Scenes from TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Thank you to everyone who made this 12 months’s event in San Francisco what it was, and to the 10,000 of you who filled the rooms, made connections, and left with greater than you got here with. Didn’t work? The images below offer you an insight into what you missed.

Until next 12 months.

Vinod Khosla, telling attendees he doesn’t buy the argument that supporting artificial intelligence will end climate efforts. Geothermal energy is near being achieved, he said, while thermonuclear fusion stays a great distance off. He also touched on his alliance with President Donald Trump (deregulation) and his disagreement (immigration): “The only thing I will say is this administration is not going to last forever,” he said with a smile.

That’s Roelof Botha on stage and that is the crowd hanging on his every word. A Sequoia partner shared how his company selects winners and what government ownership in startups might mean, and cautioned founders to not get too hung up on their timing, asking them to lift now if they need money in six months. Bubbles burst.

Kevin Damoa of Glīd Technologies, winner of this 12 months’s Battlefield competition, with Battlefield boss Isabelle Johannessen. She and TC’s Michael Schick have been working with dozens of startups for many months to organize them for this stage. The hug is deserved.

Roy Lee, founding father of Cluely, the app known for its “cheat at everything” mantra, entertains audiences with his bombshell take on easy methods to win at marketing. “People do crazier things every day, so to stand out you have to do something crazier.” (Pictured left: Maxwell Zeff holding hands.)

If former Cleveland Cavaliers Tristan Thompson misses the NBA, he doesn’t show it. He builds a business empire and asks pointed questions about the league he left behind. When asked whether players could manipulate Basketball Fun — the web3 platform that turns NBA players into tradable tokens — he offered a counterpoint: “It’s the same question we ask about referees. Aren’t they gaming the system?” When moderator Rebecca Bellan pressed whether she was referring to NBA referees taking bribes, Thompson shrugged. “It’s just a question that needs to be asked,” he said.

Our own Sean O’Kane shares a moment with Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall. Kendall may additionally be smiling because his British autonomous driving startup – whose software acts as the cars’ “brain” – is in talks to lift a fresh $2 billion from SoftBank and Microsoft at a valuation of $8 billion.

Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, founders of the AI-powered shopping assistant Phia, wowed the audience at Disrupt with their enthusiasm for making it easier to seek out quality used clothing. Gates, the daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates, also played sports when moderator Amanda Silberling asked her what her famous parents learned from her. Said Gates with a laugh: “I hope I have style! I do not even consider myself that stylish. I identical to building in the consumer space, but now I get random emails from family asking, ‘Should I wear this with this?’

Waymo co-founder Tekedra Mawakana joins TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec to reply questions about autonomous vehicles, including whether society will accept deaths caused by autonomous cars. “I think society will do it,” Mawakana said. “The challenge is for society to have a high enough bar for security that companies must meet.”

Kevin Rose talks about the Digg relaunch and the way forward for enterprise capital (Rose is also a general partner at early-stage enterprise capital firm True Ventures). I’m smiling because that is what you do when someone doesn’t answer questions about a trendy, handy startup that is still under the radar. (We’ll have more on this.) Sandbar Soon.)

Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf wavers between questions about building the way forward for artificial intelligence, including LeRobot, a Hugging Face project that tries to democratize robotics with low-cost hardware, open source tools and shared datasets.

The final judges are Marlon Nichols of MaC VC and Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures during the final stages of our extremely competitive Startup Battlefield. Somewhere off-camera, the company’s founder is sweating on the field.

Box’s Aaron Levie talks to TC’s Russell Brandom. Levie has graced the Disrupt stage multiple times over TC’s 20 years at the center of the startup ecosystem, and he at all times brings it.

Netflix chief technology officer Elizabeth Stone on the streamer’s expanded remit from easy viewing to interactive programming (think voting on live shows and games via phone): “It hasn’t changed the way we tell stories,” she told the delighted crowd.

TC’s Dominic-Madori Davis talks about building community with Campus’s Tade Oyerinde, who is rethinking community college, and Teddy Solomon of Fizz, an anonymous social media app that spreads across college campuses and is sometimes blocked, which some may see as a badge of honor.

Board with needs: programmers needed, contacts offered, proposed offers. We like it when founders lean on old-school tactics. (Some still work!)

David George, who leads the growth investing team at Andreessen Horowitz, got here to the show to confer with Julie Bort about what startups need to contemplate when looking at the public market. As it turned out, it was his birthday; the crowd takes a moment here to have fun with him.

Here San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie talks to President Trump about why not send the National Guard to the city – a proposal recommend by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “What I told him, I tell everyone: This is a city that’s growing,” Lurie said. “Three days of Disruption should prove it. As for whether he made concessions with Trump, he was resolute. “No, absolutely not. No, ask.

Many people come from throughout the world to program on easy methods to connect their startups. We covered all the bases on our Builder Stage, which was packed every day, all day long.

Joy after the concert of Jessica Barrera from TC, who was responsible for selling tickets for 10,000 people. He frequently saves our bacon.

More photos from the event could be found on our website Flickr stream.

You may find the full video report here: here Day 1, Day 2AND Day 3.