Very surprised that Elon Musk was runner-up for founder. The guy is tackling some of the toughest, most important problems in the world that most fear of even thinking about. Not to diminish Kevin Systrom's accomplishments, but I just think that the amount Musk has accomplished with his (three?) companies is tremendous.

If you're counting total companies he's involved with:

1. Zip2

2. X.com -> PayPal

3. SpaceX

4. Tesla Motors

5. SolarCity (albeit his idea, he doesn't take cofounder title here)

But currently, yes, three. However I believe majority of time is spent mostly with SpaceX. I do agree he should have won Founder of the Year.

This is why I have zero respect for Techcrunch and any of its events/contests.

What the fuck! Kevin Systrom over Elon Musk? Seriously??

So, a guy who made a bunch of photo filters for a virtual world is better than a guy who worked REALLY HARD to take REAL WORLD travel to the next level? Seriously??

Does it makes sense to idolize either of them? There are hundreds of people involved in the success of SpaceX.

Nope. I don't idolize one over the other. But I'm genuinely angry that someone who has worked hard to improve the quality of our daily life hasn't got the attention/credit he deserves. And it's frustrating that someone who actually made something useless (a LOT of people take instagram photos of their pancakes than just eat it) and someone who intended to claim ownership of your content got something more than the genuine contributor to our living standards, which in this context is Elon Musk.

The concept of Oscar-style awards for startups makes as much sense as Toddlers and Tiaras. No, make that Embryos and Tiaras.

I am appalled to see this on the front page of HN.

Lighten up a tad? Its on the homepage because people voted it there.

Which makes it a criticism of the community rather than some curator. It's a valid, if not entirely productive, criticism.

How does Google glass win runner-up for best tech achievement? Very few people have actually seen what it is capable of and what it actually looks like.

Exactly. So far they've demonstrated nothing more than a camera.

The blimp stunt was pretty nice.

Instagram was bought in April. Does it really qualify as startup?

Do they have the reasons for the decisions anywhere? For the "Biggest Social Impact" category it's definitely the case that reddit has had a quantifiable social impact, but more so than Kiva, or Kickstarter? Also, why was Indiegogo a runner up and not Kickstarter? isn't indiegogo just kickstarter but less stringent on the project approval, kickstarter has become synonymous with crowdfunding.

I'm not understanding how this techcrunch post was posted two hours ago, and has only one comment (and rather spammy)?

I haven't been there for ages, so if someone could enlighten me to whatever happened there?

Techcrunch has declined a LOT over the last few years.

That, along with a lot of better blogs and sources of tech information mean that they have a big readership but it is quite shallow as far as engagement

It would have been hilarious if grindr had won best mobile app...

Oh well, next year!