Bring your community with up to 30% discount. Register here.
THIS WEEK ONLY: Buy one pass, get a second at 50% off. Register here.
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
Disrupt is where you’ll find innovation for every stage of your startup journey. Whether you’re a budding founder with a revolutionary idea, a seasoned startup looking to scale, or an investor seeking the next big thing, Disrupt offers unparalleled resources, connections, and expert insights to propel your venture forward.
Find innovation for every stage at Disrupt 2026
From idea to IPO, Disrupt 2026 will map out the path for startups to achieve their next major milestone.
Join 10,000 startup and VC leaders
Looking to meet founders, connect with investors, seek advice, or land your next big role? Disrupt is the must-attend event to make it all happen in person.
Build and scale your business faster
Disrupt is more than a startup launchpad — it’s a growth accelerator. Dive into sessions on scaling, sales, and leadership, and connect with the investors and tech experts who can help take your business to the next level.
Gain insights from today’s tech giants
Tap into the wisdom of founders and tech titans at Disrupt. From actionable tips to hard-won lessons, they’ll share what works (and what doesn’t) to guide you as you build your own path forward.
Past speakers
Meet this year’s growing speaker lineup
Chair and CEOGeneral Motors
Managing Partner and StewardSequoia Capital
Chief Executive OfficerSlack from Salesforce
Founder and CEOLumi and Super Bowl QB
FounderKhosla Ventures
Co-Founder / Founder and CEOWordPress / Automattic
NBA Superstar and PhilanthropistEntrepreneur
Co-Founder and CEOWiz
Founding & Managing PartnerSerena Ventures
Managing Partner at True VenturesTrue Ventures
Managing PartnerM13
Managing PartnerSlauson & Co.
Co-founder & Managing PartnerRevenge Capital
PartnerSapphire Ventures
CEO
Co-founder and CEOInertia
CEO & Co-founderGamma
FounderMignano Law Group
CEO and Co-founderGusto
Associate ProfessorHarvard Medical School
Head of Fraud and IdentityPlaid
PartnerIndex Ventures
Managing DirectorPeak XV
PartnerEmergence Capital
Founder and General PartnerPrecedent.vc
Vice President of Product, Google SearchGoogle
PartnerBessemer Venture Partners
VP, Talent NetworkRedpoint Ventures
PartnerRadical Ventures
CEOWebflow
CEO & Co-founderAirbyte
General Partner and FounderTheory Ventures
Founder & CEOSuperhuman
Chief Commercial OfficerAirspeeder
FounderCal AI
PartnerQED Investors
Founder & Managing PartnerInspired Capital Partners
Mary Barra is chair and chief executive officer of General Motors. She was elected chair of the GM Board of Directors in 2016 and has served as CEO of GM since 2014. Under Barra’s leadership, GM envisions a world with zero crashes, to save lives; zero emissions, so future generations can inherit a healthier planet; and zero congestion, so customers get back a precious commodity — time. She is focused on creating the best customer experience and strengthening GM’s core vehicle and services business, while also working to deliver transformative technologies such as electrification, autonomous driving, and software. Prior to becoming CEO, Barra served as GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, and as senior vice president, Global Product Development. In these roles, Barra and her teams were responsible for the design, engineering, and quality of GM vehicle launches worldwide. Previously, she served as vice president, Global Human Resources; vice president, Global Manufacturing Engineering; plant manager, Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly; and in several other executive engineering and staff positions. Barra began her career with GM in 1980 as a General Motors Institute (Kettering University) co-op student at the Pontiac Motor Division. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1985, followed by a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1990. Barra serves on the Board of Directors of the Walt Disney Company, the Duke University Board of Trustees, and the Detroit Economic Club.
Roelof is Managing Partner and Steward of Sequoia Capital. He has spent over 25 years building companies in Silicon Valley. He began within the walls of nascent PayPal, where he joined in March 2000 while completing his MBA at Stanford. He became CFO in 2001 and led the company through both its IPO in early 2002 and the subsequent acquisition by eBay. Roelof joined Sequoia in 2003 to help founders build enduring businesses. In 2017, he assumed leadership of Sequoia Capital’s US/Europe business and became a Steward of the Sequoia Partnership. Roelof is a Director of Block, Blues, Ethos, Flow, MongoDB, Natera, Pendulum Therapeutics, and Unity Technologies, among others. Previously, he was a Director of companies that include YouTube, Tumblr, Xoom, Eventbrite, and Evernote. He also led Sequoia’s investment in Instagram.
Denise Dresser is the CEO of Slack. For over 20 years, Denise has spearheaded business transformations within many of the world’s largest and most innovative companies. At Slack and as a part of Salesforce, Denise leads the team of Slack technologists, product innovators, marketers, communicators, and customer success professionals who are grounded in Slack’s mission to make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. Denise previously served as President of Accelerated Industries Sales at Salesforce, leading the distribution and go-to-market strategy for some of Salesforce’s most strategic accounts and for the company’s industry-leading cloud solutions. Prior to Salesforce, she was a sales leader at Oracle. Denise graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a member of the Ad Council Board of Directors, a passionate mentor to future women leaders and top talent, and the executive sponsor for ALSForce, a Salesforce equality group focused on raising awareness about ALS. Denise is based in San Francisco and is the mom to two amazing teenage boys.
Colin Kaepernick is the founder and CEO of Lumi, a groundbreaking platform that empowers creators by providing them with the tools needed to independently create, publish, and merchandise their stories both digitally and physically. In 2016, he took a knee during “The Star Spangled Banner” to bring attention to systemic oppressions against Black and Brown people, and quickly became known as one of America’s foremost civil rights activists. As an NFL player, Colin led the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII and is the holder of the all-time NFL record for most rushing yards in a game by a quarterback. He has been awarded a number of prestigious honors, including Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope honor, GQ magazine’s “Citizen of the Year,” the NFL’s Len Eshmont Award, the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, the ACLU’s Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award, and the Puffin/Nation Institute’s Prize for Creative Citizenship. Since 2016, he has founded and helped to fund three organizations — Know Your Rights Camp, Kaepernick Media, and Kaepernick Publishing — that together advance the liberation of Black and Brown people through storytelling, systems change, and political education. In 2019, Kaepernick helped Nike win an Emmy for its “Dream Crazy” commercial. In 2021, Colin released Colin in Black & White, a six-episode limited series on Netflix exploring his high school years, which won two NAACP Image Awards. In 2022, he became a New York Times bestselling author for his acclaimed children’s picture book, “I Color Myself Different.” He will release his next children’s book, “We Are Free, You and Me” in October 2024, co-authored with his wife Nessa and published in partnership with Scholastic.
Vinod Khosla is an entrepreneur, investor, and technology fan. He is the founder of Khosla Ventures, focused on impactful technology investments in software, AI, robotics, 3D printing, healthcare and more. Mr. Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy systems and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. One of Mr. Khosla’s greatest passions is being a mentor to entrepreneurs, assisting entrepreneurs and helping them build technology-based businesses. Mr. Khosla is driven by the desire to make a positive impact through technology to reinvent societal infrastructure and multiply resources. He is also passionate about Social Entrepreneurship. Vinod holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from IIT, New Delhi, a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Matt Mullenweg is co-founder of the open source publishing platform WordPress, which now powers over 40% of all sites on the web. He is the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, WPVIP, Day One, Beeper, and Pocket Casts. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital, an investment and research company. He has been recognized for his leadership by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc. Magazine, TechCrunch, Fortune, Fast Company, Wired, University Philosophical Society, and Vanity Fair. Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. He currently splits his time between Houston and San Francisco.
NBA superstar, philanthropist, and renowned successful business entrepreneur Shaquille O’Neal — known around the world as Shaq — is a true cultural icon who brings his inspiring story and unbeatable lessons in leadership and business to life at every smash-hit event. After spending nearly two decades racking up accolades in the NBA (15x NBA All-Star, 4x NBA Champion, and a 3x NBA Finals MVP), Shaq is heralded for his tremendous business savvy — he got his MBA back in 2005 — and his insights and advice on business success and diversification have been featured in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, Money, and more. O’Neal has become a bona fide mogul, investing in companies like Google, Apple, and Ring, and becoming the second-largest individual shareholder of Authentic Brands Group, as well as franchising storefronts like Big Chicken, Papa Johns, and Krispy Kreme, among a myriad of notable entrepreneurial ventures.
Assaf Rappaport is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wiz, the world’s fastest-growing startup securing everything organizations build and run in the cloud. Wiz serves over 40% of the Fortune 100 and has raised over $1.9 billion at a $12 billion valuation in just four years, with investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, Howard Schultz, and others. Before founding Wiz, Assaf was the founder and CEO of the security company Adallom, which was acquired by Microsoft for $320 million in 2015. He then served as Microsoft’s youngest-ever General Manager, overseeing the company’s Cloud Security Group and Israeli R&D Center.
As a world-class athlete, businesswoman, philanthropist and mother, Serena Williams knows what it takes to win. She has persevered to become one of the top tennis players in history with 23 Grand Slam titles. Serena began actively investing nine years ago when she saw the impact that startups had on everyday lives; in building Serena Ventures, she has been able to multiply that effort with over $110M in investment capital.
Puneet Agarwal is a managing partner at True Ventures, a leading early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2005. With a foundational mission to empower entrepreneurs at the initial stages of company creation, True has partnered with over 1,050 Founders across more than 500 companies. The firm’s 12 funds have been a part of seven IPOs and over 60 acquisitions. While he’s interested in all aspects of technology, Puneet focuses on enterprise infrastructure and applications, particularly as they are being reinvented by AI. Puneet began his career as a product manager at CrossWorlds Software, a startup focused on software integration, which IBM acquired in 2001. Puneet later worked in technology investment banking at J.P. Morgan and in venture capital at the Mayfield Fund, where he invested in early stage technology companies. At BEA Systems, Puneet held various product management and marketing roles over four years, where he formed and ran BEA’s RFID initiative. Following BEA, Puneet joined Geodesic Systems, a mobile messaging company, as VP of Product Management. His Geodesic role later took him to India, before he joined True in 2008. Puneet holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in industrial engineering with honors from Stanford University, where he was a Mayfield Fellow. When he’s not partnering with Founders, he’s navigating life with his wife and three children.
Puneet's Sessions
Winning Pre-Seed Without a Product
Founders are increasingly expected to compete for capital before they even have a product. At the pre-seed stage, investors are betting on story, conviction, and founder-market fit. This session breaks down how to build credibility before revenue exists so investors will cut that first check.
Karl Alomar is an investor and serial entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience scaling venture-backed businesses, and is the Managing Partner of M13, an early-stage firm backing visionary software founders at seed and Series A. At M13, he focuses on infrastructure technology across fintech, developer productivity, and the future of work, with a particular emphasis on how AI and web3 are reshaping these categories. Karl spends his time across all aspects of the firm, from leading investing to overseeing M13’s Propulsion platform team and running the underlying organization. He is best known for building DigitalOcean, one of the fastest-growing cloud infrastructure companies, where he served as COO and helped scale the business from first product to roughly $250 million in ARR and an eventual IPO on the NYSE (DOCN), at which point the company’s valuation peaked around $15 billion. Before M13 and DigitalOcean, Karl co-founded and served as CEO of China Export Finance, growing the business to approximately $140 million in revenue before its acquisition in 2010, and co-founded and led Clearview Networks, which was acquired in 2000. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London.
Karl's Sessions
M&A Is Now an Early-Stage Strategy
The smartest founders today aren’t just building for IPOs, they’re also building for possible acquisitions in mind from day one. As exits shift and capital tightens, understanding M&A early has become a competitive advantage. This session breaks down how founders can create the possibility of such an option through product strategy and partnerships. It delves into how big-dollar startup outcomes actually happen, even for small companies.
Austin Clements is a Managing Partner at Slauson & Co., a Los Angeles based early-stage venture capital firm rooted in economic inclusion. There he focuses on investing in tech tools that empower small business owners. Within the firm, he also developed an accelerator called Friends & Family, to provide capital, guidance, and resources to entrepreneurs at the beginning of their journey. Clements was previously at venture capital firm TenOneTen Ventures, after beginning his career in investment management with AllianceBernstein. He also founded Pi Digital Media, a firm that developed web and mobile applications for small businesses across the country. Clements was the founding Chair of PledgeLA, a city-wide initiative created by Annenberg Foundation and the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office to promote diversity in the tech community. He is currently a trustee for Knight Foundation in Miami. He previously served on the board of Library Foundation of Los Angeles where he served on the investment committee and HBCUvc where he helped create programs to create pathways for underrepresented professionals to find roles in venture capital. Clements is a Kauffman Fellow who received his MBA from NYU Stern and his BA from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA.
Austin's Sessions
Winning Pre-Seed Without a Product
Founders are increasingly expected to compete for capital before they even have a product. At the pre-seed stage, investors are betting on story, conviction, and founder-market fit. This session breaks down how to build credibility before revenue exists so investors will cut that first check.
Nell Daly is a Founding and Managing Partner of Revenge Capital. Previously, roles include Capital Strategist and Head of Sports, Talent and Venture of The Together Group, a global creative agency roll-up, and the CCO of The Female Quotient, a US based media company advancing equality in the workplace. She has worked with some of the world’s most influential brands and such as Google, iHeart, Spotify, Facebook, TED and F1. She’s moderated panels at WEF, CES, Sundance Film Festival and many more. Nell started her career as a clinical social worker, championing social justice causes, especially around anti-discrimination issues and women’s rights. Nell’s been featured as a social and political commentator across numerous outlets including CNN, CNBC, Fox News, ABC Radio, and top ranked podcasts and publications such as Elle, Glamour, The Times, and Men’s Health. Nell has an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and a MSW from NYU. She lives in Connecticut with her three children, and bases her work out of New York and London.
Nell's Sessions
Yes, It’s Hard to be a Founder: an Honest Conversation
Company building is as psychologically demanding as it is strategic, and most founder narratives understate that reality. In this candid conversation, founders and experts unpack the hidden costs of high growth environments, from burnout and decision fatigue to the identity strain of sustained pressure, and share the systems, habits, and mental frameworks that help leaders endure and perform at a high level.
Rajeev is a Partner at Sapphire Ventures and has been investing for nearly 15 years across a few dozen companies. He is focused on partnering with exceptional founders building category-defining B2B software companies in horizontal and vertical AI, as well as leading innovators in fintech and healthcare. Rajeev’s notable investments include Glean, monday.com, Square, Wise, Braze, Moveworks, Segment, Mercury and Livongo Health. Prior to Sapphire Ventures, Rajeev invested in software companies for Silver Lake, a technology-focused private equity firm. Early on in his career, he worked for the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs and while in business school, worked with Amazon’s corporate development group.
Rajeev's Sessions
PMF Red Flags: How to Tell If You Really Have It
In an AI hype cycle, product market fit signals are easier to fake and harder to trust. Founders are mistaking early excitement, usage spikes, and pilot wins for durable traction. This session breaks down what false PMF actually looks like, how investors and operators separate real retention from hype driven adoption, and the signals that indicate whether a company has true pull or just temporary momentum.
Dr. David Kirtley is the founder and CEO at Helion, a privately funded fusion company focused on magneto-inertial fusion generators. He is passionate about inventing and developing disruptive technologies that will improve access to energy, reduce carbon emissions, and provide a better future for following generations. Dr. Kirtley is an NSF and NASA Advanced Concepts Fellow with expertise in high-Beta plasmas for energy and space propulsion applications.
David's Sessions
The AI Power Crisis: Who's Solving the Datacenter Energy Problem
AI is scaling faster than the grid that powers it. As datacenters push toward gigawatt level demand, hyperscalers are racing to secure energy and rethink compute infrastructure. This session breaks down what’s real versus hype, where startups can still win across cooling, power management, and energy procurement, and how grid constraints, permitting, and policy will shape the next wave of AI infrastructure.
Jeff Lawson builds and scales companies that redefine what is possible. He’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Inertia, the commercial fusion energy company. There, he is taking the only proven physics for fusion energy ignition and bringing it to the grid. A serial founder and inventor, Jeff scaled Twilio as its co-founder and CEO into a public company with over $4B in revenue and 300,000 worldwide customers. He defined the business model of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as the first product leader at Amazon Web Services from 2004 to 2006, and was the founding CTO of StubHub. He also owns The Onion.
Jeff's Sessions
Building the Next Era of Software Infrastructure
AI is reshaping how software gets built, scaled, and deployed, creating new opportunities across infrastructure and developer tools. In this fireside, Jeff Lawson of Inertia shares lessons from building at scale, what founders are underestimating about the next computing shift, and where the biggest infrastructure opportunities are emerging as AI transforms the software stack.
Grant Lee is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gamma, the AI-powered presentation and website design tool that has scaled beyond 70 million customers and $100M in ARR with only 50 employees. A Stanford-trained engineer with a background in finance and operations, Grant spent much of his early career creating countless slide decks, a pain point that inspired him to found Gamma and reimagine how people share ideas. Before Gamma, he served as COO of ClearBrain (acquired by Amplitude) and CFO of Optimizely.
Grant's Sessions
The Zero-to-1K Playbook: How to Get Your First 1,000 Customers Without a Marketing Budget
Early customer acquisition is not about marketing spend, it’s about founder led distribution and relentless execution. Most startups at zero to one do not have budget, brand, or scale, only urgency and creativity. This session breaks down how founders are landing their first customers through community building, product led growth, founder led sales, strategic outbound, and word of mouth momentum.
Lindsey S. Mignano represents emerging technology companies and industry-adjacent firms and SMEs as their outside general counsel. Her team’s practice includes: SAFE note or priced round raises for early stage (Seed through Series B) startups, including bridge/extension rounds. Buy-side or sell-side acquisitions, including asset sales plus acquihires or entity acquisitions, including due diligence and any novations of existing customer contracts; Flips from abroad entity structures to a DE C Corp structure for the purposes of procuring American venture capital, and the related priced round; Corporate restructuring in order to achieve tax optimization for raises, sales, or cofounder exits/business divorces; Corporate due diligence and clean up in preparation for a raise or sale, including due diligence and clean up related to stock grants, IP assignments, commercial contracts, etc.; IP spinouts, particularly transferring IP out of consulting businesses into a C Corp structure for QSBS or venture capital fundraising purposes; and Outside general counsel services. Most of her clients are venture-capital funded at the Seed ($1-5M+ range), Series A ($10M+ range), and Series B ($20M+ range). In terms of verticals, her most popular vertical includes enterprise SaaS/PaaS companies, many of whom are AI technology companies. Her other clients include venture capital firms deploying capital to startups and other adjacent businesses who sell to or otherwise do business with technology companies.
Lindsey's Sessions
M&A Is Now an Early-Stage Strategy
The smartest founders today aren’t just building for IPOs, they’re also building for possible acquisitions in mind from day one. As exits shift and capital tightens, understanding M&A early has become a competitive advantage. This session breaks down how founders can create the possibility of such an option through product strategy and partnerships. It delves into how big-dollar startup outcomes actually happen, even for small companies.
Josh Reeves is the CEO and co-founder of Gusto, helping 500,000 companies nationwide with payroll, health insurance, compliance, employee onboarding, HR, retirement savings, and more. By combining the power of AI with more than a decade of experience supporting small businesses, Gusto exists to power builders – giving them the capabilities, confidence, and technology to start, hire, pay, and grow. Josh leads the company on its mission to grow the small business economy with technology and heart, so that anyone can turn ambition into action, build a meaningful business on their own terms, and be successful doing it.
Josh's Sessions
Hiring When AI Is a Co-Founder
Early-stage companies are no longer just building with AI, they’re hiring it. As AI agents take on engineering, support, and operations, the definition of an early team is being rewritten. This session explores how founders decide what humans should own versus what gets delegated to AI, and how high-growth startups are building hybrid teams without losing speed, accountability, or culture.
David H. Rosmarin, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, and Chief Clinical Officer of the LINKS Network. A clinical psychologist, noted author, and award-winning keynote speaker, he helps leaders and organizations transform anxiety from a liability into clarity, resilience, and high performance. His work has been featured on Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and TED.com.
David H.'s Sessions
Yes, It’s Hard to be a Founder: an Honest Conversation
Company building is as psychologically demanding as it is strategic, and most founder narratives understate that reality. In this candid conversation, founders and experts unpack the hidden costs of high growth environments, from burnout and decision fatigue to the identity strain of sustained pressure, and share the systems, habits, and mental frameworks that help leaders endure and perform at a high level.
Pedro Sanzovo is Head of Fraud at Plaid, where he leads the team developing the models and tools that help companies detect more fraud, earlier, leveraging Plaid’s network intelligence of a billion devices interacting across 9,,000+ apps. Pedro has spent his career developing anti-fraud and identity technology. Prior to Plaid, he was the VP of Product at Signifyd, where he led the company’s expansion into new solutions for fighting fraud in digital commerce. Pedro joined Signifyd following the acquisition of a startup he founded, Legiti, an anti-fraud platform for ecommerce companies in Latin America. Pedro began his career at Palantir Technologies and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Pedro's Sessions
Trust, AI Agents & Verification in Financial Infrastructure
Payments, investing, and financial infrastructure are being rebuilt in real time. In this fireside, Abhishek Fatehpuria, Head of Product at Robinhood, explores how new technologies, changing consumer behavior, and evolving financial rails are reshaping the way money moves, and what it takes to build trusted financial products at massive scale.
Jahanvi Sardana is an early-stage and growth investor at Index Ventures in New York, where she partners with founders building category-defining companies in AI, enterprise software, healthcare, and financial services. Since joining Index she has led investments across these categories and serves on the boards or works with companies including Sublime Security, Thatch, Crosby Legal, and others. Her investment philosophy is simple: invest for strength, not for the absence of weakness. “In the end, I think amazing success can be achieved by highly imperfect people,” she says. “What matters is finding alignment in values and conviction in a founder’s spike, an area of extreme competence or insight that will give them unfair advantage. The rest we can work on together.” Before Index, Jahanvi invested at Stripes, backing companies like Island, Axonius, Lithic, and Oyster. She holds a B.S. in Finance and Business Analytics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Jahanvi's Sessions
The Series A in 2027
Series A is getting harder, with VCs growing more demanding. For founders planning to raise in the next 1–2 years, this session breaks down what “fundable” will actually mean in 2027. Hear how top investors are redefining the metrics, teams, and traction that matter now, what outdated fundraising playbooks no longer work, and how companies can separate from the pack in the next funding cycle.
Shailendra Singh is a Managing Director at Peak XV (formerly known as Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia). He joined the firm in 2006 and has served as its leader since 2011. Peak XV has partnered with over 500 companies spanning technology, software, financial services and consumer sectors across the world. The portfolio has seen 36 IPOs, multiple successful M&As and currently has 51 companies with over $100M in revenues. Shailendra has led investments in several category leaders including Supabase, PostHog, Pine Labs, CRED, GoTo, Druva and Sirion. He received an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School (HBS) and currently serves on the HBS Board of Dean’s Advisors as well as the Board of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). He holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from IIT Bombay, and is also a Kauffman Fellow.
Shailendra's Sessions
The Series A in 2027
Series A is getting harder, with VCs growing more demanding. For founders planning to raise in the next 1–2 years, this session breaks down what “fundable” will actually mean in 2027. Hear how top investors are redefining the metrics, teams, and traction that matter now, what outdated fundraising playbooks no longer work, and how companies can separate from the pack in the next funding cycle.
Carlotta “Lotti” is a Partner at Emergence Capital. She joined the firm in 2018 as a Senior Associate and was named Principal in 2020. Less than a year later, Lotti was promoted to Partner as a result of the extraordinary impact she has had on the firm, the team, and the companies Emergence backs. Lotti’s strong investor acumen and long-term perspective are instrumental in uncovering compelling and unique investment opportunities, and in leading operational change. She has an outstanding ability to understand complex business structures and to apply that knowledge both in her diligence and at the board table. At Emergence, Lotti invests in early stage enterprise software companies. She serves on the Board of Directors of Whistic and of High Alpha, and is a Board Observer at Convex, Talent Hack, and Oyster. Being an immigrant herself (originally from Italy), she is passionate about helping immigrants and other underrepresented founders build iconic technology companies. She is also a fierce advocate for women in the Venture Capital industry. Lotti brings to Emergence a deep understanding of fintech, where she spent several years both as an operator and as an investor. For three years, she was an investor in financial services and financial technology companies at Advent International, a large global private equity fund, where she was also an observer on the Transunion board. She also spent time in the BizOps group at Nerdwallet and was an early stage investor at Ribbit Capital, a fintech-focused VC, where she led diligence on companies in the cyber insurance and 401K space. Lotti began her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. She received a Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated cum laude, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Carlotta (Lotti)'s Sessions
The New Rails: Stablecoins, Real-Time Payments & Settlement
Stablecoins and real time payments are reshaping the global movement of money. This session explores how new settlement rails are competing with traditional infrastructure, where FedNow and private systems fit into the future of payments, and which regulatory and liquidity shifts will matter most over the next 18 months. Hear where the new financial rails are proving resilient, and where the cracks are starting to show.
TaskRabbit founder Leah Solivan is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and board leader who has spent more than two decades building and scaling products that improve how people live and work. She is the Founder and Managing Director of Precedent.vc, an early-stage venture capital fund backing category-defining technology companies, and continues to serve as a General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she has invested across consumer technology, marketplaces, retail, education, and hardware. Leah founded TaskRabbit in 2008, pioneering one of the first large-scale on-demand marketplaces and helping shape the modern gig economy. As CEO for eight years, she scaled the company internationally across 44 cities, raised more than $50 million in venture capital, and ultimately led the company through its successful acquisition by IKEA in 2017. Before founding TaskRabbit, Leah spent seven years as a software engineer at IBM working on products including Lotus Notes and Domino. She currently serves on the boards of PetMeds and the San Francisco Ballet, and previously served as Chair of the YPO Pacific US Region. A proud Latina leader, Leah is a passionate advocate for diversity, entrepreneurship, and the future of work.
Leah's Sessions
The Zero-to-1K Playbook: How to Get Your First 1,000 Customers Without a Marketing Budget
Early customer acquisition is not about marketing spend, it’s about founder led distribution and relentless execution. Most startups at zero to one do not have budget, brand, or scale, only urgency and creativity. This session breaks down how founders are landing their first customers through community building, product led growth, founder led sales, strategic outbound, and word of mouth momentum.
Robby Stein is Vice President of Product, Google Search, working on the development of generative AI products and experiences that help people search and access information effortlessly. Robby started his career at Google in 2007 where he worked on new product launches for Gmail and ads. Today, Robby has over 17 years of experience as a product leader and entrepreneur, and several products Robby and his teams have built are now among the most widely used in the world. Before rejoining Google in 2024, he was the Head of Product at Artifact, an AI-powered newsfeed. Robby also led consumer products at Instagram for 5 years – where he built and scaled the products and teams around Stories, Feed, Direct Messaging and Reels. Prior to these, Robby was the co-founder and CEO of Stamped, a social recommendations startup acquired by Yahoo in 2011.
Robby's Sessions
From MVP to Billions of Users: How Product Decisions Must Change at Scale
The instincts that win when building your first minimum viable product can break you at a billion-user scale. In this fireside, Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google, shares how product decision making changes when every update impacts billions of users. Hear how teams balance speed with trust, and innovation with reliability, at one of the world’s largest product organizations.
Janelle Teng Wade is a partner at Bessemer where she focuses primarily on early-stage investments in AI/ML apps, data infrastructure, developer platforms, and defense tech. She specializes in applied AI and is passionate about supporting highly technical teams and founders from research backgrounds. Currently, Janelle serves as a board director or observer for Claroty, Coactive, Moonvalley, Render, TurbineOne, and Virtru. Janelle developed many of Bessemer’s AI infrastructure, data tooling, and defense tech frameworks. Additionally, she is a co-author of Bessemer’s annual State of the Cloud Report and Bessemer Growth’s Scaling to $100MM Series. Before joining Bessemer, Janelle was a product manager at SalesforceIQ (formerly RelateIQ) where she led mobile development for Salesforce Inbox and was one of the inventors of Einstein Email Insights. She began her career as a business analyst at McKinsey and Company. A science enthusiast at heart, Janelle studied human biology and economics at Stanford University, where she graduated with academic distinction and departmental honors. She also earned an MBA at Harvard Business School. Outside of work, you can find Janelle skiing, hiking, or writing her Substack.
Janelle's Sessions
The Series A in 2027
Series A is getting harder, with VCs growing more demanding. For founders planning to raise in the next 1–2 years, this session breaks down what “fundable” will actually mean in 2027. Hear how top investors are redefining the metrics, teams, and traction that matter now, what outdated fundraising playbooks no longer work, and how companies can separate from the pack in the next funding cycle.
Atli Thorkelsson is the VP of Talent Network at Redpoint Ventures, where he advises founders on building outperforming teams and connects them top executive candidates and advisors. He previously worked at SPMB Executive Search, holds dual degrees from UC Berkeley, and grew up in the Bay Area and Iceland.
Atli's Sessions
Hiring, Compensation and Culture in the Most Competitive Market Ever
No question about it, the growth of AI startups has made hiring and retention for all tech companies more difficult. From competing for AI talent to secondary sales, founders are rethinking the human infrastructure of their startups. As hiring, incentives, and employee expectations rapidly evolve, this session explores how companies are adapting compensation, culture, and team building strategies to attract and retain top talent in a fundamentally changed startup environment.
Rob Toews is a partner at Radical Ventures and leads the firm’s SF office. He writes a regular column in Forbes about the big picture of artificial intelligence. Before becoming a VC, Rob spent many years in the world of autonomous vehicles, including leading Zoox’s strategy team and working on autonomous vehicle policy as a staffer in the Obama White House. He started his career at Bain & Company. Rob holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA from Stanford.
Rob's Sessions
What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap
Nearly all AI founders have the same worry these days: what if OpenAI or Anthropic launch a product that competes with mine? Even strong products are at risk of becoming features of the larger players. This session explores where defensibility exists, and what founders can do if they do face competition from rapidly evolving AI giants.
Linda Tong is the CEO of Webflow, the leading visual development platform for building powerful websites without writing code. Prior to her role as CEO, Linda served as President and COO at Webflow, overseeing go-to-market and general administrative functions. During her tenure, Linda has played a pivotal role in guiding the company through significant growth, serving hundreds of thousands of global customers and achieving substantial revenue milestones. Linda brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record of leadership from her executive roles at Cisco, NFL, and Google. Additionally, she currently serves as an advisor to CruxOCM and sits on the board of directors at Prezi and Hex. She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University.
Linda's Sessions
What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap
Nearly all AI founders have the same worry these days: what if OpenAI or Anthropic launch a product that competes with mine? Even strong products are at risk of becoming features of the larger players. This session explores where defensibility exists, and what founders can do if they do face competition from rapidly evolving AI giants.
As CEO & Co-Founder, Michel has grown Airbyte into the leading open-source data integration platform, known for its extensive connector library and flexible self-hosting. The company has raised $181M from the likes of Accel, Benchmark, and Y Combinator, reaching a $1.5B valuation, and is used by over 7,000 customers (including 18% of the Fortune 500), such as Siemens, Perplexity, Monday.com, Calendly, and Invesco. With over 600 connectors and 250,000+ deployments, it powers data movement across analytics, operations, governance, and AI—supporting both structured and unstructured data in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Prior to founding Airbyte, Michel served as Director of Engineering at rideOS and led data integrations at LiveRamp, where he helped shape foundational innovations in data infrastructure and engineering. He holds a Master of Science (M.S.) in Computer Science from EPITA (École d’Ingénieurs en Informatique).
Michel's Sessions
What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap
Nearly all AI founders have the same worry these days: what if OpenAI or Anthropic launch a product that competes with mine? Even strong products are at risk of becoming features of the larger players. This session explores where defensibility exists, and what founders can do if they do face competition from rapidly evolving AI giants.
Tomasz Tunguz is the founder of Theory Ventures, investing in early-stage AI, data, and blockchain companies. Previously, Tomasz was an MD at Redpoint and a product manager at Google, managing a billion dollar business unit on the AdSense team. As an investor, he’s worked with nine unicorns predominantly in data and data infrastructure, including Looker, Monte Carlo, Dremio, Hex, Omni, Mother Duck. He writes a blog at tomtunguz.com that drives millions of page visits per month, featuring his analyses of GTM strategies, earnings, and trends across private and public technology companies.
Tomasz's Sessions
The 90-Day GTM: Why $0–$10M ARR Is the New Baseline (And How to Actually Get There)
The definition of traction has changed. What once took years is now expected in months, and $0–$10M ARR is increasingly becoming the new early stage baseline. This session breaks down how AI enabled execution, faster distribution, and shifting investor expectations are compressing GTM timelines, and the tactical levers founders need in the first 90 days to accelerate revenue and stand out fast.
Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of email app Superhuman.
Rahul's Sessions
PMF Red Flags: How to Tell If You Really Have It
In an AI hype cycle, product market fit signals are easier to fake and harder to trust. Founders are mistaking early excitement, usage spikes, and pilot wins for durable traction. This session breaks down what false PMF actually looks like, how investors and operators separate real retention from hype driven adoption, and the signals that indicate whether a company has true pull or just temporary momentum.
Jack Withinshaw is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Airspeeder, the world’s first electric flying car racing series. Jack leads the company’s commercial strategy, partnerships, and global growth. His background spans media, technology, and early-stage ventures, where he has built and led commercial teams across multiple markets. At Airspeeder, he is focused on turning breakthrough aerospace technology into a scalable, sustainable global sport through partnerships, events, and new commercial models.
Jack's Sessions
Yes, It’s Hard to be a Founder: an Honest Conversation
Company building is as psychologically demanding as it is strategic, and most founder narratives understate that reality. In this candid conversation, founders and experts unpack the hidden costs of high growth environments, from burnout and decision fatigue to the identity strain of sustained pressure, and share the systems, habits, and mental frameworks that help leaders endure and perform at a high level.
Zach Yadegari is a 19-year-old entrepreneur and the founder of Cal AI, an AI-powered nutrition tracking app that lets users log their meals by simply taking a photo. His entrepreneurial journey began at age 7, when he taught himself to code. He was building and selling online ventures before he was a teenager. At 17, Zach co-founded Cal AI during his senior year of high school. In under two years, he scaled the company to 15 million users and $30 million in ARR, a trajectory that caught the attention of one of the most recognized names in health and fitness. In December 2025, Cal AI was acquired by MyFitnessPal. Before Cal AI, Zach founded Totally Science, a gaming platform that drew over 5 million users during the COVID-19 pandemic and sold for a six-figure sum at age 16. Zach is one of the youngest founders to lead a successful exit in the consumer health tech space.
Zach's Sessions
How To Create Viral Growth and Capitalize On It
Startups can go from zero to viral overnight, but sustaining that momentum is a completely different challenge. In this fireside, Zach Yadegari shares how Cal AI navigated rapid growth, product pressure, and the realities of building in a distribution driven market. Hear the lessons behind turning breakout attention into durable retention and long term company building.
Jack's Sessions
Rebuilding Global Finance for the Internet Economy
Global payments and financial infrastructure were not built for the speed of modern internet businesses. In this fireside, Jack Zhang, cofounder and CEO of Airwallex, shares how companies are rethinking cross border finance, global money movement, and embedded financial services, and what it takes to build financial infrastructure at worldwide scale.
Victoria is a partner at QED on the early stage domestic team. She joined QED in May 2022 as a principal based in San Francisco where she has a focus on investments in early stage fintech and commerce businesses. Prior to joining QED, Victoria helped lead fintech investing at Gradient Ventures, Google’s early stage venture fund, where she worked with founders building the next generation of fintech and commerce tech in categories like insurance, e-commerce, application software transaction processing and core fintech infrastructure. Victoria started her career in tech M&A at Qatalyst Partners, advising founders in their sell-side processes on more than $20 billion in M&A transactions. Victoria received her B.A. and M.S. in economics and engineering at Stanford University. Prior to college, Victoria was born and raised in Nanjing, China, and continues to draw inspiration from the boom in commerce innovation in Asia.
Victoria's Sessions
Trust, AI Agents & Verification in Financial Infrastructure
Payments, investing, and financial infrastructure are being rebuilt in real time. In this fireside, Abhishek Fatehpuria, Head of Product at Robinhood, explores how new technologies, changing consumer behavior, and evolving financial rails are reshaping the way money moves, and what it takes to build trusted financial products at massive scale.
Alexa is the Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital. Prior to Inspired Capital, Alexa founded LearnVest in 2008 with the goal of helping people make progress on their money. After raising nearly $75 million in venture capital, LearnVest was acquired by Northwestern Mutual in May 2015 in one of the biggest fintech acquisitions of the decade. Following the acquisition, von Tobel joined the management team of Northwestern Mutual as the company’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer. She later assumed the role of Chief Innovation Officer through which she oversaw Northwestern Mutual’s venture arm. Alexa, who holds a Certified Financial Planner™ designation, is the New York Times-Bestselling Author of Financially Fearless and Financially Forward. She is also the host of The Founders Project with Alexa von Tobel, a weekly podcast with Inc. that highlights top entrepreneurs. Alexa is a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and an inaugural member of President Obama’s Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship. She has been honored with numerous recognitions including: a Forbes Magazine cover story, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30, and World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader. Originally from Florida, Alexa attended Harvard College and Harvard Business School before settling in New York City where she currently resides with her husband, Cliff, and three children, Toby, Cashel, and Rosey.
Alexa's Sessions
The High-Conviction Filter: What We Learned from the Battlefield
What separated the breakout companies from the rest at Disrupt 2026? In this candid debrief, Battlefield judges unpack the trends and founder qualities that stood out in real time, from shifting investor expectations to the narratives that resonated most this year. The conversation will also explore how startup storytelling is evolving and what happens after the spotlight, including the realities of maintaining momentum and surviving the critical 12 months after a major launch, funding round, or Battlefield appearance.
Reasons not to miss Disrupt
Disrupt 2026 news and updates
Platinum Partners
Partnership Opportunities
TechCrunch offers many ways for partners to engage directly with our attendees before, during, and after the event. If you’re interested in learning more about how your company can be part of the event, get in touch with our sales team below.
Location
Upcoming TechCrunch Events
Save up to $190 with Early Bird
TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026
Join 1,000+ founders and investors in Boston:
- Curated networking
- Q&A breakouts
- Dynamic roundtables
- Valuable takeaways
- Accelerate scaling
StrictlyVC Athens
The next stop in the StrictlyVC series happens on May 27 in Athens. Europe’s top tech leaders take the stage to share what’s now and what’s next. Connect with the ones driving it forward. Limited capacity.
Subscribe
Event Updates
Get the latest event announcements, special discounts and other event offers.
Partner with TechCrunch
TechCrunch offers many ways for partners to engage directly with our attendees before, during, and after the event. Get in touch with us to learn more.
