Announcing The Disrupt SF 2015 Agenda

Comment

The TechCrunch Disrupt Cup
Image Credits: Flickr (opens in a new window)

Every year, at the end of summer, a new kind of school opens in San Francisco. The school year is truncated – only three days of intense education – and the students come from all walks of life.

There are hungry makers, intent on building the next big thing. There are folks who have seen it all and are looking to be surprised. And there are the big fish looking to swallow the smaller fish – unless they get swallowed first. Those three days in September make up the entirety of TechCrunch Disrupt SF and to some the experience is an MBA in a box, three days of meetings, networking, and intense seminars that culminates in the biggest party in tech.

And you can join us September 21-23. We want you to join us. Disrupt SF is going to be amazing. We’re going to have TechCrunch Editor Matthew Panzarino talking to Dropbox’s Drew Houston. We’re going to have the top makers in the world and the best minds in bitcoin. We’re going to tell you how to start a business in this difficult funding environment by leaders who teach by example.

Troy Carter will join us as will Golden State Warrior and budding tech investor, Andre Iguodala. Former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Tsotsis will talk to Tracy Chou and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy about the state of diversity in tech. Yuri Milner and Pavel Durov are flying in to give us the state of things in Russia. And to top it off we have 24 amazing startups in the Battlefield who will compete to win the coveted Disrupt Cup. Best of all? You can stream the entire event live on our site and join in the excitement.

But we think it would be great if you could join us. You can buy tickets here or you can join our Hackathon for a chance to grab free tickets. We want to make this event inclusive.

So grab your backpack, your pencils, and your term sheets. Disrupt SF is back in town and school is back in session.

If you’re interested in future sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here. As always, we want to hear from you. Questions? Comments? Email us at tips@beta.techcrunch.com.

agenda

Monday, September 21

9:00 AM – 9:05 AM
Opening Remarks by TechCrunch

9:05 AM – 9:25 AM
Fireside Chat with Ron Conway (SV Angel) and Topher Conway (SV Angel)

9:25 AM – 9:45 AM
In Conversation with Parker Conrad (Zenefits)

9:45 AM – 10:05 AM
Is It Time To Stick A Fork In Bitcoin?: Wences Casares (Xapo), Nathaniel Popper (NYT), and Bobby Lee (BTCChina)

10:05 AM – 10:25 AM
Fireside Chat with Yuri Milner (DST Global)

10:25 AM – 10:45 AM
Fireside Chat with Drew Houston (Dropbox)

10:45 AM – 11:05 AM
Founder Stories Helen Greiner (CyPhy Works)

11:05 AM – 11:20 AM
Break

11:20 AM – 11:40 AM
In Conversation With Dr. John Kelly (IBM) and live demo of Watson

11:40 AM – 12:00 PM
Money Talks: Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures), Jeremy Liew (Lightspeed Venture Partners), Bill McGlashan (TPG Growth), Dana Settle (Greycroft Partners)

12:00 PM – 12:25 PM
A New Perspective on Culture and Industry with Snoop Dogg and Ted Chung

12:25 PM – 12:40 PM
Fireside Chat with Pavel Durov (Telegram)

12:40 PM – 1:00 PM
In Conversation with Beth Seidenberg (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Lunch

2:00 PM – 2:25 PM
Virtual Reality Is The New Reality: With Dr. Richard Marks (Sony), Paul Raphael (Felix and Paul Studios), Claude Zellweger (HTC)

2:25 PM – 6:00 PM
Startup Battlefield
Hosted by Jason Kincaid

9:00 PM – Midnight
After Party sponsored by Cheetah Mobile at Mighty, Showplace Square West, 119 Utah St., San Francisco, CA 94103

Tuesday, September 22

9:00 AM – 9:05 AM
Opening Remarks by TechCrunch

9:05 AM – 9:25 AM
In Conversation with Nick Woodman (GoPro)

9:25 AM – 9:45 AM
Fireside Chat with Nikesh Arora (SoftBank)

9:45 AM – 10:05 AM
The Nuke Kids On The Block: Jacob DeWitte (UPower) and Leslie Dewan (Transatomic Power)

10:05 AM – 10:25 AM
Founders Stories with Adi Tatarko (Houzz)

10:25 AM – 10:45 AM
Fireside Chat with Andrew (Boz) Bosworth (Facebook)

10:45 AM – 11:05 AM
In Conversation James Park (Fitbit) and Jon Callaghan (True Ventures)

11:05 AM – 11:20 AM
Break

11:20 AM – 11:40 AM
In Conversation with Alan Schaaf (Imgur) And Sarah Schaaf (Imgur)

11:40 AM – 12:05 PM
In Conversation with Jesse Vollmar (Farmlogs)

12:05 PM – 12:25 PM
Fireside Chat with Tim Westergren (Pandora)

12:25 PM – 12:40 PM
In Conversation with Matthew Prince (CloudFlare) and Michelle Zatlyn (CloudFlare)

12:40 PM – 1:00 PM
Fireside Chat with Andre Iguodala

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Lunch

2:00 PM – 2:20 PM
Fireside Chat with John Doerr (KPCB) and Colleen Taylor (Y Combinator)

2:25 PM – 6:00 PM
Startup Battlefield
Hosted by Jason Kincaid

9:00 PM – Midnight
After Party sponsored by Intuit at Public Works, 161 Erie St., San Francisco, CA 94103

 

Wednesday, September 23

9:05 AM – 9:30 AM
A Conversation About Diversity: Isis Anchalee (OneLogin), Tracy Chou (Pinterest) and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (Joyus) with Alexia Tsotsis

9:30 AM – 9:50 AM
Firside Chat with Bryan Schreier (Sequoia Capital) and Ryan Smith (Qualtrics)

9:50 AM – 10:05 AM
Founders Stories with Gagan Biyani (Sprig)

10:05 AM – 10:25 AM
Fireside Chat with Sam Altman (Y Combinator)

10:25 AM – 10:40 AM
Founder Stories with Tracy Young (PlanGrid)

10:40 AM – 11:00 AM
Fireside Chat with DJ Patil (White House) & Phaedra Chrousos

11:00 AM – 11:25 AM
Break

11:25 AM – 11:45 AM
In Conversation with Ron Johnson (Enjoy)

11:45 AM – 12:10 PM
Break It Until You Make It: Gregg Brockway (MAKE), Mark Hatch (TechShop), and Peter Weijmarshausen (Shapeways)

12:10 PM – 12:30 PM
Fireside Chat with Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures)

12:30 PM – 12:50 PM
Founders Stories with Eric Migicovsky (Pebble)

12:50 PM – 1:00 PM
Hackathon Update

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Lunch

2:00 PM – 2:20 PM
Founder Stories with Troy Carter (Atom Factory)

2:20 PM – 2:35 PM
Battlefield Alumni Update

2:35 PM – 2:40 PM
Hardware Alley Demo

2:40 PM – 2:45 PM
Selecting The Order For Startup Battlefield Finals

2:45 PM – 2:55 PM
Break

2:55 PM – 5:00 PM
Startup Battlefield Finals Hosted by Jason Kincaid

Judges:

Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital)
Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures)
Brian Pokorny (SV Angel)
Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch)
Anne Wojcicki (23andMe)
Susan Wojcicki (YouTube)

5:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Closing Cocktail Reception

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Passing The Disrupt Cup

[tc_aol_on code=”519032656“]

More TechCrunch

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, isn’t working properly right now. At first, it wasn’t possible to perform a web search at all. It seems like search results now load properly. But…

Bing’s API is down, bringing Microsoft Copilot, DuckDuckGo and ChatGPT’s web search feature down

If you thought autonomous driving was just for cars, think again. The so-called ‘autonomous navigation’ market — where ships steer themselves guided by AI, resulting in fuel and time savings…

Autonomous shipping startup Orca AI tops up with $23M led by OCV Partners and MizMaa Ventures

The best known mycoprotein is probably Quorn, a meat substitute that’s fast approaching its 40th birthday. But Finnish biotech startup Enifer is cooking up something even older: Its proprietary single-cell…

Meet the Finnish biotech startup bringing a long lost mycoprotein to your plate

Silo, a Bay Area food supply chain startup, has hit a rough patch. TechCrunch has learned that the company on Tuesday laid off roughly 30% of its staff, or north…

Food supply chain software maker Silo lays off ~30% of staff amid M&A discussions

Featured Article

Meta’s new AI council is composed entirely of white men

Meanwhile, women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by irresponsible AI.

12 hours ago
Meta’s new AI council is composed entirely of white men

If you’ve ever wanted to apply to Y Combinator, here’s some inside scoop on how the iconic accelerator goes about choosing companies.

Garry Tan has revealed his ‘secret sauce’ for getting into Y Combinator

Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart has started operating in Dubai, TechCrunch has exclusively learned and confirmed with its executive. The move to Dubai, which has been rumored for months, could help…

India’s BluSmart is testing its ride-hailing service in Dubai

Under the envisioned framework, both candidate and issue ads would be required to include an on-air and filed disclosure that AI-generated content was used.

FCC proposes all AI-generated content in political ads must be disclosed

Want to make a founder’s day, week, month, and possibly career? Refer them to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024! Applications close June 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT. TechCrunch’s Startup…

Refer a founder to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024

Social networking startup and X competitor Bluesky is officially launching DMs (direct messages), the company announced on Wednesday. Later, Bluesky plans to “fully support end-to-end encrypted messaging down the line,”…

Bluesky now has DMs

The perception in Silicon Valley is that every investor would love to be in business with Peter Thiel. But the venture capital fundraising environment has become so difficult that even…

Peter Thiel-founded Valar Ventures raised a $300 million fund, half the size of its last one

Featured Article

Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers

Several hotel check-in computers are running a remote access app, which is leaking screenshots of guest information to the internet.

15 hours ago
Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers

Gavet has had a rocky tenure at Techstars and her leadership was the subject of much controversy.

Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet is out

The struggle isn’t universal, however.

Connected fitness is adrift post-pandemic

Featured Article

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized…

17 hours ago
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

HoundDog actually looks at the code a developer is writing, using both traditional pattern matching and large language models to find potential issues.

HoundDog.ai helps developers prevent personal information from leaking

The changes are designed to enhance the consumer experience of using Google Pay and make it a more competitive option against other payment methods.

Google Pay will now display card perks, BNPL options and more

Few figures in the tech industry have earned the storied reputation of Vinod Khosla, founder and partner at Khosla Ventures. For over 40 years, he has been at the center…

Vinod Khosla is coming to Disrupt to discuss how AI might change the future

AI has already started replacing voice agents’ jobs. Now, companies are exploring ways to replace the existing computer-generated voice models with synthetic versions of human voices. Truecaller, the widely known…

Truecaller partners with Microsoft to let its AI respond to calls in your own voice

Meta is updating its Ray-Ban smart glasses with new hands-free functionality, the company announced on Wednesday. Most notably, users can now share an image from their smart glasses directly to…

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses now let you share images directly to your Instagram Story

Spotify launched its own font, the company announced on Wednesday. The music streaming service hopes that its new typeface, “Spotify Mix,” will help Spotify distinguish its own unique visual identity. …

Why Spotify is launching its own font, Spotify Mix

In 2008, Marty Kagan, who’d previously worked at Cisco and Akamai, co-founded Cedexis, a (now-Cisco-owned) firm developing observability tech for content delivery networks. Fellow Cisco veteran Hasan Alayli joined Kagan…

Hydrolix seeks to make storing log data faster and cheaper

A dodgy email containing a link that looks “legit” but is actually malicious remains one of the most dangerous, yet successful, tricks in a cybercriminal’s handbook. Now, an AI startup…

Bolster, creator of the CheckPhish phishing tracker, raises $14M led by Microsoft’s M12

If you’ve been looking forward to seeing Boeing’s Starliner capsule carry two astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The…

Boeing, NASA indefinitely delay crewed Starliner launch

TikTok is the latest tech company to incorporate generative AI into its ads business, as the company announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new “TikTok Symphony” AI suite for…

TikTok turns to generative AI to boost its ads business

Gone are the days when space and defense were considered fundamentally antithetical to venture investment. Now, the country’s largest venture capital firms are throwing larger portions of their money behind…

Space VC closes $20M Fund II to back frontier tech founders from day zero

These days every company is trying to figure out if their large language models are compliant with whichever rules they deem important, and with legal or regulatory requirements. If you’re…

Patronus AI is off to a magical start as LLM governance tool gains traction

Link-in-bio startup Linktree has crossed 50 million users and is rolling out the beta of its social commerce program.

Linktree surpasses 50M users, rolls out its social commerce program to more creators

For a $5.99 per month, immigrants have a bank account and debit card with fee-free international money transfers and discounted international calling.

Immigrant banking platform Majority secures $20M following 3x revenue growth