TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is bringing back the Builders Stage, a dedicated track for founders, startup operators, and investors to tackle the real-world challenges of scaling a company. With a program heavily weighted toward artificial intelligence, the agenda reflects the market’s current obsession—but also offers a sobering counterbalance for those building outside the AI hype cycle. Scheduled for October 13–15 at Moscone Center in San Francisco, the event will host more than 10,000 attendees, and the Builders Stage lineup includes speakers from Gamma, Google, Reddit, Gusto, Verkada, and venture firms like Blackstone, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners.
The Builders Stage: A Practical Playbook for Scale
The Builders Stage is one of six industry-focused stages at Disrupt 2026, designed specifically for founders navigating the jump from startup to scalable company. Unlike the main stage’s keynotes, this track offers tactical sessions on fundraising, hiring, go-to-market strategy, and operational decisions. Every session includes live Q&A, allowing attendees to engage directly with speakers. The agenda is built around the premise that building a company is fundamentally different from building a product—and that the difference is what separates breakout companies from the rest.
What is the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026? It is a curated track of practical, founder-led conversations focused on the operational and strategic decisions that fuel startup growth. Sessions cover topics such as pre-seed fundraising without a product, hiring when AI is a co-founder, compressing go-to-market timelines to 90 days, and identifying false signals of product-market fit. The stage is designed for founders who are past the idea phase and are actively scaling their companies.
How to Win When You’re Not Building AI
AI may dominate venture capital headlines, but many enduring companies will not be those selling AI models or agents. This session, featuring Shan Shan of Baillie Gifford and Yuri Sagalov of General Catalyst, breaks down what genuinely matters in an AI-obsessed market: efficient growth, retention, revenue quality, and disciplined execution. The panel argues that fundamentals, not hype, still build breakout businesses. For founders whose products do not rely on proprietary AI, this session offers a framework for competing for attention—and capital—without riding the AI wave.
What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap
Nearly every AI founder shares a common fear: that a major player like OpenAI or Anthropic will launch a product that renders theirs obsolete. Michel Tricot (Airbyte), Rob Toews (Radical Ventures), and Linda Tong (Webflow) explore where defensibility actually exists in an AI landscape where even strong products risk becoming features of larger platforms. The conversation covers strategies for building moats, choosing market segments the giants ignore, and positioning a startup so that it becomes an acquisition target rather than a casualty.
Building the Next Generation of AI Giants
AI startups are scaling faster and demanding more capital than any previous generation. Jas Khaira, Global Head of Blackstone N1, shares what separates enduring companies from those that flame out after early momentum. He discusses how founders should think about capital allocation as they scale, and what Blackstone looks for when backing category-defining businesses. The session provides a lens into the institutional mindset behind large-scale AI investments.
Competing for AI Talent: Pay, Equity, and Retention
The growth of AI startups has made hiring and retention more difficult for every tech company. Matt Birnbaum (Wylder.co), Ioana Hreninciuc (Runware), and Atli Thorkelsson (Redpoint Ventures) examine how founders are rethinking compensation, culture, and team-building strategies. From navigating secondary sales to adjusting equity packages, the session explores the human infrastructure of startups in a fundamentally changed talent market.
Winning Pre-Seed Without a Product
Founders are increasingly expected to compete for capital before they even have a product. Puneet Agarwal (True Ventures), Austin Clements (Slauson and Co.), and Sandhya Venkatachalam (Axiom Partners) break down how to build credibility before revenue exists. The session focuses on the art of telling a compelling story, demonstrating founder-market fit, and convincing investors to cut that first check based on conviction alone.
From MVP to Billions of Users: How Product Decisions Must Change at Scale
Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google, shares how product decision-making evolves when every update impacts billions of users. The instincts that win at the MVP stage—move fast, break things, prioritize speed over polish—can break a company at scale. Stein discusses how teams balance speed with trust, innovation with reliability, and how product leaders at large organizations manage the tension between growth and stability.
Hiring When AI Is a Co-Founder
Early-stage companies are no longer just building with AI; they are hiring it. Josh Reeves, CEO and co-founder of Gusto, explores how founders decide what humans should own versus what gets delegated to AI agents. As AI takes on engineering, support, and operations, the definition of an early team is being rewritten. The session covers how to build hybrid teams without losing speed, accountability, or culture.
Rebuilding Consumer Products for the AI Era
Maria Angelidou-Smith, CPO of Reddit, leads a session on how AI is forcing product teams to rethink how people search, discover, communicate, travel, and make decisions. The discussion draws on experiences from Reddit, Square, and Uber to examine what users actually want from AI, and where product leaders should resist the temptation to automate everything. The session provides a counterpoint to the rush to embed AI into every user flow.
M&A Is Now an Early-Stage Strategy
Karl Alomar (M13) and Lindsey Mignano (Mignano Law Group) argue that the smartest founders today are building with potential acquisitions in mind from day one. As exits shift and capital tightens, understanding M&A early has become a competitive advantage. The session breaks down how founders can create the possibility of an acquisition through product strategy and partnerships, and how big-dollar startup outcomes actually happen—even for small companies.
The Series A in 2027
Series A is getting harder, with VCs growing more demanding. Jahanvi Sardana (Index Ventures), Shailendra Singh (Peak XV), and Janelle Teng Wade (Bessemer Venture Partners) unpack what “fundable” will mean in 2027. The session covers the metrics, teams, and traction that matter now, which outdated fundraising playbooks no longer work, and how companies can separate from the pack in the next funding cycle.
The 90-Day GTM: Why $0–$10M ARR Is the New Baseline
The definition of traction has changed. What once took years is now expected in months, and $0 to $10 million ARR is increasingly becoming the new early-stage baseline. Ryan Meadows (Lovable), Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures), and Ben Broca (Polsia) break down how AI-enabled execution, faster distribution, and shifting investor expectations are compressing GTM timelines. They provide tactical levers founders need in the first 90 days to accelerate revenue and stand out fast.
The Real Tokenmaxxing: How the Best AI Companies Navigate a Multi-Model World
The frontier is moving faster than any single model can keep up with. Mo Jomaa (Capital G) and Zuzanna Stamirowska (Pathway) discuss how the most successful AI products are orchestrating across many models rather than betting on just one. The panel covers how to evaluate new models, manage cost and reliability at scale, and architect products that can evolve as quickly as the underlying technology.
Revealing AI Disruptors 60: What Can AI Do Next?
Shay Grinfeld of Greenfield Partners sits down with founders building across emerging AI areas to separate what’s real today from what’s coming next. The conversation explores agents navigating the open web, AI systems taking on ambitious research, and the new infrastructure layer enabling all of this. The session culminates in the reveal of Greenfield Partners’ 2026 AI Disruptors 60, spotlighting the companies Greenfield and TechCrunch believe are pushing AI into new territory.
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. Rajeev Dham (Sapphire Ventures) and Rahul Vohra (Superhuman Mail) break down what false PMF actually looks like—mistaking early excitement, usage spikes, and pilot wins for durable traction. The session provides a framework for separating real retention from hype-driven adoption, and the signals that indicate whether a company has true pull or just temporary momentum.
The Zero-to-1K Playbook: How to Get Your First 1,000 Customers Without a Marketing Budget
Grant Lee (Gamma), Leah Solivan (Precedent.vc), and Elia Wallen (Engine) share how founders are landing their first customers through community building, product-led growth, founder-led sales, strategic outbound, and word-of-mouth momentum. The session emphasizes that early customer acquisition is not about marketing spend; it’s about founder-led distribution and relentless execution.
Yes, It’s Hard to Be a Founder: An Honest Conversation
Nell Daly (Revenge Capital), David H. Rosmarin (Harvard Medical School), and Jack Withinshaw (Airspeeder) unpack the hidden costs of high-growth environments. From burnout and decision fatigue to the identity strain of sustained pressure, the conversation shares the systems, habits, and mental frameworks that help leaders endure and perform at a high level. This session is a rare candid look at the psychological demands of company building.
So You’ve Got a Hit Product. How Does Your Company Do It Again?
Filip Kaliszan (Verkada), Aaron Jacobson (New Enterprise Associates), and Maddi Holman (Daring Ventures) reveal the operational playbook for building a repeatable multi-product engine. Most startups stall because they build a single great product instead of a system for internal innovation. The session covers capital allocation, systemizing innovation, and engineering a compounding “Second Act” before the core product’s growth curve flattens.
Hiring, Compensation and Culture in the Most Competitive Market Ever
Matt Birnbaum (Wylder.co) and Atli Thorkelsson (Redpoint Ventures) return for a session that deepens the discussion on talent. With the growth of AI startups making hiring and retention more difficult for all tech companies, the session explores how to adapt compensation, culture, and team-building strategies to attract and retain top talent in a fundamentally changed startup environment.
How to Create Viral Growth and Capitalize on It
Zach Yadegari, founder of Cal AI, shares how his startup went from zero to viral overnight—and how it sustained that momentum. The fireside covers the realities of building in a distribution-driven market, turning breakout attention into durable retention, and the long-term discipline required to keep growing after the initial spike.
The High-Conviction Filter: What We Learned From the Battlefield
Alexa von Tobel (Inspired Capital) and Chi-Hua Chien (Goodwater Capital) debrief the Startup Battlefield judges’ perspective. They discuss the trends and founder qualities that stood out in real time, shifting investor expectations, and what happens after the spotlight. The session explores the critical 12 months after a major launch and how to survive the post-Battlefield momentum curve.
Ask the Investors
In an audience-led Q&A, the Startup Battlefield finals judges—Stacy Brown-Philpot (Cherryrock Capital), Chi-Hua Chien (Goodwater Capital), Dayna Grayson (Construct Capital), Carter Reum (M13), and Alexa Von Tobel (Inspired Capital)—take the toughest questions on what separates a fundable startup from the rest. Attendees can ask directly about team, traction, market opportunity, pitch delivery, and red flags.
The Builders Stage at Disrupt 2026 is not a passive conference track. It is a working session for founders who need to make decisions about capital, talent, product, and market positioning in an environment where the rules are shifting rapidly. The heavy AI focus reflects the real pressure founders face—whether they are building AI or competing with it. But the agenda also makes room for the fundamentals that have always mattered: honest conversations about mental health, the discipline of repeatable growth, and the art of telling a story that investors believe in. For anyone serious about building a company that lasts, the Builders Stage offers a rare combination of tactical depth and strategic perspective.
