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TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Speakers
New speakers are added regularly. Check back in for updates.
Partner Index Ventures
Managing Partner at True Ventures True Ventures
Managing Partner M13
Partner Sapphire Ventures
Head of Corporate Development and M&A Coinbase
Partner CapitalG
CEO & Co-founder Gamma
CEO and Co-founder Decart
Founder Mignano Law Group
CEO and Co-founder Gusto
Managing Director Peak XV
General Partner Emergence Capital
Co-founder and SVP of Field Engineering Databricks
CEO & Co-founder Airbyte
Partner Radical Ventures
Co-founder & CEO Harvey
Nina is a partner at Index Ventures, investing across seed, venture, and growth stages in AI, robotics, software for hardware, and vertical SaaS. She is excited by companies that build solutions to automate “forgotten” functions and industries, replacing pen and paper and siloed tools. Nina is inspired by founders who develop empathy for their customers, have an insatiable curiosity, and operate with a growth mindset. Nina currently serves on the boards of or works with companies including ServiceTitan, Physical Intelligence, Anthropic, Quilter, Gong, Vizcom, and Transcend, among others. Prior to Index, Nina worked at Google as an FP&A Lead, where she helped build the GTM infrastructure of the AdSense sales organization. She started her career as a bond trader in New York and London and founded HIVE Ventures, the first seed fund focused on Armenian entrepreneurs. Nina was featured on Forbes’ Midas Brink List in 2022, which recognizes up-and-coming leading investors. She graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in government and is a recipient of the Michael C. Rockefeller Scholarship. Nina currently lives in San Francisco and, in her spare time, can be found watching football and Formula 1.
Puneet Agarwal is a managing partner at True Ventures, a leading early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2005. With a foundational mission to empower entrepreneurs at the initial stages of company creation, True has partnered with over 1,050 Founders across more than 500 companies. The firm’s 12 funds have been a part of seven IPOs and over 60 acquisitions. While he’s interested in all aspects of technology, Puneet focuses on enterprise infrastructure and applications, particularly as they are being reinvented by AI. Puneet began his career as a product manager at CrossWorlds Software, a startup focused on software integration, which IBM acquired in 2001. Puneet later worked in technology investment banking at J.P. Morgan and in venture capital at the Mayfield Fund, where he invested in early stage technology companies. At BEA Systems, Puneet held various product management and marketing roles over four years, where he formed and ran BEA’s RFID initiative. Following BEA, Puneet joined Geodesic Systems, a mobile messaging company, as VP of Product Management. His Geodesic role later took him to India, before he joined True in 2008. Puneet holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in industrial engineering with honors from Stanford University, where he was a Mayfield Fellow. When he’s not partnering with Founders, he’s navigating life with his wife and three children.
Karl Alomar is an investor and serial entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience scaling venture-backed businesses, and is the Managing Partner of M13, an early-stage firm backing visionary software founders at seed and Series A. At M13, he focuses on infrastructure technology across fintech, developer productivity, and the future of work, with a particular emphasis on how AI and web3 are reshaping these categories. Karl spends his time across all aspects of the firm, from leading investing to overseeing M13’s Propulsion platform team and running the underlying organization. He is best known for building DigitalOcean, one of the fastest-growing cloud infrastructure companies, where he served as COO and helped scale the business from first product to roughly $250 million in ARR and an eventual IPO on the NYSE (DOCN), at which point the company’s valuation peaked around $15 billion. Before M13 and DigitalOcean, Karl co-founded and served as CEO of China Export Finance, growing the business to approximately $140 million in revenue before its acquisition in 2010, and co-founded and led Clearview Networks, which was acquired in 2000. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London.
Rajeev is a Partner at Sapphire Ventures and has been investing for nearly 15 years across a few dozen companies. He is focused on partnering with exceptional founders building category-defining B2B software companies in horizontal and vertical AI, as well as leading innovators in fintech and healthcare. Rajeev’s notable investments include Glean, monday.com, Square, Wise, Braze, Moveworks, Segment, Mercury and Livongo Health. Prior to Sapphire Ventures, Rajeev invested in software companies for Silver Lake, a technology-focused private equity firm. Early on in his career, he worked for the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs and while in business school, worked with Amazon’s corporate development group.
As Head of Corporate Development and M&A at Coinbase, Aklil Ibssa leads the firm’s mergers and acquisition strategy and execution, and is the brain behind some of the company’s most substantial acquisitions (ex. Deribit, Liquifi, Echo) and investments (ex. Kalshi). In this role, he’s led over 14 acquisitions and nearly 50 early & later stage investments, and as one of the first hires on the team, helped scale Coinbase’s M&A program to the most active in crypto with 40+ completed acquisitions. Prior to Coinbase, he was an early member of LinkedIn’s Corp Dev team leading M&A, strategy, and investments across the business. Before that, he was an investment banker working on M&A, capital markets, and advisory work at Deutsche Bank in San Francisco.
Mo Jomaa is a partner at Alphabet’s independent growth fund, CapitalG, where he helps lead enterprise software investing with a focus on IT management software, data infrastructure & analytics, and AI infrastructure. He played a leadership role in the firm’s investments in Databricks, CrowdStrike, Grafana, NinjaOne, Verkada, Cribl, Armis, LangChain, Lovable, and Collibra, among others. Prior to joining CapitalG in 2018, Mo helped lead enterprise software IPO and M&A transactions at Morgan Stanley. Mo graduated from UC Berkeley and holds a degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business. Having grown up in Southern California, Mo is a loyal Los Angeles Lakers fan and religiously watches almost every single game. In his free time, Mo loves to play basketball, cook, golf, and cycle.
Grant Lee is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gamma, the AI-powered presentation and website design tool that has scaled beyond 70 million customers and $100M in ARR with only 50 employees. A Stanford-trained engineer with a background in finance and operations, Grant spent much of his early career creating countless slide decks, a pain point that inspired him to found Gamma and reimagine how people share ideas. Before Gamma, he served as COO of ClearBrain (acquired by Amplitude) and CFO of Optimizely.
Dean Leitersdorf is the 27-year-old Co-Founder and CEO of Decart, an efficiency-first AI video research lab developing the world’s fastest generative video and world-modeling technology. He earned his PhD from the Technion at 23- then the youngest in the university’s history, until his brother Orian later broke the record. Decart has raised $153 million from leading investors, including Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, and Zeev Ventures.
Lindsey S. Mignano represents emerging technology companies and industry-adjacent firms and SMEs as their outside general counsel. Her team’s practice includes: SAFE note or priced round raises for early stage (Seed through Series B) startups, including bridge/extension rounds. Buy-side or sell-side acquisitions, including asset sales plus acquihires or entity acquisitions, including due diligence and any novations of existing customer contracts; Flips from abroad entity structures to a DE C Corp structure for the purposes of procuring American venture capital, and the related priced round; Corporate restructuring in order to achieve tax optimization for raises, sales, or cofounder exits/business divorces; Corporate due diligence and clean up in preparation for a raise or sale, including due diligence and clean up related to stock grants, IP assignments, commercial contracts, etc.; IP spinouts, particularly transferring IP out of consulting businesses into a C Corp structure for QSBS or venture capital fundraising purposes; and Outside general counsel services. Most of her clients are venture-capital funded at the Seed ($1-5M+ range), Series A ($10M+ range), and Series B ($20M+ range). In terms of verticals, her most popular vertical includes enterprise SaaS/PaaS companies, many of whom are AI technology companies. Her other clients include venture capital firms deploying capital to startups and other adjacent businesses who sell to or otherwise do business with technology companies.
Josh Reeves is the CEO and co-founder of Gusto, helping 500,000 companies nationwide with payroll, health insurance, compliance, employee onboarding, HR, retirement savings, and more. By combining the power of AI with more than a decade of experience supporting small businesses, Gusto exists to power builders – giving them the capabilities, confidence, and technology to start, hire, pay, and grow. Josh leads the company on its mission to grow the small business economy with technology and heart, so that anyone can turn ambition into action, build a meaningful business on their own terms, and be successful doing it.
Shailendra Singh is a Managing Director at Peak XV (formerly known as Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia). He joined the firm in 2006 and has served as its leader since 2011. Peak XV has partnered with over 500 companies spanning technology, software, financial services and consumer sectors across the world. The portfolio has seen 36 IPOs, multiple successful M&As and currently has 51 companies with over $100M in revenues. Shailendra has led investments in several category leaders including Supabase, PostHog, Pine Labs, CRED, GoTo, Druva and Sirion. He received an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School (HBS) and currently serves on the HBS Board of Dean’s Advisors as well as the Board of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). He holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from IIT Bombay, and is also a Kauffman Fellow.
Lotti Siniscalco joined Emergence in 2018, rapidly making her mark and rising to General Partner in 2026. She has led investments in Oyster, Federato, Method, Strala, Casap and Harper. Beyond her investment work, Lotti leads Emergence’s sourcing efforts, mentoring associates as they develop networks, refine research methodologies, and sharpen their diligence skills—a reflection of her collaborative and growth-oriented approach to venture. Lotti’s career is steeped in fintech expertise. Before joining Emergence, she honed her operational and investment acumen at Advent International, where she focused on financial services and technology and served as a board observer for TransUnion. She gained hands-on experience in business operations at fintech leader NerdWallet and developed deep sector knowledge as an early-stage investor at Ribbit Capital, where she led diligence in emerging areas like cyber insurance and retirement technology. Her understanding of the fintech landscape is unparalleled, enabling her to help founders navigate the complexities of scaling in this fast-evolving sector. As an immigrant from Italy, Lotti is deeply passionate about supporting underrepresented founders and professionals. She’s a longtime mentor through Mentors4u, helping young Italian professionals build their careers, and is a fierce advocate for women in venture capital. She regularly brings together early-stage female investors through a dinner series aimed at fostering community and collaboration—a reflection of her belief in amplifying diverse voices in the industry. Lotti began her career at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker and holds a BS from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford Business School. On weekends, she can be found exploring San Francisco’s Presidio with her three young children, Leo, Alex and Franco. With her fintech expertise, leadership at Emergence, and unwavering commitment to fostering inclusivity, Lotti represents the best of venture capital. Her ability to spot and support transformative businesses makes her an indispensable partner to founders and an emerging leader in the industry.
Prior to joining Databricks, Arsalan was an Associate Principal at McKinsey and Company, where he advised enterprises, vendors, and the public sector on a broad spectrum of strategic topics, including next-generation IT, cloud computing, and big initiatives as well as general IT and corporate strategy. Arsalan received a PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley in the area of Networking and Distributed Systems and a B.Eng from the University of Virginia.
As CEO & Co-Founder, Michel has grown Airbyte into the leading open-source data integration platform, known for its extensive connector library and flexible self-hosting. The company has raised $181M from the likes of Accel, Benchmark, and Y Combinator, reaching a $1.5B valuation, and is used by over 7,000 customers (including 18% of the Fortune 500), such as Siemens, Perplexity, Monday.com, Calendly, and Invesco. With over 600 connectors and 250,000+ deployments, it powers data movement across analytics, operations, governance, and AI—supporting both structured and unstructured data in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Prior to founding Airbyte, Michel served as Director of Engineering at rideOS and led data integrations at LiveRamp, where he helped shape foundational innovations in data infrastructure and engineering. He holds a Master of Science (M.S.) in Computer Science from EPITA (École d’Ingénieurs en Informatique).
Rob Toews is a partner at Radical Ventures and leads the firm’s SF office. He writes a regular column in Forbes about the big picture of artificial intelligence. Before becoming a VC, Rob spent many years in the world of autonomous vehicles, including leading Zoox’s strategy team and working on autonomous vehicle policy as a staffer in the Obama White House. He started his career at Bain & Company. Rob holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA from Stanford.
Winston Weinberg is the CEO and Co-founder of Harvey, the leading professional services platform engineered with AI for law, tax, and finance. Before founding Harvey in August 2022, Winston was an attorney at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, specializing in antitrust and securities litigation. He earned his J.D. from USC Gould School of Law, where he contributed to the Southern California Law Review, and earned his Bachelor’s degree from Kenyon College.
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Past speakers
Expect the same high-caliber tech voices that have defined Disrupt’s stages year after year.
Hear from leaders who’ve shaped the industry, navigated its shifts, and come out ahead.
Chair and CEO General Motors
Managing Partner and Steward Sequoia Capital
Chief Executive Officer Slack from Salesforce
Founder and CEO Lumi and Super Bowl QB
Founder Khosla Ventures
Co-Founder & CEO Box
Co-CEO Waymo
Co-Founder / Founder and CEO WordPress / Automattic
NBA Superstar and Philanthropist Entrepreneur
Founder, MIRROR, and CEO Board
Co-Founder and CEO Wiz
Founding & Managing Partner Serena Ventures
Mary Barra is chair and chief executive officer of General Motors. She was elected chair of the GM Board of Directors in 2016 and has served as CEO of GM since 2014. Under Barra’s leadership, GM envisions a world with zero crashes, to save lives; zero emissions, so future generations can inherit a healthier planet; and zero congestion, so customers get back a precious commodity — time. She is focused on creating the best customer experience and strengthening GM’s core vehicle and services business, while also working to deliver transformative technologies such as electrification, autonomous driving, and software. Prior to becoming CEO, Barra served as GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, and as senior vice president, Global Product Development. In these roles, Barra and her teams were responsible for the design, engineering, and quality of GM vehicle launches worldwide. Previously, she served as vice president, Global Human Resources; vice president, Global Manufacturing Engineering; plant manager, Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly; and in several other executive engineering and staff positions. Barra began her career with GM in 1980 as a General Motors Institute (Kettering University) co-op student at the Pontiac Motor Division. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1985, followed by a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1990. Barra serves on the Board of Directors of the Walt Disney Company, the Duke University Board of Trustees, and the Detroit Economic Club.
Roelof is Managing Partner and Steward of Sequoia Capital. He has spent over 25 years building companies in Silicon Valley. He began within the walls of nascent PayPal, where he joined in March 2000 while completing his MBA at Stanford. He became CFO in 2001 and led the company through both its IPO in early 2002 and the subsequent acquisition by eBay. Roelof joined Sequoia in 2003 to help founders build enduring businesses. In 2017, he assumed leadership of Sequoia Capital’s US/Europe business and became a Steward of the Sequoia Partnership. Roelof is a Director of Block, Blues, Ethos, Flow, MongoDB, Natera, Pendulum Therapeutics, and Unity Technologies, among others. Previously, he was a Director of companies that include YouTube, Tumblr, Xoom, Eventbrite, and Evernote. He also led Sequoia’s investment in Instagram.
Denise Dresser is the CEO of Slack. For over 20 years, Denise has spearheaded business transformations within many of the world’s largest and most innovative companies. At Slack and as a part of Salesforce, Denise leads the team of Slack technologists, product innovators, marketers, communicators, and customer success professionals who are grounded in Slack’s mission to make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. Denise previously served as President of Accelerated Industries Sales at Salesforce, leading the distribution and go-to-market strategy for some of Salesforce’s most strategic accounts and for the company’s industry-leading cloud solutions. Prior to Salesforce, she was a sales leader at Oracle. Denise graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a member of the Ad Council Board of Directors, a passionate mentor to future women leaders and top talent, and the executive sponsor for ALSForce, a Salesforce equality group focused on raising awareness about ALS. Denise is based in San Francisco and is the mom to two amazing teenage boys.
Colin Kaepernick is the founder and CEO of Lumi, a groundbreaking platform that empowers creators by providing them with the tools needed to independently create, publish, and merchandise their stories both digitally and physically. In 2016, he took a knee during “The Star Spangled Banner” to bring attention to systemic oppressions against Black and Brown people, and quickly became known as one of America’s foremost civil rights activists. As an NFL player, Colin led the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII and is the holder of the all-time NFL record for most rushing yards in a game by a quarterback. He has been awarded a number of prestigious honors, including Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope honor, GQ magazine’s “Citizen of the Year,” the NFL’s Len Eshmont Award, the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, the ACLU’s Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award, and the Puffin/Nation Institute’s Prize for Creative Citizenship. Since 2016, he has founded and helped to fund three organizations — Know Your Rights Camp, Kaepernick Media, and Kaepernick Publishing — that together advance the liberation of Black and Brown people through storytelling, systems change, and political education. In 2019, Kaepernick helped Nike win an Emmy for its “Dream Crazy” commercial. In 2021, Colin released Colin in Black & White, a six-episode limited series on Netflix exploring his high school years, which won two NAACP Image Awards. In 2022, he became a New York Times bestselling author for his acclaimed children’s picture book, “I Color Myself Different.” He will release his next children’s book, “We Are Free, You and Me” in October 2024, co-authored with his wife Nessa and published in partnership with Scholastic.
Vinod Khosla is an entrepreneur, investor, and technology fan. He is the founder of Khosla Ventures, focused on impactful technology investments in software, AI, robotics, 3D printing, healthcare and more. Mr. Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy systems and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. One of Mr. Khosla’s greatest passions is being a mentor to entrepreneurs, assisting entrepreneurs and helping them build technology-based businesses. Mr. Khosla is driven by the desire to make a positive impact through technology to reinvent societal infrastructure and multiply resources. He is also passionate about Social Entrepreneurship. Vinod holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from IIT, New Delhi, a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Aaron Levie is Chief Executive Officer, Cofounder at Box, which he launched in 2005 with CFO and cofounder Dylan Smith. He is the visionary behind the Box product and platform strategy, incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Aaron leads the company in its mission to transform the way people and businesses work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions. He has served on the Board of Directors since April 2005. Aaron attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005 before leaving to found Box.
Tekedra N. Mawakana is the co-CEO of Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company. As co-CEO, Tekedra oversees the company’s strategy for the wide adoption of the Waymo Driver. She boasts 20+ years of experience advising consumer technology companies to advance their business interests globally. Tekedra currently serves on the Board of Directors for Intuit and the Advisory Council for Boom Technology. She is a social impact-focused angel investor and an Advisor and LP with the Operator Collective.
Matt Mullenweg is co-founder of the open source publishing platform WordPress, which now powers over 40% of all sites on the web. He is the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, WPVIP, Day One, Beeper, and Pocket Casts. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital, an investment and research company. He has been recognized for his leadership by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc. Magazine, TechCrunch, Fortune, Fast Company, Wired, University Philosophical Society, and Vanity Fair. Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. He currently splits his time between Houston and San Francisco.
NBA superstar, philanthropist, and renowned successful business entrepreneur Shaquille O’Neal — known around the world as Shaq — is a true cultural icon who brings his inspiring story and unbeatable lessons in leadership and business to life at every smash-hit event. After spending nearly two decades racking up accolades in the NBA (15x NBA All-Star, 4x NBA Champion, and a 3x NBA Finals MVP), Shaq is heralded for his tremendous business savvy — he got his MBA back in 2005 — and his insights and advice on business success and diversification have been featured in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, Money, and more. O’Neal has become a bona fide mogul, investing in companies like Google, Apple, and Ring, and becoming the second-largest individual shareholder of Authentic Brands Group, as well as franchising storefronts like Big Chicken, Papa Johns, and Krispy Kreme, among a myriad of notable entrepreneurial ventures.
Brynn Putnam is the founder and CEO of Board, a first-ever face-to-face game console launching Fall 2025. She is the former CEO of Mirror, a connected fitness start-up that launched in 2018 and was acquired in 2020 for $500 million by lululemon, representing its first acquisition. MIRROR was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, TIME’s Best Inventions and Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups. Brynn has been recognized by Inc’s 30 under 30, Crain’s 40 under 40, and EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Brynn was a professional ballerina with The New York City Ballet and founder of the renowned NYC fitness chain Refine Method. Brynn has a B.A. from Harvard College and is a member of New York City Ballet’s Board of Directors. Brynn is a native New Yorker and lives on the UES with her husband, Kevin Thau, and two children, George and Agnes.
Assaf Rappaport is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wiz, the world’s fastest-growing startup securing everything organizations build and run in the cloud. Wiz serves over 40% of the Fortune 100 and has raised over $1.9 billion at a $12 billion valuation in just four years, with investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, Howard Schultz, and others. Before founding Wiz, Assaf was the founder and CEO of the security company Adallom, which was acquired by Microsoft for $320 million in 2015. He then served as Microsoft’s youngest-ever General Manager, overseeing the company’s Cloud Security Group and Israeli R&D Center.
As a world-class athlete, businesswoman, philanthropist and mother, Serena Williams knows what it takes to win. She has persevered to become one of the top tennis players in history with 23 Grand Slam titles. Serena began actively investing nine years ago when she saw the impact that startups had on everyday lives; in building Serena Ventures, she has been able to multiply that effort with over $110M in investment capital.