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Thanks to everyone who made this year San Francisco event What it was – and to the 10,000 of you who filled the halls, made connections and left with more than you brought. Couldn’t do it? The pictures below tell part of the story. up to next year.
Vinod Khosla, telling attendees he doesn’t buy the argument that empowering AI will destroy climate efforts. Geothermal energy is almost here, he says, fusion is further out. He also touched on his alignment with Trump (deregulation) and his disagreements (immigration): “The only thing I will say is that this administration is not going to last forever,” he said with a laugh.
Roelof Botha on that stage, and the crowd that came to hang on his every word. Sequoia Partners explains how its firm picks winners, what public ownership can mean in startups, and warns founders to raise now if they need money six months from now. Pop the bubbles.
Kevin Damoa of Glīd Technologies, winner of this year’s Battlefield competition with Battlefield Chief Isabelle Johannessen. He and TC’s Michael Schick worked with dozens of startups for months to prepare them for this stage. Hugs are earned.
Roy Lee, the founder of Cluely, the app best known for its “cheat on everything” mantra, entertains crowds with f-bomb-loads of how to win at marketing. “Every day, people are doing crazier and crazier things, so to differentiate yourself, you have to do something crazier.” (Image at left, Maxwell Jeff, by himself.)
If former Cleveland Cavalier Tristan Thompson misses the NBA, he’s not showing it. He is building a business empire and raising delicate questions about the league he leaves behind. Asked if players could manipulate Basketball Fun — a Web3 platform that turns NBA players into tradable tokens — he offered a counterpoint: “It’s the same question we ask about referees. They are not gaming the system?” When moderator Rebecca Belan pressed him on whether NBA referees take bribes, Thompson shrugged. “It’s just a question to ask,” he said.
Our very own Sean O’Kane shares a moment with Wave co-founder and CEO, Alex Kendall. Kendall is smiling as his UK-based self-driving startup — whose software acts as the “brain for the car” — is in talks to raise a fresh $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation from SoftBank and Microsoft.
TechCrunch event
San Francisco
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October 27-29, 2025
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kiani, founders of AI-powered shopping assistant Phia, wowed the TechCrunch audience with their enthusiasm for making finding high-quality, secondhand clothing much easier. Bill and Melinda’s daughter Gates was also playing sports when moderator Amanda Silberling asked her what her famous parents learned from her. Gates laughed, “Hopefully style! I don’t even consider myself that stylish; I just like to create consumer space, but now I get random emails from my family, asking, ‘Do I want to wear this?'”
Waymo co-CEO Takedra Mawakana, along with TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosek, raised questions about autonomous vehicles, including whether society will accept the death caused by automated vehicles. “I think that society will,” says Mawakana. “The challenge is to ensure that society has a high enough bar on protections that companies are held to.”
Kevin Rose talks Digg’s reboot and the future of venture capital (Rose is also a general partner at early-stage venture firm True Ventures). I’m laughing because that’s what you do when no one answers your questions about a busy, wearable startup that’s still under wraps. (We will have more Sandbar soon.)
Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf is drenching questions about building the future of AI, including as it relates to LeRobot, the Hugging Face project that seeks to democratize robotics through affordable hardware, open-source tools and shared datasets.
Marlon Nichols of Mac VC and Eileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures are the final judges in our highly competitive Startup Battlefield finale. Somewhere off-camera, a founder is sweating through their pitch deck.
Box’s Aaron Levy in conversation with TC’s Russell Brandom. Levy has graced the Disrupt stage many times in TC’s 20 years at the center of the startup ecosystem, and he always brings it.
Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone on the streamer’s expanded remit from general ambivalence-viewing to interactive programming (think voting on live shows and gaming with your phone): “It hasn’t changed the way we tell stories,” she told an excited crowd.
TC’s Dominique-Madori Davis talks campus community building with Tage Werinde, who’s rethinking the community college, and Fizz’s Teddy Solomon, the anonymous social app that’s spreading across college campuses and sometimes getting banned, which some might see as a badge of honor.
A whiteboard of wants: developers needed, contacts suggested, proposals made. We love it when founders lean into old-school tactics. (Some still work!)
David George, who leads the growth investing team at Andreessen Horowitz, came on the show to talk to Julie Bort about what startups need to weigh as they head to the public markets. It was his birthday, as it turned out; The crowd takes a moment here to celebrate it with him.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie in his call with President Trump about sending the National Guard to the city — a proposal by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “I tell everyone what I told him: This is a growing city,” Lurie said. “Three days of chaos here will prove that.” He was unsure if he had made concessions with Trump, the deal maker. “No, not at all. No question.”
Post-show cheers from TC’s Jessica Barrera, who handled tickets for the 10,000 attendees. He regularly preserves our bacon.
For more photos from the event, visit us Flickr stream.
You can find our full video coverage: here Day 1, Day 2And Day 3.
