Thank you to everyone who made this year’s San Francisco event what it was – and thank you, too, to the 10,000 of you who filled the hall, made connections and left with more than you brought. Couldn’t make it? The images below offer a glimpse of what you missed.
until next year.
Vinod Khosla told attendees that he does not accept the argument that empowering AI will ruin climate efforts. Geothermal energy is almost here, he said, while fusion is still out there. He also spoke on his rapport with President Donald Trump (regulation) and his disagreements (immigration): “The only thing I would say is that this administration won’t last forever,” he said, smiling.
It’s Roelof Botha on stage, and it’s the crowd that has come to pay attention to his every word. The Sequoia partner talked about how his firm picks the winners and what government ownership could mean in startups, and warned founders not to mess with time, telling them to raise money now if they need it six months from now. Bubbles burst.
Kevin Damoa of Glide Technologies, winner of this year’s Battlefield competition, with Battlefield principal Isabelle Johannessen. He and TC’s Michael Schick work with dozens of startups for months to prepare them for this stage. hugs are earned,
Roy Lee, founder of Cluly, the app known for his mantra “cheat in everything,” entertains the crowd with his F-bomb-filled outlook on how to win at marketing. “Every day, people are doing crazier and crazier things, which is why to stand out, you have to do something even crazier.” (Pictured at left, Maxwell Zeff, holding his hand.)
If former Cleveland Cavaliers Tristan Thompson misses the NBA, he’s not showing it. He’s building a business empire and raising sharp questions about the league he left. When asked whether players could be manipulating Basketball Fun – a Web3 platform that turns NBA players into tradable tokens – he responded: “It’s the same question we ask about referees. Aren’t they gaming the system?” When moderator Rebecca Bellon pressed whether he meant NBA referees take bribes, Thompson shrugged. “It’s just a question that needs to be asked,” he said.
techcrunch event
san francisco
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October 13-15, 2026
Our own Sean O’Kane shared a moment with Wave’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Kendall. Kendall may also be smiling because his UK-based self-driving startup – whose software acts as “brains for cars” – is in talks to raise a new $2 billion from SoftBank and Microsoft at a valuation of $8 billion.
Phoebe Gates and Sofia Kiani, founders of AI-powered shopping assistant Fia, amazed the audience at Disrupt with their enthusiasm for making it much easier to find high-quality, secondhand clothing. Gates, the daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates, was also playing when moderator Amanda Silberling asked her what her famous parents had learned from her. Gates laughed, saying, “Hopefully style! I don’t even consider myself that stylish; I just love creating in the consumer space, but now I get random emails from my family, ‘Should I wear this with this?'”
Waymo co-CEO Takedra Mwakana, along with TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec, raised questions about autonomous vehicles, including whether society will accept deaths caused by self-driving cars. “I think society will do that,” Mwakana said. “The challenge is to ensure that society has adequate safety standards for companies.”
Kevin Rose talks Digg’s reboot and the future of venture capital (Rose is also a general partner at early-stage venture firm True Ventures). I’m smiling because that’s what you do when no one answers your questions about some buzzy, wearables startup that’s still under wraps. (We’ll have more sand Soon.)
Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf is weighing in amid questions about building the future of AI, including Hugging Face’s project Lerobot, which is trying to democratize robotics with affordable hardware, open source tools and shared datasets.
The finalists were judged by MaC VC’s Marlon Nichols and Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee during the final stages of our highly competitive Startup Battlefield. Somewhere off-camera, a founder is sweating over his pitch deck.
Box’s Aaron Levy in conversation with TC’s Russell Brandom. Over TC’s 20 years at the center of the startup ecosystem, Levi has graced the Disrupt stage many times and he always brings it.
Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone on the streamer’s expanded scope from simple binge-watching to interactive programming (think voting on live shows and gaming through your phone): “It hasn’t changed the way we tell stories,” she told the excited crowd.
TC’s Dominic-Madori talks community building with Ted Oyerinde of Davis Campus, which is rethinking the community college, and Teddy Solomon of Fizz, the anonymous social app that is spreading on college campuses and sometimes getting banned, which some may see as a badge of honor.
A whiteboard of wants: developers needed, contacts offered, deals proposed. We love it when founders adopt old-fashioned strategies. (Some still work!)
David George, who leads the growth investing team at Andreessen Horowitz, came to the show to talk with Julie Bort about what startups need to weigh with an eye on the public market. As it turned out, it was his birthday; The crowd takes a moment here to celebrate it with him.
is here San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie discusses his call with President Trump on why not to send the National Guard to the city – a proposal by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “What I told him is the same thing I say to everybody: This is a city on the rise,” Lurie said. ,This should be proved by the disruption of three days here. On whether he made concessions to the deal-making Trump, he was ambivalent. “No, not at all. Don’t ask.”
A lot of people come from all over the world for programming on how to put together their startup. We covered all the bases on our Builders Stage, which was packed all day, every day.
TC’s Jessica Barrera cheers after the show, who handled ticketing for the 10,000 attendees. She saves our bacon regularly.
For more photos from the event, visit our website flickr stream,
You can also find our full video coverage: here day 1, day 2And third day,
