Ashton Kutcher: Drugs, Ammo, Assholes And Anonymity At TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013

Ashton Kutcher, Mike Arrington,TechCrunch Disrupt

(photo NMI 2013)

Ashton Kutcher was back on the mainstage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 after taking a year off. We first saw him at Disrupt in 2011 when he was being interviewed by Charlie Rose. It seems like so long ago. It was right after the Charlie Sheen blow up and after Kutcher had taken Sheen’s place on Two & A Half Men (which was off limits at Disrupt).

On Wednesday, during a fireside chat with Mike Arrington, Kutcher along with investment partner Guy Oseary (Madonna’s manager and the founder of Maverick Records) they discussed everything from what their investment firm likes to invest in, what they see in the future, a new fund raised at $100 million dollar valuation and drugs, ammo,assholes and anonymity.

When Arrington asked Kutcher about what he technologies he was looking forward to in the future, Kutcher talked first about sensors, and products that incorporated them. Then, he started talking about decentralizing currency and decentralizing security. In this part of the conversation he talked a lot about BitCoin and what the attraction is.

In evaluating deals Kutcher sometimes turns to “Hacking Volume” which he described as the number of people that are hacking a solution to a problem. Kutcher says that the fact that people are so widely hacking Bitcoin validates the value of the service and the money.

“…The fact that people are hacking BitCoin really hard almost harkens back to when banks first started and they didn’t have safe-safes and people were going into the banks and just robbing the money out of the safes it actually validates the value of the money itself…”

Arrington re-confirmed what Kutcher had just said asking him “…The fact that BitCoin is being hacked at almost every point in the network is a good thing?”

From there Kutcher said yes and then talked about how the BitCoin infrastructure and anonymity could be used as a vehicle for people to police themselves and eliminate “Big Brother”. Obviously this speaks to anonymity and CISPA which was recently defeated in Congress.

To reiterate the value of BitCoin, Kutcher said “I think the fact that you can by drugs and ammo with it is actually a validator of the currency itself.

As to decentralizing security, Kutcher is looking forward to a time when we can “…civically monitor each other in anonymous way actually keeps the anonymity of the internet, we don’t have to worry about big brother, and that same infrastructure that built out BitCoin for mass good” Kutcher continued “it’s the old sort of, if everyone had a dart gun and we drove around, and shot darts at assholes driving, we’d know really quick who all the assholes are”

At that point Arrington started cracking up on stage and said he could just imagine how many darts he’d have in his car.

Watch this great video clip from that fireside chat below.

There’s more TechCrunch Disrupt coverage from nibletz.com here.

This Uber Case Should Be A Wake Up Call For Arrington Haters

Back in December we were one of the earliest startup focused sites reporting on these allegations of rape against an Uber driver in Washington DC.

The unthinkable, that some opponents of private car hiring app Uber had been anticipating, had finally happened. According to our good friends at In The Capital, a DC Uber driver had been accused of raping a customer.

The accusation came by way of the Cleveland Park Email listserv. Cleveland Park is a neighborhood in Washington DC. The Cleveland Park list serv post says the crime was caught on tape.

In The Capital reported that Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson Hugh Carew, had confirmed they investigated forcible sexual abuse case in Cleveland Park that occurred on December 8th. There are conflicting reports between the actual police report which suggests the attack happened on a Friday while the police report says it happened on a Sunday.

This email on the Cleveland Park listserv started it all:

A woman’s teen-age daughter used Uber car serve to return to her home
last night after a late evening. The car drove up the family’s driveway
around 3:30 AM. The girl walked to the door but the driver called her
back. When she went back, the driver struck her on the head and raped
her.The family has a security camera in the driveway. The camera showed the
driver carrying the girl’s limp body back to the house. She is now at
home, trying to rest. The entire family is of course very shaken.

Because of the cameras, they know who did it. As of this morning, he had
not yet been arrested, but many officers are involved and he will be.

On Friday, our good friends at InTheCapital were again on the case, this time reporting that the charges were dropped on Thursday.

InTheCapital reports:

As of now, the Washington Post has just come out with a report that the statements given by the woman and the driver regarding the sexual contact were in fact contradictory, and that the physical evidence as well as the testimonies given by both the driver and the woman seemed to indicate different stories. According to the driver, the woman was the one who initiated sexual contact as they were parked in her family’s driveway and they engaged in consensual oral sex. He also denied having intercourse with her, and after their encounter he carried her to the driveway where she then got up and walked inside. DNA evidence from the report does contradict the driver’s testimony to no intercourse, but security video of the woman’s driveway does show the woman walking to her side door and apparently waving to the driver as she walked in to her home. She also told authorities that she had no memory of having done this.

While both nibletz and InTheCapital both reported that these were just allegations, this should say something about all of those folks on the Mike Arrington witch hunt. In fact there are still no “charges” in that case…

Move on now and if you need a lift go download Uber.

Arrington Is Back: Fireside Chat With Fred Wilson

Mike Arrington was back, looking right at home on the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC. As most of you know he was here last year for Disrupt NYC but after that things between he and AOL got a little shaky.

Last year Arrington appeared onstage with a TechCrunch Green t-shirt that read “unpaid blogger”. This year there was no special shirt, just Arrington in his best form. After being introduced by John Biggs as a guy who used to be Biggs’ boss he sat down to chat with Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson.

Arrington pointed out that every time he talked face to face with Wilson they were always in New York. Arrington went on to ask Wilson if he was extremely wealthy and if Wilson had rode into Disrupt on a helicopter. Wilson was quick to point out he walked a couple blocks and then grabbed a cab. He also pointed out that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg often takes the train.

As far as Wilson and his investments are concerned, Arrington immediately started in on him about Duck Duck Go a new search engine. In regards to Duck Duck Go, Arrington looked at Wilson and simply said “Why, I don’t understand”.

Wilson responded by saying that Duck Duck Go has 40-50% of the traffic of AOL search which is still a top 5 search engine in the world. Wilson is also enthusiastic about Duck Duck go because it was created by just one person. Concerns about privacy will also drive the popularity of Duck Duck Go because it’s a 100% private search engine.

When Arrington asked Wilson if Google should be worried about Duck Duck Go, Wilson said no pointing out that Duck Duck Go is fundamentally different. Where Google uses algorithms and key words, Duck Duck Go “leverages 100s of services that are domain experts, hit their API’s and assemble on the fly”.

Arrington admitted that he was not enthusiastic about Kickstarter at first but has since become one of biggest fans of the crowd sourced funding site. Union Square was the only venture capital firm to invest in Kickstarter. When Arrington asked Wilson why they invested, Wilson described Kickstarter as a “futures market for product”.

Arrington and Wilson rounded out their conversation talking about Wilson’s investments in Twitter and Zynga. Arrington of course said Wilson needs to get to San Francisco more.

Check out more of our Disrupt coverage here:

TechCrunch Disrupt NYC To Offer Design Office Hours On Stage

Next week we’ll be in New York covering the three day startup, entrepreneur and tech conference, TechCrunch Disrupt NYC. Just like last year we’ll be talking to all the great startups that present onstage for Battlefield and the ones in Startup Alley.

Although he was absent from the Crunchies amidst the TechCrunch/AOL drama, Mike Arrington will be back on stage hosting interviews and asking the tough questions to startups competing in the Battlefield.

Last fall Arrington left TechCrunch, the site he had founded, ultimately over concerns that AOL’s investment in Crunchfund, Arrington’s VC fund, sparked ethical questions and a conflict of interest (in some eyes). After the dust settled at TechCrunch earlier this year, Arrington welcomed the opportunity to come back and host this years Disrupt event.

Another highlight of this years Disrupt NYC is the new design office hours. Last year, Paul Graham, co-founder of Y-Combinator hosted office hours at Disrupt NYC. This year TechCrunch’s Kim-Mai Cutler reports that Graham will be at home in the valley playing daddy to his new baby.

This year’s office hours is focused on Design and includes Leland Rechis, (Director of mobile product at Etsy), Jamie Devine (head of user experience at AVOS), Jason Marrow (lead product designer at Betaworks), and Mimi Chum (design director at General Assembly).

If you’re interested in picking the brands of this design arsenal you can head over to TechCrunch Disrupt NYC website and complete this form. Those selected to participate will be announced at 11:55am sharp and must have a laptop, iPad, or phone to show the design.

We will have round the clock coverage of TechCrunch Disrupt on TDGN on Slacker & AOL radio as well as a ton of coverage here at nibletz.com of course focusing on startups from “everywhere else”.

Linkage:

TechCrunch Disrupt NYC page

Are you a startup from everywhere else that’s either presenting or attending email us here at disrupt@nibletz.com to get on our interview schedule.

Nibletz is the voice of everywhere else, check out these new stories