TechCrunch Disrupt 2025
TechCrunch Disrupt is where you’ll find innovation for every stage of your startup journey. Whether you’re a budding founder with a revolutionary idea, a seasoned startup looking to scale, or an investor seeking the next big thing, Disrupt offers unparalleled resources, connections, and expert insights to propel your venture forward.
Find innovation for every stage at Disrupt 2025
From idea to IPO, Disrupt 2025 will map out the path for startups to achieve their next major milestone.
Join 10,000 startup and VC leaders
Looking to meet founders, connect with investors, seek advice, or land your next big role? Disrupt is the must-attend event to make it all happen in person.
Build and scale your business faster
Disrupt is more than a startup launchpad — it’s a growth accelerator. Dive into sessions on scaling, sales, and leadership, and connect with the investors and tech experts who can help take your business to the next level.
Gain insights from today’s tech giants
Tap into the wisdom of founders and tech titans at Disrupt. From actionable tips to hard-won lessons, they’ll share what works (and what doesn’t) to guide you as you build your own path forward.
Past Disrupt speakers
Co-Founder and General Partner Sound Ventures
Co-Founder and CEO Vanta
Founder & CEO Lumi and Super Bowl QB
Chief Executive Officer Slack from Salesforce
Vice President & CTO The Aerospace Corporation
Chair and CEO General Motors
Co-Founder / Founder and CEO WordPress / Automattic
NBA Superstar & Philanthropist Entrepreneur
Founder Khosla Ventures
Ashton is an entrepreneur, technology investor, actor and philanthropist. Ashton has been investing in tech for nearly two decades and has co-founded two VC firms, A-Grade Investments in 2010 and Sound Ventures in 2015 alongside Guy Oseary. Ashton’s overarching investment philosophy is to invest in “enduring happiness,” a strategy which has proven to be highly successful. With more than $1 billion under management and 300 portfolio companies, Ashton and his partners have been at the helm of six top quartile venture funds. A-Grade and Sound Ventures’ investments include: Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM), Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB), Airtable, Anthropic, Brex, Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL), Gitlab (NASDAQ: GTLB), Hugging Face, OpenAI, SentinelOne (NYSE: S) and Uber (NYSE: UBER). He is an active and sought-after technology investor with proven expertise in product and user experience. Ashton was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and was on the cover of Forbes’ Midas List issue for Tech’s Top Investors. He was also included in Vanity Fair’s “New Establishment List”, which identifies the top 50 of an innovative new breed of buccaneering visionaries, engineering prodigies and entrepreneurs. Ashton studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa.
Christina Cacioppo is the CEO and co-founder of Vanta, a leading security and compliance Trust Management platform backed by Sequoia Capital, Craft Ventures, Goldman Sachs Ventures, J.P. Morgan Ventures, Y Combinator, and the venture arms of Atlassian, CrowdStrike, HubSpot and Workday. Over 8,000 companies, including Intercom, Icelandair, Miro and ZoomInfo rely on Vanta to build, maintain and demonstrate their trust—all in a way that’s real-time and transparent. Prior to founding Vanta, Christina led product management for Dropbox Paper and was a member of the investment team for Union Square Ventures. Christina received her B.A. in Economics and M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
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 6-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.
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.
Dr. Debra L. Emmons is vice president and chief technology officer (CTO) at The Aerospace Corporation. In this role, she is responsible for providing vital leadership for determining and executing the company’s technology strategy and investments. Emmons leads four offices: eLab, responsible for setting the technical investment strategy and priorities; xLab, responsible for developing, building, and operating prototypes; Commercial Space Futures (CSF) office, responsible for driving the harnessing of commercial solutions for government missions to advance U.S. space; and the new Solution Accelerator, responsible for delivering independent and innovative solutions with speed and national impact. She also manages the company’s $60M+ internal research and development program and the Aerospace Technical Fellows program, with the company’s top engineers and scientists. Emmons most recently served as chairperson of the CTO Roundtable with federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) and university affiliated research centers (UARCs) to develop and maintain relationships with government and other defense-related research laboratories to identify technology priorities, future requirements, and emerging opportunities.
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.
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.
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.
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