TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Builders Stage Sessions Revealed

TechCrunch has published the first look at the Builders Stage agenda for Disrupt 2026, taking place October 13-15 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. The stage, one of six at the event, is aimed at founders and operators working through the hard parts of scaling: raising capital, hiring in an AI market, and holding ground when larger platforms ship competing products. More than 10,000 founders, investors, and technology leaders are expected to attend, with early ticket buyers saving up to $330 before the next price increase.

What happened

Detail	Fact
Event	TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
Dates	October 13-15, 2026
Location	Moscone Center, San Francisco
Expected attendance	More than 10,000
Themed stages	6 total, including the Builders Stage
Early registration saving	Up to $330

The Builders Stage is returning to Disrupt for 2026. TechCrunch describes it as dedicated to helping founders move from early-stage startup to scalable company, covering fundraising, hiring, and go-to-market execution. Eight sessions are confirmed so far, with more speakers and sessions to be added before the event.

What sessions are on the Builders Stage agenda?

The confirmed sessions range from pre-seed pitching to product decisions at a billion-user scale. Here is what has been announced:

• How to Win When You’re Not Building AI – Shan Shan (Baillie Gifford) and Yuri Sagalov (General Catalyst) argue that efficient growth, retention, and revenue quality still matter more than AI hype for most companies.
• What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap – Michel Tricot (Airbyte CEO), Rob Toews (Radical Ventures), and Linda Tong (Webflow CEO) discuss where defensibility exists when a large platform enters your market.
• Building the Next Generation of AI Giants – Jas Khaira, Global Head of Blackstone N1, covers how to think about capital at scale and what separates early momentum from enduring companies.
• Competing for AI Talent: Pay, Equity, and Retention – Matt Birnbaum (Wylder.co), Ioana Hreninciuc (Runware), and Atli Thorkelsson (Redpoint Ventures) explore compensation and culture in a tighter hiring market.
• Winning Pre-Seed Without a Product – Puneet Agarwal (True Ventures), Austin Clements (Slauson and Co), and Sandhya Venkatachalam (Axiom Partners) break down how founders build investor credibility before they have revenue or a shipped product.
• From MVP to Billions of Users – Google VP of Product Robby Stein explains how product decision-making changes when every update affects billions of users, including the balance between speed and reliability.
• Hiring When AI Is a Co-Founder – Josh Reeves (Gusto CEO) and others discuss how early-stage teams decide what to delegate to AI agents versus what humans must own.
• Rebuilding Consumer Products for the AI Era – Maria Angelidou-Smith (Reddit CPO), along with leaders from Square and Uber, examines how product teams are rethinking discovery, communication, and decision-making flows for AI.

Why it matters

Two sessions stand out as particularly relevant for founders and operators right now. The “What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap” panel names the fear most AI-adjacent companies are sitting with. The practical question, where defensibility actually lives when a foundation model provider enters your category, rarely gets answered directly in public forums. A panel with a CEO who has navigated this (Michel Tricot at Airbyte) is worth the ticket price alone for that conversation.

The pre-seed session is equally timely. Investors are increasingly expecting conviction and founder-market fit before any product exists. For founders in that window, the gap between a story that gets funded and one that does not is often the framing, not the idea.

The talent session also reflects a real shift. AI startups are competing against much larger companies for a small pool of people with relevant skills. Well-funded players like Wonderful AI, which raised $550M at a $5B valuation, are setting compensation benchmarks that most startups cannot match on salary alone, so the equity and culture levers are the ones that matter.

Our take

The Builders Stage agenda reads less like a conference and more like a list of things founders are quietly panicking about this year. That is either a good sign (the organizers are listening) or a sign that the same anxieties are now conference-circuit clichés. The real value at events like this tends to come from the Q&A and hallway conversations, not the panels themselves. Still, a confirmed room of investors from General Catalyst, Radical Ventures, True Ventures, Blackstone, and Redpoint is a useful place to be if you are raising.

For businesses thinking about how AI fits into their own operations rather than their product, the “Hiring When AI Is a Co-Founder” session is the most directly applicable. The question of what humans should own versus what gets handed to an agent is one we work through with clients regularly. If you want a practical take on that before October, our AI integration services page covers how we approach it.

What to do about it

1. Register before the next price increase if you plan to attend. TechCrunch has not published a cutoff date, but savings of up to $330 are on the table now.
2. Prioritise the sessions most relevant to your current stage. Pre-seed founders and Series A-stage operators have different problems; pick the tracks that match where you actually are.
3. Follow the speaker list for additions. TechCrunch confirms more sessions and speakers are still being announced before October.
4. Use the live Q&A format. Each session includes direct engagement with speakers, which is a better use of time than passive listening.

Watch the Lumien news feed for coverage of key announcements coming out of Disrupt 2026 in October.

Source: TechCrunch · AI