Years ago, when TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington was dreaming up ideas for what the original Crunchies statuette would look like, he drew inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In particular, that scene in the early part of the movie in which the apes start using bones as tools and weapons for the first time.
Years have passed and our statuettes have changed ever so slightly, but we still hold tight to the primate tradition. And why not? We’re now in our 8th year of putting on the Crunchies and each year the event just keeps getting better.
Anyway, we were reminded of all this not too long ago when the Crunchies Monkey stopped by our office to work for a few hours. Technology may have improved over the years, but he expressed the same level of frustration as his ancestors back in the Stone Age. Check out the video above to see what happened.
Once you’ve done that, maybe you’ll want to vote for your favorite startups and help us pick winners for Crunchies categories like Best Founder, Best VC, and Best Overall Startup for 2014. And you should probably buy your tickets if you haven’t already.
The Crunchies will be here in just a couple of weeks, and you don’t want to miss out on what is basically the best awards show for startups, VCs and tech people.
Too cheap to buy a ticket? Share your love of the Crunchies or any other monkey business on Twitter or Instagram and tag it #Crunchies. We’ll give out a pair of tickets to the most interesting or original social post we find.
TechCrunch gorilla marketing in SF #Crunchies pic.twitter.com/bJIy52XfjD
Techcrunch eventJoin 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
Join 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025— Travis Bernard (@travisbernard) December 28, 2014
Monkey business at TechCrunch HQ. http://t.co/MzmhAX7SIP
— Susan Hobbs (@slh) December 16, 2014
Oh yeah, and if you want to see that video that inspired the monkey statuette to begin with, you can watch the original here:
