Jason, May The Force Be With You

One of the marks of a great blogger is following your convictions and convincing the world of the truth you know in your heart. Jason Kincaid is that blogger, whether he is calling out Apple for enabling patent trolls or VEVO’s hypocrisy in using pirated video at an event. Jason joined TechCrunch in 2008 straight out of college. He learned fast and just kept getting better, even veering off into video. Here he is interviewing Al Franken, and he also hosted one of our most popular TCTV shows, TC Cribs. (He is also incredibly stylish).

After four years, Jason is leaving TechCrunch. He decided to write his farewell on his own personal blog, which I encourage you to read. Jason has many fans here among readers and the staff alike. He helped to define the character of TechCrunch during our formative years, and he will always be a part of our family. In his farewell, Jason comes back to what makes TechCrunch special and what kept him working here tirelessly. It all comes down to the startups and the conversation writers like him get to have with them:

That conversation never gets old. And, better yet, I always got to ask them questions about everything ranging from data mining to real estate to the optimal times to plant vegetables — all of which, somehow, fall under the wide-sweeping umbrella of ‘tech’, provided they have a website or smartphone app. And when I wasn’t meeting with startups, I was often tasked with things that made the lifelong tech geek inside of me gleeful.

Jason is not sure what he is going to do next, but he feels it is time to move on. Truth be told, he’s been feeling that for a while, as he notes in his post. Thank you, Jason, for all you’ve given to TechCrunch and sticking it through as long as you did. We can’t wait to see what you do next.