Danny Crichton
Fellow at Manhattan Institute
Danny Crichton
Fellow at Manhattan Institute
New York, New York
Overview
Work Experience
Fellow
2024 - Current
Building solutions focused on popularizing ideas for removing impediments to economic growth as well as technological and scientific progress.
Head of Editorial & Riskgaming
2021
- I write and analyze the complexities of tech, power, science, disasters, growth and startups. - I write the Riskgaming newsletter and host the Riskgaming podcast.
Managing Editor
2019 - 2021
Developing and launching strategic initiatives while continuing writing and editing regular coverage on enterprise and data infrastructure, U.S.-China relations, government relations, venture capital, and New York City startups. - Managing editor for our TC-1 (formerly EC-1) flagship editorial product, which are extensive, multi-part profiles of up-and-coming startups. - Wrote more than 800+ articles, including regular deep-dives into complex topics like CFIUS regulation, data sovereignty, and venture capital operational changes - Co-host of 150 episodes of TechCrunch's Equity podcast on the VC industry - Manage multi-million dollar freelance budget and editorial strategic priorities - Regular editor of a dozen writers on staff, advising from story selection and sourcing strategy to narrative structure and copyediting. - Conceived, designed, built, and launched The TechCrunch List, a new TechCrunch franchise designed to connect startup founders to the most active venture capitalists in the industry. - Former co-host of Extra Crunch Live, a virtual event series interviewing tech leaders from venture capital and startups
Executive Editor
2017 - 2019
Conceived, developed, launched, and managed Extra Crunch, TechCrunch's premium membership service. - Built and edited new editorial lines like the "EC-1" deep-dive stories around Patreon, Roblox, Niantic, and Kobalt. - Designed newsletter strategy and wrote twice-weekly Extra Crunch member newsletter - Engineered our analytics infrastructure with Python to ensure we had robust metrics and dashboards for growth performance.
Startup Founder
2017 - 2017
Explored new startup projects around media subscriptions, event management, devtools, enterprise SaaS, and way more verticals than I should have
Consulting Venture Capitalist
2017 - 2017
Consulted and advised on the launch of ConsenSys Ventures, including partnership development, sourcing strategy, PR and marketing positioning, and hiring strategy.
Associate Venture Capitalist
2015 - 2017
Led investment sourcing in Boston and New York, focused on enterprise SaaS and data infrastructure, AI/ML, and consumer subscription services. Sourced investments: Slab (SF-based enterprise SaaS knowledge base platform), Roam Coliving (SF-based remote work / co-living subscription startup), and Agora (Boston-based enterprise SaaS platform for employee engagement). Investment management: Agolo (NYC-based NLP summarization service for media and government) and Stella.ai (enterprise SaaS shared talent network).
Contributing Writer
2014 - 2015
I write long-form news analytical pieces and explanatory journalism around issues facing startups and founders.
Foreign Correspondent, South Korea
2014 - 2014
Twice weekly technology columnist writing on subjects such as the rise of enterprise technology, the democratization of venture capital, and the increasing bifurcation of the internet between the U.S. and China. Expanded TechCrunch's strategic network in South Korea and Asia by building partnerships with accelerators, VC firms, incubators, and government startup initiatives. Hosted Seoul conference event.
PhD Researcher
2014 - 2015
Conducted research on the history of public policy and data science, sociology of quantification, online labor markets, and DARPA funding. Discovered that Cambridge is cold in the winter and dropped out of Harvard.
Associate Venture Capitalist
2012 - 2014
One of the founding engineers for what would become SignalFire, a data-centric venture firm which spun out of GC, where I built scalable sourcing products for talent data acquisition, normalization, and visualization. I also developed product strategy for an incubated mobile communications startup. My investment sourcing focused on labor marketplaces, computer vision, health care startups, hardware, manufacturing, and any company with a deeply technical software foundation.
Fulbright Visiting Researcher
2011 - 2012
Researcher in the Science and Technology Policy graduate program at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. My research agenda focused on the pipeline for Korean engineers from high school through the workforce, government policy toward education and labor, as well as innovation ecosystem development.