Independent reporter Guy Adams after he tweeted a top NBC executive’s email address. Adams has been a staunch critic of NBC’s Olympics coverage, tweeting up a storm about NBC’s factual inaccuracies and other broadcast shortcomings. Adams tweeted the corporate email address of Gary Zenkel, President of the NBC Olympics. Twitter suspended Adams’ account for supposedly posting someone else’s private information, which is against the company’s rules.
Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night. – TechCrunch
Spoiler alert: Phelps and Lochte raced today. The results are all over Twitter. But the race won’t air on TV in America until tonight. This is 2012, not 1996. NBC has put all of the events live online, provided you have a cable subscription, but won’t have them available recorded online and won’t air many events, including the most high-profile ones, until a primetime tape delay. This isn’t a new strategy, just a dumb, outdated one. Sums it up pretty well.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Billy
Contact Billy, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack