Builders Stage agenda revealed for Disrupt 2026

The Builders Stage is returning to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, bringing collectively founders, startup operators, and buyers for sensible conversations on what it takes to construct and scale profitable corporations.

Hear from startup and enterprise leaders shaping the tech ecosystem, together with Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma; Leah Solivan, founder and basic accomplice at Precedent.vc; Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google; and more. By way of candid conversations and real-world case research, audio system will share actionable insights on fundraising, hiring, go-to-market technique, AI, and the operational selections that gas startup progress.

Be part of greater than 10,000 founders, buyers, startup operators, and know-how leaders at Moscone Middle in San Francisco on October 13-15. Register today and save earlier than our subsequent ticket value enhance.

Constructed for founders who’re able to scale

Constructing a startup is one factor. Constructing an organization that may scale is one other problem solely. The Builders Stage is one of six industry-focused stages at Disrupt 2026, devoted to serving to founders navigate the challenges of progress, from elevating capital and hiring high expertise to constructing go-to-market engines and making ready for the bounce from seed to Sequence A.

Each session delivers sensible methods you may put to work instantly, plus alternatives to have interaction straight with audio system throughout reside Q&A. Secure your pass to Disrupt 2026 today and save as much as $330 earlier than charges enhance.

With out additional ado, right here’s your first have a look at the Builders Stage agenda, with more speakers and periods to be introduced as we get nearer to the occasion.

Builders Stage agenda

How one can Win When You’re Not Constructing AI

With Shan Shan, Funding Supervisor, Baillie Gifford; and Yuri Sagalov, Managing Director at Normal Catalyst

AI could dominate the world of enterprise, however many enduring corporations gained’t be people who promote AI fashions or brokers. This session is for founders competing for consideration in an AI-obsessed market. Panelists break down what truly issues now: environment friendly progress, retention, income high quality, and disciplined execution, and why fundamentals, not hype, nonetheless construct breakout companies.

What Occurs When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap

With Michel Tricot, CEO and Co-founder, Airbyte; Rob Toews, Associate, Radical Ventures; and Linda Tong, CEO, Webflow

Almost all AI founders have the identical fear as of late: What if OpenAI or Anthropic launches a product that competes with mine? Even sturdy merchandise are prone to turning into options of the bigger gamers. This session explores the place defensibility exists and what founders can do in the event that they do face competitors from quickly evolving AI giants.

Constructing the Subsequent Era of AI Giants

With Jas Khaira, World Head, Blackstone N1

AI startups are scaling quicker, and demanding extra capital, than any era earlier than them. Jas Khaira, World Head of Blackstone N1, shares what separates enduring corporations from early momentum, how founders ought to take into consideration capital as they scale, and what Blackstone seems for when backing the subsequent era of category-defining companies.

Competing for AI Expertise: Pay, Fairness, and Retention

With Matt Birnbaum, Founder, Wylder.co, Ioana Hreninciuc, Runware, Atli Thorkelsson, VP, Expertise Community, Redpoint Ventures

The expansion of AI startups has made hiring and retention harder for each tech firm. From competing for AI expertise to navigating secondary gross sales, founders are rethinking the human infrastructure of their startups. As incentives and worker expectations quickly evolve, this session explores how corporations are adapting compensation, tradition, and team-building methods to draw and retain high expertise in a essentially modified market.

Successful Pre-Seed With no Product

With Puneet Agarwal, Managing Associate, True Ventures; Austin Clements, Managing Associate, Slauson and Co; and Sandhya Venkatachalam, Founder and Managing Associate, Axiom Companions

Founders are more and more anticipated to compete for capital earlier than they actually have a product. On the pre-seed stage, buyers are betting on story, conviction, and founder-market match. This session breaks down the best way to construct credibility earlier than income exists so buyers will lower that first verify.

From MVP to Billions of Customers: How Product Selections Should Change at Scale

With Robby Stein, VP, Product, Google

The instincts that win when constructing your first minimal viable product can break you at a billion-user scale. On this fireplace, Robby Stein shares how product decision-making modifications when each replace impacts billions of customers. Hear how groups stability pace with belief and innovation with reliability at one of many world’s largest product organizations.

Hiring When AI Is a Co-Founder

With Josh Reeves, CEO and Co-founder, Gusto; extra audio system to be introduced

Early-stage corporations are not simply constructing with AI; they’re hiring it. As AI brokers tackle engineering, assist, and operations, the definition of an early workforce is being rewritten. This session explores how founders determine what people ought to personal versus what will get delegated to AI, and the way high-growth startups are constructing hybrid groups with out dropping pace, accountability, or tradition.

Rebuilding Client Merchandise for the AI Period

With Maria Angelidou-Smith, CPO, Reddit

AI isn’t simply including options, it’s forcing product groups to rethink how folks search, uncover, talk, journey, and make selections. Leaders from Reddit, Sq. and Uber focus on how they’re redesigning merchandise utilized by hundreds of thousands, what customers truly need from AI, and the place product leaders ought to resist the temptation to automate all the things.

M&A Is Now an Early-Stage Technique

With Karl Alomar, Managing Associate, M13 and Lindsey Mignano, Founder, Mignano Legislation Group

The neatest founders in the present day aren’t simply constructing for IPOs; they’re additionally constructing with potential acquisitions in thoughts from day one. As exits shift and capital tightens, understanding M&A early has turn into a aggressive benefit. This session breaks down how founders can create the opportunity of such an possibility by way of product technique and partnerships. It delves into how big-dollar startup outcomes truly occur, even for small corporations.

The Sequence A in 2027

Jahanvi Sardana, Associate, Index Ventures; Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Peak XV; and Janelle Teng Wade, Associate, Bessemer Enterprise Companions

Sequence A is getting tougher, with VCs rising extra demanding. For founders planning to lift in the subsequent one to 2 years, this session breaks down what “fundable” will truly imply in 2027. Hear how high buyers are redefining the metrics, groups, and traction that matter now, what outdated fundraising playbooks not work, and the way corporations can separate from the pack in the subsequent funding cycle.

The 90-Day GTM: Why $0–$10M ARR Is the New Baseline (and How one can Truly Get There)

With Ryan Meadows, Chief Income Officer, Lovable; and Tomasz Tunguz, Normal Associate and Founder, Principle Ventures; Ben Broca, Founder, Polsia

The definition of traction has modified. What as soon as took years is now anticipated in months, and $0 to $10 million ARR is more and more turning into the brand new early-stage baseline. This session breaks down how AI-enabled execution, quicker distribution, and shifting investor expectations are compressing GTM timelines, and the tactical levers founders want in the primary 90 days to speed up income and stand out quick.

The Actual Tokenmaxxing: How the Finest AI Corporations Navigate a Multi-Mannequin World

With Mo Jomaa, Associate, Capital G; and Zuzanna Stamirowska, CEO and Co-founder, Pathway; extra audio system to be introduced

The frontier is shifting quicker than any single mannequin can sustain with, and the groups constructing the most profitable AI merchandise are more and more orchestrating throughout many fashions slightly than betting on only one. This panel brings collectively founders and operators on the middle of that shift to debate how they consider new fashions, handle value and reliability at scale, and architect merchandise that may evolve as rapidly because the underlying know-how.

Revealing AI Disruptors 60: What Can AI Do Subsequent?

With Shay Grinfield, Greenfield Companions

The AI dialog is shifting from what fashions can say to what they’ll truly do. Brokers are navigating the open internet and finishing work, AI techniques are taking up more and more formidable analysis, clever machines are starting to function past the display screen, and a brand new infrastructure layer is rising to make all of this potential at scale.

Greenfield Companions’ Shay Grinfeld sits down with founders constructing throughout these rising areas to separate what’s actual in the present day from what’s coming subsequent, and discover the place the largest new alternatives are taking form. The dialog will culminate within the reveal of Greenfield Companions’ 2026 AI Disruptors 60, spotlighting the businesses Greenfield and TechCrunch imagine are pushing AI into new territory.

PMF Crimson Flags: How one can Inform If You Actually Have It

With Rajeev Dham, Managing Director, Sapphire Ventures; and Rahul Vohra, Founder and Head of Superhuman Mail; extra audio system to be introduced

In an AI hype cycle, product-market match alerts are simpler to pretend and tougher to belief. Founders are mistaking early pleasure, utilization spikes, and pilot wins for sturdy traction. This session breaks down what false PMF truly seems like, how buyers and operators separate actual retention from hype-driven adoption, and the alerts that point out whether or not an organization has true pull or simply momentary momentum.

The Zero-to-1K Playbook: How one can Get Your First 1,000 Clients With no Advertising and marketing Funds

With Grant Lee, CEO and Co-founder, Gamma; Leah Solivan, Founder and Normal Associate, Precedent.vc; and Elia Wallen, Founder and CEO, Engine

Early buyer acquisition will not be about advertising and marketing spend; it’s about founder-led distribution and relentless execution. Most startups at zero to at least one would not have price range, model, or scale, solely urgency and creativity. This session breaks down how founders are touchdown their first clients by way of neighborhood constructing, product-led progress, founder-led gross sales, strategic outbound, and word-of-mouth momentum.

Sure, It’s Onerous to Be a Founder: An Trustworthy Dialog

With Nell Daly, Co-founder and Managing Associate, Revenge Capital; David H. Rosmarin, Affiliate Professor, Harvard Medical Faculty; and Jack Withinshaw, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer, Airspeeder

Firm constructing is as psychologically demanding as it’s strategic, and most founder narratives understate that actuality. In this candid dialog, founders and psychological efficiency specialists unpack the hidden prices of high-growth environments, from burnout and choice fatigue to the id pressure of sustained stress, and share the techniques, habits, and psychological frameworks that assist leaders endure and carry out at a excessive degree.

So You’ve Received a Hit Product. How Does Your Firm Do It Once more?

With Filip Kaliszan, CEO and Co-founder, Verkada; and Aaron Jacobson, Associate, New Enterprise Associates; Maddi Holman, Normal Associate, Daring Ventures 

Most startups stall out as a result of they construct a single nice product as a substitute of a repeatable multi-product engine. Be part of a enterprise capitalist and two founders as they reveal the exact operational playbook for capital allocation, systemizing inner innovation, and engineering a compounding “Second Act” earlier than the core product’s progress curve flattens.

Hiring, Compensation and Tradition in the Most Aggressive Market Ever

With Matt Birnbaum, Founder, Wylder.co; and Atli Thorkelsson, VP, Expertise Community, Redpoint Ventures; extra audio system to be introduced

No query about it, the expansion of AI startups has made hiring and retention for all tech corporations harder. From competing for AI expertise to secondary gross sales, founders are rethinking the human infrastructure of their startups. As hiring, incentives, and worker expectations quickly evolve, this session explores how corporations are adapting compensation, tradition, and team-building methods to draw and retain high expertise in a essentially modified startup setting.

How one can Create Viral Development and Capitalize on It

With Zach Yadegari, Founder, Cal AI

Startups can go from zero to viral in a single day, however sustaining that momentum is a totally totally different problem. In this fireplace, Zach Yadegari shares how Cal AI navigated fast progress, product stress, and the realities of constructing in a distribution-driven market. Hear the teachings behind turning breakout consideration into sturdy retention and long-term firm constructing.

The Excessive-Conviction Filter: What We Realized From the Battlefield

With Alexa von Tobel, Impressed Capital; and Chi-Hua Chien, Co-founder and Managing Associate, Goodwater Capital; extra audio system to be introduced

What separates the breakout corporations from the remaining at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026? In this candid debrief, Startup Battlefield judges unpack the developments and founder qualities that stood out in actual time, from shifting investor expectations to the narratives that resonated most this 12 months. The dialog can even discover how startup storytelling is evolving and what occurs after the highlight, together with the realities of sustaining momentum and surviving the important 12 months after a serious launch, funding spherical, or Startup Battlefield look.

Ask the Buyers

With Stacy Brown-Philpot, Founder & Managing Associate at Cherryrock Capital; Chi-Hua Chien, Co-founder & Managing Associate, Goodwater Capital; Dayna Grayson, Assemble Capital; Carter Reum, Co-founder and Managing Associate, M13; Alexa Von Tobel, Impressed Capital

What makes an investor say sure? On this audience-led Q&A, the Startup Battlefield finals judges take your hardest questions on what separates a fundable startup from the remaining: workforce, traction, market alternative, pitch supply, pink flags, and extra. Come able to ask and get candid solutions straight from the buyers making the selections.

Be part of the conversations and make the connections at Disrupt

If you’re able to construct smarter, scale quicker, and study from the leaders shaping the way forward for startups, secure your pass to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 today.