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Disrupt 2025: Day 2 | TechCrunch
It’s time for day two of TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, which means San Francisco’s Moscone West will be jam-packed with another marathon of speakers, workshops, networking opportunities, and afterparties for attendees. Keep in mind that you can still register for tickets to join the excitement, and since we’re already a day in, you can get a ticket for 50% off the standard walk-up price here.
Refresh yourself on our speaker lineup right here, or dive deeper into each of our stages, events, networking opportunities, and more by following the anchor links below.
Most importantly, have fun out there, and if you want to be a part of the conversation around Disrupt, post your experiences, photos, and recommendations to any and all social platforms and use #TechCrunchDisrupt2025. We’ll be posting some on-the-ground coverage of our own on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok.
Get to know all the major activations of Disrupt:
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San Francisco
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October 27-29, 2025
Expo Hall
Our 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Expo Hall remains a hub for startups looking to see and be seen, with more than 300+ participating in what could be their next big break — or your next big investment opportunity. Get a full rundown of our showcasing startups here.
Women of Disrupt Breakfast Reception
We’re continuing the tradition of a morning opportunity for anyone identifying as a female to meet, learn from, and network with colleagues across the wide range of tech startups at Disrupt. The breakfast runs from 8 to 10 a.m. at the Deal Flow Cafe, and operates on a first-come, first-served basis.
Networking
But if you’re not eligible for the breakfast, plenty of other networking opportunities are available through curated meetings on Braindate from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Explore or create 1:1 or small-group sessions to dive deep into a wide range of topics. The Networking Lounge serves as the meeting point for all these sessions and is always buzzing.
If you’re an investor or a founder, then make your way to the Deal Flow Cafe. This exclusive area is designed for investors and founders to talk deals over coffee.
Or, you can randomly bump into the right connection while heading to a session, or bumping into eager startups in the Expo Hall, the heart of Disrupt, just about anywhere else in the venue.
Sessions
Industry-focused stages, interactive roundtables, Q&A breakout sessions — these sessions are meant to spark inspiration and insights.
Disrupt Stage
No Filters: Vinod Khosla on the Future of Tech – Vinod Khosla (Founder, Khosla Ventures)
The Startup Battlefield – Session 3 – Judges include Jon Chu (Partner, Khosla Ventures), Madison Faulkner (Partner, NEA), Ilya Kirnos (Founding Partner and CTO, SignalFire), Miloni Madan Presler (Partner, Institutional Venture Partners), Rinki Sethi (Founding Partner, Lockstep)
What’s Next for Netflix and Streaming Itself – Elizabeth Stone (CTO, Netflix)
From Mirror to What’s Next – Bryn Putnam Returns to Disrupt – Brynn Putnam (Founder, MIRROR, and CEO Board)
Slate’s Auto Electric Truck – See It Here First: Chris Barman (CEO, Slate Auto)
The Startup Battlefield – Session 4 – Leslie Feinzaig (Founder and GP, Graham & Walker VC), Sara Ittelson (Partner, Accel), Doug Pepper (General Partner, ICONIQ)
Storming the Gates: Scaling Consumer AI – Phoebe Gates (Co-Founder, Phia), Sophia Kianni (Co-Founder, Phia)
AI Stage
Betting on the Next Wave: What VCs Want in AI Startups – Steve Jang (founder and managing Partner, Kindred Ventures), Aileen Lee (founder and managing partner, Cowboy Ventures), Jon McNeil (CEO & Co-Founder, DVx Ventures)
Creative Machines and Where AI Meets Imagination – Prateek Dixit (co-founder, Pocket Entertainment), Soyoung Lee (Co-Founder and Head of GTM, TwelveLabs), Nikola Todorovic (co-founder, Wonder Dynamics, an Autodesk company)
AI Meets the Future of Work with Mercer’s Brendan Foody – Brendan Foody (CEO, Mercer)
The Post-Training Revolution: How Reinforcement Learning is Upending the AI Infra Stack – Eric Anderson (Partner, Scale Venture Partners), Kyle Corbitt (Head of OpenPipe Team, CoreWeave)
Why the Next Frontier is Search – Edo Liberty (Founder and Chief Scientist, Pinecone)
From Web Pages to Autonomous Agents – A Conversation on Linking Today’s Web to Tomorrow’s Data Layer: Or Lenchner (CEO Bright Data)
Intelligence in Motion and the Future of Physical AI – Jeff Cardenas (Co-Founder, CEO, Apptronik), Raquel Urtasun (Founder and CEO, Waabi)
Can You Vibe Code Enterprise Software? – Arun Gupta (VP of Developer Experience, JetBrains), Mark Pollack (OSS Contributor, Spring OSS Contributor)
Synthetic Voices and Real Impact – Mati Staniszewski (Co-Founder, ElevenLabs)
AI That Scales: Lessons From the Frontlines – Sanjay Dhawan (Chief Executive Officer, SymphonyAI), Tamara Pattison (SVP, Chief Digital Officer, The Save Mart Companies)
Building Intelligence for Modern Defense – Ethan Thornton (CEO and Founder, Mach Industries)
Driving Intelligence – Alex Kendall (CEO, Wayve)
Builders Stage
How to Nail Product Market Fit – Rajat Bhageria (Founder and CEO, Chef Robotics), Ann Bordetsky (Partner, NEA), Murali Joshi (Partner, ICONIQ)
Designing Products for the AI Age – Andrew Reed (General Partner, Sequoia Capital), Yuhki Yamashita (Chief Product Officer, Figma), Zach Lloyd (CEO and Founder, Warp)
How to Pitch When You’re at the Inception Stage – Wesley Chan (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, FPV Ventures), Charles Hudson (Managing Partner, Precursor Ventures)
Do Startups Still Need Silicon Valley? – Anh-Tho Chuong (CEO and Co-Founder, Lago), David Hall (Managing Partner, Revolution/Rise of the Rest), Tawni Nazario-Cranz (Operating Partner, SignalFire)
Building What’s Next with the Minds Behind Twitter and Meta – Adam Bain (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, 01 Advisors), Dick Costolo (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, 01 Advisors), David Fischer (General Partner, 01 Advisors)
Where VCs Are Placing Their Bets in 2026 – Nina Achadjian (Partner, Index Ventures), Jerry Chen (General Partner, Greylock), Peter Deng (General Partner, Felicis)
Breakout Stage
Agentic AI for Startups: Automate, Adapt, and Accelerate Growth – Anjali Mann (Technical Program Manager, Microsoft), Anmol Rastogi (Head of Product Management, AI and ML – Amazon Business, Amazon)
Leading for Impact: Engineering at the Speed of AI – Andrew Berman (CEO, Runlayer), Dima Dzhulgakov (Co-Founder, Fireworks AI), Suraj Patel (VP Ventures and Corporate Development, MongoDB), Eno Reyes (CTO, Factory)
Rewriting Healthcare Workflows with AI – Zubair Ahsan (Co-Founder and CEO, Max AI), Varun Krishnamurthy (Co-Founder and CEO, Assured Health), Kanyi Maqubela (Managing Partner, Kindred Ventures)
Inside the Family Office Playbook: How the Wealthiest Invest in Startups and Venture Funds – Mariane Bekker (Managing Partner, Founders Bay), Brett Horton (Chief Investment Officer, Paris-Roubaix Group), Daniel Idzkowski (CIO, I.D.I.T. Family Office)
CVC: What’s Different? What’s Their Superpower? – Nicolas Sauvage (President, TDK Ventures)
Startups, Stories, and the Fight for Attention – Jenna Birch (Founder, SISU), Allie Cefalo (Partner, Marketing, Kleiner Perkins), Chantelle Darby (Founder, Darby PR)
Embracing AI for a Better Digital Future – Meghana Dhar (Technology Advisor and Investor), Matt Madrigal (Chief Technology Officer, Pinterest)
Roundtables
Each of these 30-minute sessions is for small groups to work through real-world problems.
The Future of Banking and Fintech: the AI Wave – Nnamdi Okike (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, 645 Ventures)
Scaling Search and AI for Millions: Lessons from Reddit Search – Rachel Miller (Product Manager, Reddit)
Tim Cook Has More Followers Than Apple — Why Founders Need to Be on Camera – Hanieh Sigari (CEO, EllieMD), Uptin Saiidi (Founder and Creator UP10 Media)
From Tokens to Turbines: The New Economics of AI – Caleb Appleton (Partner, Bison Ventures)
Prototyping, Tuning & Scaling GenAI Applications with Open Models – Aishwarya Srinivasan (Head of AI Developer Relations, Fireworks AI)
The Invisible AI Revolution – Brad Cordova (Founder and CPTO, Super.AI), Benjamin Kwon (CEO, Super.AI)
From Tokens to Turbines – The New Economics of AI: Caleb Appleton (Partner, Bison Ventures)
How Smart Brands Are Winning With Creator-Led Videos – Peter Sleiman (Creative Director, UP10 Media), Uptin Saiidi (Founder and Creator UP10 Media)
How to Train Your Model: Taming AI Agents Without Breaking Them [Encore] – Kyla Guru (Head of Model Cyber Safety, Anthropic)
The Winning Formula: Turning Your Business Into a Trusted Scalable Community to Drive Growth – Tasneem Amina (Co-Founder and President, Kindred), Justine Palefsky (Co-Founder and CEO, Kindred)
From Inception to Enterprise: Selling AI Agents that Scale – Allison Baum Gates (General Partner, SemperVirens Venture Capital)
Powering the Future Home: Energy Independence Starts Here – Jenny Zhang (President of North America Residential, Energy Business, EcoFlow)
Prototyping, Tuning & Scaling GenAI Applications with Open Models [encore] – Aishwarya Srinivasan (Head of AI Developer Relations, Fireworks AI)
The Winning Formula: Turning Your Business Into a Trusted, Scalable Community To Drive Growth [encore] – Justine Palefsky (Co-Founder, Kindred), Tasneem Amina (Co-Founder, Kindred)
StrictlyVC
Making its second appearance at Disrupt, this LP session is only for Investor Pass-holders.
Global High-Tech at a Crossroads: Trends, Emerging Technologies, and the Role of Deep-Tech – Dror Bin (CEO Israel Innovation Authority)
The LP Lens: Liquidity, Selection, and the Future of Ventures – Lara Banks (Managing Director and Head of Private Equity, Makena Capital), Kelli Fontaine (Partner, Cendana Capital), Adam Grosher (Director, The J. Paul Getty Trust), Matt Hodan (Partner, Lexington Partners), Michael Kim (Founder and Partner, Cendana Capital)
GP Perspectives on LP Relationships – Kevin Hartz (General Partner, A*)
Pitch Showcase Stage
Witness live on-stage pitches from some of the exhibiting startups from all over the world in the Expo Hall.
9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.: Startup Battlefield 200 Consumer Pitches
11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Pavilion Pitch Session — Catalonia
1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.: Pavilion Pitch Session — Poland
1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.: Startup Battlefield 200 Enterprise Pitches
3:30 p.m. – 4:20 p.m.: Pavilion Pitch Session – SilkRoad
Disrupt 2025 Side Events
Company-hosted Side Events are happening throughout San Francisco this week, extending the Disrupt energy well beyond Moscone West. Here’s what’s happening tonight — panels, parties, and meetups designed to connect founders, investors, and innovators across every corner of tech. Make sure to RSVP your spot to any of these.
You can still join Disrupt
Just two days left to join thousands of founders, investors, operators, and visionaries at Moscone West in San Francisco. Snag your pass at 50% off and be part of the tech event of the year.
Waymo is adding another four cities to its growing list of robotaxi rollouts. The company announced Wednesday it has begun testing its autonomous vehicles (with a safety monitor) in Philadelphia, and that it will start manual driving to collect data in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.
Waymo did not offer a timeline for when it plans to launch commercial services in those locations, nor do we know whether the Alphabet-owned company will partner with other companies to operate robotaxis in each one. That has been the move in cities like Atlanta and Austin, for example, where Waymo has partnered with Uber to advance its robotaxi rollout.
But the new locations join a list of over 20 cities where the company is either offering rides, prepping a commercial launch, or testing. Waymo is also now offering rides on freeways in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The company plans to be doing one million rides per week by the end of 2026.
Waymo has done all this while claiming to be operating at a level five times safer than humans, according to data the company recently released.
But the expansion has not come without its issues. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating how the company’s vehicles operate near school buses, after a Waymo was filmed driving around a stopped bus in Atlanta in September.
This week, Austin news outlet KXAN published a report showing Waymo’s vehicles have driven past school buses that were in the process of unloading or loading children multiple times — including after Waymo claims to have shipped software updates to address the problem.
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October 13-15, 2026
Spotify Wrapped is back. After last year’s widely criticized flop that included an AI podcast as its highlight, the streamer’s highly anticipated annual review feature has returned to its roots. This year, Spotify is doubling down on what it knows works best: deep dives into your streaming data, creative experiences, messages from favorite artists, and other social features.
The company claims that Wrapped 2025 is its biggest, as it’s introducing nearly a dozen new features in addition to its old standbys, like top songs and artists. Plus, it’s offering more visibility into users’ data than in years past. For the first time, Spotify Wrapped is adding a live multiplayer feature to compare your listening data with friends.
Wrapped Party, Wrapped’s first live interactive experience, allows you to invite up to nine friends to compare listening stats.
Also new this year, your Top Songs Playlist will include the play counts for each of the top songs, so you can actually see how much time you spent with your favorite tracks.
Other standout features this year include an interactive Top Song Quiz, a Listening Age feature, and Wrapped Clubs, which match you to one of six unique listening styles.
The company believes these additions will not only bring back the personalized, engaging experience that users have long expected from Wrapped, but will take it a step further by making it more interactive than before.
In the Top Song Quiz, for instance, you can try to guess which top song soundtracked your year before seeing the results.
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October 13-15, 2026
The new interactive Wrapped Party feature isn’t just about comparing the personal streaming data you’ve already received to your friends’ data, as that’s something people already do on social media. Instead, the feature presents unique data stories for your group, like who’s the “most obsessed fan,” the “early bird,” the most “picky listener,” or even something as nice as the “dinner table explainer,” meaning the person who listens to the most news podcasts.
Spotify says these awards update dynamically every time you join a Wrapped Party, so no two sessions are ever the same — even if you run through them again with the same group of friends.
The new Wrapped Clubs, meanwhile, will group you into one of half a dozen listening styles, like the “Soft Hearts Club,” the “Club Serotonin,” the “Full Charge Crew,” the “Cosmic Stereo Club,” and others. You’ll also receive a role in the club based on your listening data. You might be a club leader if your listening choices strongly matches the club’s values, a scout if you’re always seeking out new releases, or an archivist if you listen to music from past eras.
Another feature, Listening Age, compares your 2025 music listening to others in your age group. To calculate your age, the feature considers the release years of the tracks you listen to most. From there, it identifies the five-year span of music that you engaged with more than other listeners your age.
As in prior years, you’ll see your top songs, top artists, top genres, and, for the first time, top albums. If you engaged with audiobooks and podcasts, you’ll see metrics for those as well. Artists, writers, and podcasters will have their own version of Wrapped as before. And top fans will again receive video messages from their favorite artists, podcasters, and, now, authors.
You’ll also receive a playlist of your top songs of the year, as before.
What you won’t find in this year’s Wrapped is any feature that advertises it was made with AI.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Spotify’s Senior Director of Global Marketing, Matt Luhks, admitted the company received a “lot of feedback” about its 2024 AI-focused Wrapped experience, saying it was a “mix of positive and ‘more constructive feedback,’” despite the feature driving more engagement than prior years.
“We take all of that in. We use that as information, insights, [and] inspiration for how we approached Wrapped this year,” he said in a press event ahead of today’s launch.
“What our users tell us about Wrapped means a lot to us, so it was really informative in how we approached Wrapped this year. And what we tried to build was the most creative, most innovative, most engaging Wrapped ever,” he added, setting a high bar for the 2025 edition of the now 11-year-old annual year-in-review feature.
“We’re the original and, we believe, still the best,” Luhks said.
Still, AI was a part of the Wrapped experience. Though the company claims the overall experience was not made with AI, it does leverage a LLM (large language model) to add a storytelling layer to Wrapped’s facts and figures, and natural language summaries in other parts of its experience, looking back on your data.
Spotify’s attempt to fix Wrapped after a notable stumble comes as the streamer faces increased competition from Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and others, which have all launched their own annual review features, inspired by Wrapped.
“Everyone seems to have their own version of Wrapped. Now, there’s a lot of reviews and replays and rewinds out there, but we believe that Wrapped still sets the bar for these year-end recaps,” Luhks said.
Along with the consumer experience, Spotify shared its top artists, songs, albums, podcasts, and audiobooks for the year, with top winners that included, respectively, Bad Bunny (top song and album), Joe Rogan (“The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast), and Rebeca Yarros (author of “Fourth Wing”).
Hardware maker Nothing is letting its user base buy its stock as part of a new community investment round of $5 million. The new round, which opens on December 10, will enable consumers to buy the company’s shares at its Series C valuation of $1.3 billion.
The company said it has so far raised $8 million in total from over 8,000 people across two previous community investment rounds. It held its first community funding event in 2021, aiming to raise $1.5 million.
“This isn’t about raising capital, it’s about giving our community/fans a chance to invest while we’re private and join us on the journey,” a spokesperson for Nothing told TechCrunch.
Community investors have a rotating seat on the company’s board, but it is unclear what else they get for investing in the company through such rounds.
Nothing raised $200 million in its Series C back in September from investors including Tiger Global, GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF and Tapestry. The company has raised $450 million to date.
The community round comes as Nothing makes changes to its corporate structure as it tries to increase its share of a smartphone market dominated by giants like Samsung and Apple. The company is spinning off its budget CMF brand, and plans to explore AI-centric devices while it keeps building smartphones and audio products. And Nothing claims it crossed $1 billion in cumulative revenue this year, up 150% from 2024.
The startup is working to be “IPO-ready” in three years, CEO Carl Pei told TechCrunch in an email. “The timing will depend on market conditions and what makes sense for the business at that point in time,” he said.
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October 13-15, 2026
“What’s important is that we’re already operating with that discipline now. We’re building the systems, the governance, the financial discipline that a public company needs. It forces us to think longer-term and make smarter decisions that prioritise sustainable growth,” Pei added.
It’s not clear if Nothing aims to raise another round before an IPO. When asked about its fundraising plans, a Nothing spokesperson said the company is not thinking about raising capital immediately, but it wouldn’t be averse to those conversations.
Those interested in investing in the community round can use platforms like Wefunder and Crowdcube to participate.
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