Scenes from TechCrunch Disrupt | TechCrunch

Thank you to everyone who made this year’s San Francisco event what it was – and to the 10,000 people who filled the halls, made the connections and left with more than you came with. Couldn’t be there? The images below offer a glimpse of what you missed.

See you next year.

Vinod Khosla, who tells attendees he doesn’t buy the argument that powering AI will undermine climate efforts. Geothermal energy is almost here, he said, while fusion is still further away. He also addressed his alignment with President Donald Trump (deregulation) and his differences (immigration): “All I’m saying is this administration isn’t going to last forever,” he said with a grin.

That’s Roelof Botha on stage, and that’s the audience hanging on his every word. The Sequoia partner discussed how his company picks winners, what government ownership in startups could mean, and warned founders not to get crazy with timing, telling them to raise money now if they need money in six months. Bubbles pop.

Kevin Damoa of Glīd Technologies, winner of this year’s Battlefield competition, with Battlefield chief Isabelle Johannessen. She and Michael Schick from TC have been working with dozens of startups for months to prepare them for this phase. The hug is deserved.

Roy Lee, the founder of Cluely, the app best known for its “cheat at everything” mantra, entertains audiences with his f-bomb-laden take on how to win with marketing. “Every day people do crazier things. That’s why to stand out, you have to do something even crazier.” (Pictured left, Maxwell Zeff, holding his own.)

If former Cleveland Cavalier Tristan Thompson misses the NBA, he isn’t showing it. He builds a business empire and asks sharp questions about the competition he has left behind. When 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 referees. Are they not gaming the system??” When moderator Rebecca Bellan asked if he meant NBA referees take bribes, Thompson shrugged. “It’s just a question that needs to be asked,” he said.

Our very own Sean O’Kane shares a moment with Wayve co-founder and CEO, Alex Kendall. Kendall may also be laughing because his British-based self-driving startup — whose software acts as a “brain for cars” — is in talks to raise $2 billion from SoftBank and Microsoft at an $8 billion valuation.

Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, founders of the AI-powered shopping assistant Phia, dazzled the audience at TechCrunch with their enthusiasm for making high-quality second-hand clothing a lot easier to find. Gates, daughter of Bill and Melinda, was also a good sport when moderator Amanda Silberling asked what her famous parents have learned from her. Gates laughed, “Hopefully stylish! I don’t even consider myself that stylish; I just love building in the consumer space, but now I’m getting random emails from my family asking, ‘Should I wear this with this?'”

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana with TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec, answers questions about autonomous vehicles, including whether society will accept deaths caused by self-driving cars. “I think society will,” Mawakana said. “The challenge is to ensure that society sets the safety bar high enough that companies must meet.”

Kevin Rose talks Digg’s reboot and the future of venture capital (Rose is also a general partner at early-stage venture capital firm True Ventures). I smile because that’s what you do when someone doesn’t answer your questions about a vibrant, portable startup that’s still under wraps. (We have more on that Sandbank soon.)

Thomas Wolf, co-founder of Hugging Face, walks the line between questions about building the future of AI, including when it comes to LeRobot, the Hugging Face project that seeks to democratize robotics with affordable hardware, open-source tools and shared data sets.

Final judges Marlon Nichols of MaC VC and Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures during the final stages of our highly competitive Startup Battlefield. Somewhere off camera, a founder is sweating through their pitch deck.

Aaron Levie from Box in conversation with Russell Brandom from TC. Levie has been on the Disrupt stage countless times in the twenty years that TC has been at the center of the startup ecosystem, and he always brings it.

Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone on the streamer’s expanded remit from simple binge-watching to interactive programming (think voting on live shows and gaming via your phone): “It hasn’t changed the way we tell stories,” she told a rapt audience.

TC’s Dominic-Madori Davis talks community building with Campus’s Tage Oyerinde, who is rethinking community college, and Teddy Solomon of Fizz, the anonymous social app spreading across college campuses and occasionally getting banned, which some might consider a badge of honor.

A whiteboard with wishes: developers needed, contacts offered, deals proposed. We love it when founders indulge in old-school tactics. (Some still work!)

David George, who leads Andreessen Horowitz’s growth investment team, came to the show to talk with Julie Bort about what startups need to weigh as they eye the public markets. It was his birthday, as it turns out; the audience takes a moment here to celebrate with him.

Here it is San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie discusses his call with President Trump on why the National Guard should not be sent to the city – a proposal from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “What I said to him was what I tell everyone: This is a city on the rise,” Lurie said. “Three days of Disrupt here should prove that.” He was definitive about whether he has made concessions to the deal-making Trump. “No, absolutely not. No question.”

Many people come from all over the world to program on how to build their startups. We covered all the bases of our Builders Stage, which was packed every day, all day.

Elation after the show from Jessica Barrera of TC, who handled ticket sales for 10,000 visitors. She routinely saves our bacon.

For many more photos from the event, please visit our Flickr stream.

You can also find our full video coverage here Day 1, Day 2And Day 3.