The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards, a technology industry awards ceremony co-hosted this year by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat, took place place on Jan. 31 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Twenty Crunchies categories were be awarded, with numerous companies founded or led by Stanford alumni nominated as finalists for major categories. A number of Stanford alumni and Stanford-affiliated startups won awards on the evening, with Coursera’s win for best new startup and Peter Thiel’s award for best VC leading the pack.

 

Larry Page M.S. ’98, Sergey Brin M.S. ’95, Google co-founders

Finalist, Best Technology Achievement for Google Glass – runner-up

Finalist, Best Mobile Application for Google Maps – runner-up

 

Larry Page M.S. ’98, Google CEO

Finalist, CEO of the Year – runner-up

 

Marissa Mayer ’97 M.S. ’99, Yahoo CEO

Finalist, CEO of the Year

 

Kevin Systrom ’06, Instagram co-founder and CEO

Finalist, Founder of the Year – winner!

Finalist, Best Overall Startup of 2012 for Instagram

Finalist, Best Mobile Application for Instagram

 

Elon Musk Ph.D. ’95 (did not complete), Tesla Motors co-founder and CEO, SpaceX founder and CEO

Finalist, Founder of the Year – runner up

Finalist, Best Technology Achievement for SpaceX docking with the International Space Station

Finalist, Best Technology Achievement for the Tesla Supercharger network

 

Peter Thiel ’89 J.D. ’92, Graduate School of Business lecturer, venture capitalist

Finalist, Venture Capitalist of the Year – winner!

 

Joe Lonsdale ’03, Alexander Karp J.D. ’92, Stephen Cohen ’05, Peter Thiel ’89 J.D. ’92, Palantir Technologies co-founders

Finalist, Best Overall Startup 2012 – runner up

 

Evan Spiegel ’12, Snapchat co-founder and CEO

Finalist, Fastest Rising Startup for Snapchat – winner!

 

Aria Haghighi ’05, Prismatic co-founder and CTO

Finalist, Best Content Discovery Application for Prismatic

 

Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, computer science professors, Coursera co-founders

Finalists, Best Education Startup for Coursera – runner-up

Finalist, Best New Startup of 2012 – winner!

 

Sebastian Thrun, computer science research professor, Udacity co-founder and CEO

David Stavens M.S. ’08 Ph.D. ’11, Udacity co-founder and president

Finalists, Best Education Startup for Udacity

 

Matthew Flannery ’00 M.A. ’01, Kiva co-founder and CEO

Finalist, Biggest Social Impact for Kiva