In memory of Steve O’Hear

TechCrunch has lost one of its beloved former colleagues. Steve O’Hear, who wrote for TechCrunch for more than a decade out of his hometown of London, has passed away after a short illness. He was 49.

It’s hard to put into words the remarkable talent that Steve was. Born with muscular dystrophy, he spent his life in a wheelchair and had significant health, mobility and accessibility issues, but he was easily one of the most productive journalists any of us have ever worked with. 

Yes, TechCrunch was and is a blog. Steve brought his A-game to this blog every day he worked here and was a huge part of what made (and makes — you can read his 3,210 posts, a veritable magnus opus, here) TechCrunch great. 

Steve was a dogged news hound who broke tons of stories. He also wrote grand features, spoke truth to power, and was, quite simply, an original and unmistakable voice. 

Steve first joined TechCrunch in 2009, hired to help create a footprint for TechCrunch in Europe and conversely give the early tech ecosystem here exposure to the rest of the world. 

Steve was fearless, and more than ‘just’ a writer. Well before he came to TechCrunch, in 2004, fascinated with the gravity pull Silicon Valley was clearly exerting as far as Europe, he traveled to California with two friends in search of what made it tick and made a film about it. You can see that film here. 

Steve O’Hear, as illustrated by Bryce Durbin.Image Credits:Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

He was also a huge music lover who revelled in that world, too, building audio hardware and making music himself (as a keyboard player). 

Like a lot of people who end up writing about startups, he also had a strong entrepreneurial streak. He left TechCrunch in late 2011 to co-found a semantic Q&A/search platform called Beepl. Alas, it didn’t toot enough horns. Eventually, Steve followed the great TechCrunch boomerang and came back here.

Steve was a natural at TechCrunch, deftly handling the two sides of what it means to work in a high-performing team. 

He was fiercely independent, competitive and proud of his work, relentlessly pursuing stories, twisting arms, developing leads and spilling the beans — (usually!) with a smile, but taking no prisoners, and with no suffering of fools. He was also a consummate team player and friend, collaborating and helping others with their work. In our permanently distributed virtual office, Steve was a wonderful person to banter with on Slack about ridiculous things we’d seen.

Then as tech grew, and TechCrunch grew, so did Steve’s profile. He was an excellent on-stage interviewer, and he took on some iconic, and some tricky, yet ultimately inspiring subjects over the years.

He eventually got the bug to do something different again and took a big veer back into startup land, working for quick commerce player Zapp.

The hard and fast rules of startup life turned him in a different direction eventually, and he once again started his own business, a communications consultancy called O’Hear & Co. As the firm said earlier, their plan is to continue with the vision Steve had. 

It’s a huge loss, and he’s gone too soon. Our hearts, and our deepest sympathies, go out to his former colleagues, his friends, his wife Rebecca, and his family.

– Mike Butcher and Ingrid Lunden

(Some more words below from the team as they come in. As we like to say here, please refresh for updates.)

Connie Loizos, editor in chief of TechCrunch

I spent seven years working with Steve and while we were rarely in the same place at the same time, he seemed ubiquitous inside of TechCrunch, producing an impressive volume of work about up-and-coming founders in London and Berlin particularly, but also actively engaging in our own internal social channels to flag the news he was covering, share tips for others to chase down, and occasionally, good-humoredly, complain – as we all do in the news business – about our rivals.

He cared about TechCrunch, and TechCrunch cared about him. Among his parting words to all of us, in 2021, were these: “Thanks to everyone for making me feel valued and giving me the freedom to keep on learning and keep on scooping. If I had to give any advice to newcomers (not that you asked for it): TechCrunch is an amazing platform and like no other in this biz – use its special powers to do your best work and it will give you back double.”

Natasha Lomas:

I only met Steve — professionally and in person — after I joined TechCrunch in 2012. But I soon realised I had already come across this guy on ‘the socials’, as he might have jokingly riffed back then. His strength of character and love of hustling meant he could play Twitter like a DJ dropping the big tunes at the club. Of course, he expected nothing less than the crowd to go wild. Mic drops were his bread and butter. 

In person his character was no less large, no less magnetic than his social media self. While, professionally, I found — to my delight — I had acquired a colleague who was generous to a fault. Always happy to hear from you and genuinely interested to be a sounding board for story ideas. He also had a mentor’s keenness to help anyone who didn’t have his labyrinthine expertise of the ins & outs of VC funding — which was, in truth, most of the rest of his colleagues. Outside the fold I suspect he didn’t suffer fools gladly. But for a guy of his whip-smart intelligence you’d expect nothing less. Dear Steve, we already miss you so much.  

The news of Steve’s death is a real shock. He rarely talked about his health. It was just like Steve to play that down – because he was busy turning the volume up on the rest of the world. 

Devin Coldewey 

I worked with Steve on and off for many years, and while we only got to talk in person a handful of times (as it is with many of my colleagues and friends here), I can credit him with igniting my interest in covering accessibility. Of course he covered countless other topics deeply, and I also learned about interview technique from watching him. But he was a well informed, and passionate advocate for accessibility and critic of the tech industry’s historically rather slack approach to this vital issue. He set me right plenty of times over the years and I was sad to lose his expertise when he left TechCrunch; even sadder now that I’ll never get his insight again.

Romain Dillet

Steve was also the epitome of a curious person. When you thought you had him figured out, with his witty personality, he would surprise you with an unexpected move. In the late 2010s, he completely immersed himself in a new passion — music.

After spending a small fortune on synthesizers, sequencers and other music equipment, he went so far as to record an album. You can still listen to Steve’s — or perhaps I should say Otis ‘Max’ Load’s — album on Spotify and Apple Music.

He described these ten songs as his “debut solo/concept album with friends.” This phrase alone perfectly encapsulates Steve’s personality. He didn’t just want to record an album; it had to be a concept album. And it wasn’t just a solo album, it was a solo album… with friends.

Loving music is one thing, but loving music so much that you want to make music with friends and release it to the world is another. Steve had an irresistible urge to share his love of music with others.

And yes, ‘In Between Floors’ was supposed to be his debut album…

Steve was a creative force with so much to share with the world. Many of his headlines and musical arrangements are still available on the internet. That’s the beauty of the web, a medium he cherished because it gave him the superpower to reach such a wide audience. It let him do what he loved. So let’s do the same.