One of TechCrunch's most beloved former colleagues lost his battle with illness today. Steve O'Hear wrote for TechCrunch from his hometown of London for more than a decade and has died at the age of 49.

It's just tough to put into words just what an exceptional talent Steve was. Born with muscular dystrophy, he spent his whole life in a wheelchair and had significant health, mobility, and accessibility issues, but he easily would rank as one of the most productive journalists any of us have ever worked with.

Steve brought his A-game to this organization each and every day he worked here and played a huge role in what made (and makes — you can read his 3,210 posts, a veritable magnum 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.

He first joined TechCrunch back in 2009 when the company hired him 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 much more than just a writer. Long before he ended up on TechCrunch, in 2004, fascinated by the gravity pull Silicon Valley was so clearly exerting as far as Europe, he travelled to California with two friends in search of what made it tick and made a film about it.

He was also the biggest music lover who delighted in the world of music building audio hardware and making music himself-being keyboard player.

Like many people who end up writing about startups, he had a great entrepreneurial streak himself. Late last year, Steve left TechCrunch to co-found the semantic Q&A/search platform Beepl. Alas, it didn't toot enough horns. Eventually, Steve followed the great TechCrunch boomerang and came back here.

Steve was an absolute natural with TechCrunch, working in tandem on both sides of what it means to work in a high-performing team.

He was dog-in-the-manger, ultra-competitive, proud of his work, relentless about getting story twists and leads and spilling the beans-with a smile, of course-but not suffering fools gladly. He also was a consummate team player and friend, inclined to help others do their stories right. In our permanently distributed virtual office, Steve was a marvelous person to banter with on Slack about some of the ridiculous things we've seen.

As tech grew and TechCrunch grew, so did Steve's profile. He's an excellent on-stage interviewer and took on some of the iconic and some tricky, yet ultimately inspiring subjects over the years.

He eventually caught 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 did chuyun him in a different direction one last time, this time launching his own business, a communications consultancy called O'Hear & Co. As the firm mentioned above, this is going to be the plan-to keep the vision Steve had.

He's an enormous loss-and departed far too soon. Our hearts and deepest sympathies go out to his former colleagues, his friends, his wife Sara, and his family.

– Mike Butcher and Ingrid Lunden

(Some more words 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 worked with Steve for seven years, and while he was in a different time zone on pretty much any given day, he somehow seemed omnipresent inside of TechCrunch, producing an incredible volume of reporting about early-stage founders in London and Berlin particularly, but also actively participating in our internal social channels to flag the news he was covering, share tips for others to run down, and occasionally, good-naturedly, lament – as we all do in the news business – over our rivals.

He cared about TechCrunch; 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 have to give any advice to newbies (don't worry, you're not asking for it), here it is: TechCrunch is just an incredible platform and like no other in this business – use its special powers to do your best work and it'll return double.

Natasha Lomas

The only times I ever did run into Steve was professionally and in person after I joined TechCrunch in 2012. I quickly realized, however, that I had already run into this dude 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 going 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 excited to hear from you and profoundly interested in being a sounding board for story ideas. He also possessed the acuteness of a mentor, to help any of those that did not share his Byzantine knowledge regarding the ins & outs of VC funding -- which was, in truth, most of the remainder of his colleagues. Outside the fold, I imagine he didn't take kindly to fools. But for someone as sharply intelligent as a guy, you wouldn't expect anything less. Dear Steve, we miss you so much already. Steve's death is a real shock. He hardly ever spoke about his health. Just typical Steve – putting down his own noise while he took to turning up everyone else. Devin Coldewey

It was fortunate that I had worked on and off with Steve for many years; we really only spoke face-to-face a few times, although that is pretty much true of most colleagues and friends I have while here. But Steve was one who introduced me to the subject of accessibility and coverage.

Naturally enough, he covered many topics exhaustively, and I also learned how to interview from watching him.

But what he said was enlightened by a rare combination of good knowledge, passion for accessibility, and long experience as a critic of the technology industry's historically rather slack approach to this vital issue. He put me straight often enough 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 very epitome of a curious person. One would feel that at times, with his smart mouth, he finally got you figured out-and then he surprised you with some antic. In the late 2010s, he became entirely absorbed with a new passion-music.

Having spent a small fortune on synthesizers, sequencers, and other music equipment, he even went as far as to record an album. You can listen to Steve's—or should I say Otis 'Max' Load's—album on Spotify and Apple Music.

These ten songs, he described, as his "debut solo/concept album with friends." This phrase alone embodies Steve's personality. He didn't want to record an album; it had to be a concept album. And it wasn't a solo album, it was a solo album … with friends.

It's one thing to love music; it's quite another to love music so dearly that you feel compelled to engage in making music with friends and releasing it into the world. Steve felt an unavoidable compulsion to share this love of music.
 
And yes, 'In Between Floors' was meant to be his debut album…

Steve was that creative force, and there was so much he had to share with the world. Many of his headlines and musical arrangements are found online. That's the beauty of the web-one of the things he loved because it gave him the superpower of reaching such an audience. It let him do what he loved. So let's do the same.