💥 Upfront Summit 2026 💥

The 14th Annual Upfront Summit is in full swing. We're also commemorating the firm's 30th anniversary!

For the uninitiated, The Upfront Summit is our annual tech, innovation and culture conference, bringing 1,000 investors, founders, and thought leaders to Los Angeles for two days of content and networking.

It's one of the largest gatherings of investors in North America, and every year this group convenes to experience what's special about Los Angeles and to discuss the world's most pressing issues.

Day 1: Investor Day and Day 2: Tech Summit delved into AI (of course), space, defense, hard tech, and the media landscape today. Read along for a play-by-play of the day!

Over the two days, we also heard from the founders of several Upfront portfolio companies, including Apex, CX2, Writer, Daytona, Bland, and Observable Space.

Upfront Summit 2026 in Hollywood, Los Angeles

Day 2: Tech Summit

9 am: Fireside with Chris Paul

NBA legend Chris Paul kicks off Day 2 ... 21 NBA seasons, 12 All-Star games, and 2 Olympic Gold Medals under his belt. He gives his first in-depth interview since retiring 13 days ago.

NBA legend Chris Paul with Upfront's Kobie Fuller

Leadership and longevity

• 20,000+ points and 10,000+ assists - reflects the kind of player Paul was
• “My dad taught me it’s always about how I share the ball"
• “It’s about making others around you better"

Retirement and purpose

• 13 days into retirement at age 40 - “Retired from basketball, not from life"
• “I didn’t sleep much at all… There is a hole I have to fill, and that’s real"
• “Sports taught me everything I need to know about life"

Family and legacy

• “I’m 40 and my dad is still my end all be all hero"
• “The people who really know you are the people who live with you"
• Legacy is how you show up at home
• Embracing investing, including in Oura
• Launched a snack company Good Eat'n during the pandemic focused on intentional nutrition
• “At the end of the day, I want to be around good people”

9:25 am: How AI Agents Are Transforming Commerce Overnight

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein gives us a peek inside his vision for Canada's most successful tech company of all time

“We’re a tools company.” While more channels create more opportunity and complexity, Shopify’s edge is helping merchants operate at extreme scale while simplifying the chaos.

Scale and staying power

• 11.6 billion in revenue, 2 billion in free cash flow
• $165 billion market cap
• 20 year journey to become Canada’s most successful tech company
• Powers 14 percent of US ecommerce
• Second largest checkout in America

Spiky leadership, not well rounded executives

• “Most companies have these slots, but we just never did that"
• Instead of standardized titles, Shopify optimizes for superpowers - “Shopify doesn’t have well-rounded leaders. We’re very spiky"
• CEO Toby Lütke is singularly focused on product
• “I’m a storyteller,” Finkelstein said, owning narrative across investors, media, and the public
• “We both have to requalify our jobs every single year.. No cargo cult management"

The rise of agentic commerce

• We all have to be techno optimists
• Ecommerce adoption has been gradual since the 1990s
• AI agents represent a new front door to retail
• "It may start slowly, then will happen all at once"
• Agents can take share from traditional digital retail while also bringing new consumers online
• Chat interfaces may become more trusted shopping companions than social feeds as they're typically not driven by commission, surfaces what you actually want, and introduces new brands with authenticity

Infrastructure for the agent era

• Built Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) with Google as an open language for merchants and agents to transact
• “You can sell on every surface area, digital, online, and offline”

Trust as the moat

• Shop Pay is fast and convenient, but the real differentiator is trust
• As transactions become more automated, recognizable signals of security matter more
• “Humans are still going to do human things"

Shopify's Harley Finkelstein with Upfront's Mark Suster

9:50 am: The Next Era of AI- Trusted Agent Human Partnerships

Winners will be those who meet users where they are, in the form factors they already use. Three of the smartest founders and funders in the space break down their perspectives.

Clay Bavor, Sierra

• $150 million ARR, $10 billion valuation
• Building AI agents for enterprises to interact directly with customers
• Deep penetration into Fortune 100+ across retail, healthcare, and housing
• “Anyone who says there’s no impact on jobs isn’t seeing things clearly”
• New role emerging: AI architect- expert in what excellence looks like in support or service, designs and oversees agent systems, similar to the early Webmaster era

David Singleton, Dreamer

• Former CTO at Stripe, previously led Google’s early mobile apps
• Sees LLMs as a once-in-a-generation breakthrough, comparable to the mobile shift
• “There’s been nothing like this before”
• The opportunity mirrors the early mobile wave. A profound new interface that reshapes how humans interact with computers
• Dreamer is a platform where anyone can build, discover, and use agentic apps
• Focused on practical, everyday utility

Laela Sturdy, CapitalG

• Seeing real behavioral shifts in both enterprise and consumer markets
• Agents operating with thick expertise layers such as legal or domain specific knowledge are delivering measurable improvements
• The question now: how do humans manage fleets of agents?
• On SaaSpocalpyse: 1) Seat-based pricing models are under pressure 2) Customers are reevaluating what they pay for and how value is delivered 3) Agentic systems shift the focus from software access to outcome delivery 4) MOATs feel less durable in this moment. Public markets are clearly reflecting uncertainty about long-term defensibility

CapitalG's Laela Sturdy, Dreamer founder David Singleton & Sierra founder Clay Bavor in conversation with Bloomberg's Shirin Ghaffary

10:15 am: How to Prepare California for the Next 50 Years

Matt Mahan, Mayor of San José, and real estate developer Rick Caruso talk about the future of California.

A mandate for common sense and accountability

• Shared frustration that government is no longer delivering for people
• Mahan positioned as a pragmatic moderate focused on results
• “The practice of running a business needs to be brought into government," according to Mahan who was the co-founder and CEO of civic tech platform Brigade Media
• California is failing to deliver on basics: safe streets, good schools, affordable housing, reliable energy
• Call for a new spirit of focus and accountability with clear public goals and measurable outcomes

Running a city vs running a company

• Government carries higher stakes and broader constituencies
• But operational discipline, execution, and accountability should translate
• Leadership starts with culture, tone, and narrative, according to Caruso

Unpredictability is the enemy

• Capital flows where there is certainty around returns and timelines
• In Los Angeles, housing production is at a ten-year low
• Overregulation and delays add 30 to 40 percent to project costs
• “Find a crane in LA.” The scarcity reflects stalled development
• “Performance, not performative politics" -Mahan

The California comeback?

• “Nobody ever came to California to fail. People came here to win" -Caruso
• If leadership sets the tone that government is a partner, not an obstacle, momentum follows
• The government needs to signal “We’re going to be here and we’ve got your back"

City of San José Mayor Matt Mahan and real estate investor Rick Caruso

2 pm: Where Do We Go From Here?

Van Jones of CNN, RAPPORT.co, and DreamMachine.org shares his insights on the future of humanity.

Courage in a punitive era

• “Courage doesn’t come without consequence"
• We live in a punitive media environment where anyone with a phone can try to destroy you
• “You think you know who your friends are. You do not"
• “There’s a lot of concrete in your life that’s actually styrofoam"

The future of crisis management

• PR crises clarify. Your circle gets smaller but stronger
• “The mainstream is the fringe and the fringe is the mainstream"
• You cannot defend yourself alone online
• Build real advocates who will show up for you when things go sideways

The inner game and human connection as the antidote

• Not everyone will like you
• “Get two good therapists" - one for Tuesdays, one for Fridays
• Prayer and grounding matter
• Algorithms are programming us
• Real change happens face to face
• “Knee to knee, mouth to ear, a hug at the end"

AI and wisdom

• Through Rapport, Jones is using AI to increase emotional intelligence inside firms with team pulse checks and manager dashboards
• Lesson: Many managers were strong employees pushed into leadership without support. AI coaches
• “AI has to be paired with other kinds of AI - ancestral intelligence"
• “A civilization with all data and no wisdom would be a missed opportunity"

2:40 pm: Deal by Deal by Diller

Media mastermind Barry Diller shares his media takes amid the AI boom.

On discovering AI

• First reaction to ChatGPT three to four years ago: “Thought it was magic" - Sam Altman showed him personally
• Believes Expedia could become one of the most powerful AI applications through embedded agentic tools across its brands
• “I think that’s defensible for a period of time...but in 10 years we’ll all be in a simulation anyway, so who cares?”

AI valuations & risks

• $80 to $100 billion dollar AI fundraises are redefining what feels rational - “the numbers are off any rational chart"
• There is not enough revenue today to justify current valuations
• “It don’t math"
• “There were no real risks in the last revolution"
• AI carries real uncertainty
• “We’re all participating in the great unknown"
• The real disruption is not what we see today, but what happens in the next three years
• May impact certain short form formats
• Unlikely to replace half hour, hour long, or theatrical storytelling in a meaningful way

3 pm: The Art of Selection and Conviction in an Age of Transformation

Antonio Gracias of Valor Equity Partners on zigging when the industry zags.

Conviction as a discipline

• Founder of Valor Equity Partners, early backer of Tesla, SpaceX, Anduril, Zipline, among others
• Longtime Tesla board director
• Valor framework grounded in deep commitment and first principles thinking
• Selection is not about trends. It's about underwriting transformational systems and standing by them, staying in the trenches
• Conviction is built over time, through cycles, not in moments of hype

Belief through volatility

• Tesla faced repeated brushes with bankruptcy
• What mattered most was not headlines, but people
• Great teams showed up every day because they believed in the mission

On AI and efficiency

• Views xAI as a leader in the AI landscape, given Musk's deep expertise and experience
• Draws parallels to lessons from Tesla: efficiency, vertical integration, relentless execution
• Scale, speed, and infrastructure matter most

3:35 pm: What's Really Possible in AI for Science, and When?

Geoff von Maltzahn, co-founder and CEO of Lila Sciences gives a robust presentation on the world's first scientific superintelligence platform and autonomous lab for life, chemistry, and materials science. As the inventor of over 200 patents and pending applications, his tech underpin more than 10 companies integrating biology and AI to transform human health and sustainability. His groundbreaking companies have achieved over $10 billion in public and private market cap.

4 pm: The White House Agenda on Tech Policy

Michael Kratsios, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on the administration's position on innovation and beyond.

Technology policy & OSTP coordination

• Tech policy has moved from a tier‑two to a tier‑one national priority
• OSTP convenes agencies (e.g., FAA, DHS, DOE, DOD, Commerce/NIST) to solve multi‑domain problems (e.g. commercial drones)
• OSTP is actively pushing to reduce bureaucratic friction and modernize citizen‑facing services (design teams, tech talent tours of duty)

Defense, space, and infrastructure priorities

• DOD modernization focus: opening the aperture to nontraditional vendors, but scaling pilots into programs of record remains hard
• Space priorities: return humans to the Moon by ~2028, build lunar infrastructure by 2030, emphasize nuclear‑powered space systems, and align civil, commercial, and defense space roles
• Infrastructure for AI: chips, data centers, energy are high priorities to sustain AI adoption
• Genesis mission: large federated federal data/AI initiative to accelerate scientific discovery across DOE/national labs

AI strategy & international engagement

• National AI strategy emphasizes adoption as the metric of "winning"; goal is global uptake of an American AI stack
• American AI Export Program + US Tech Corps (Peace Corps‑style technologists) aim to deliver full‑stack solutions plus last‑mile human support to international buyers
• Concern about repeating past telecom mistakes (e.g., Huawei): focus on secure, trusted exports and partner nation adoption

4:30 pm: The $10 Billion Human to AI Pipeline

Brendan Foody, CEO of Mercor shares his vision for the future of work.

Human-in-the-loop & agents

• Human training of agents is central: employees will shift from repeating tasks to creating evals, training agents, and iterating context
• Agents improve with multiple attempts and well-designed evals; building evals for workflows is a key bottleneck

Data, compute & learning

• Rapid agent progress is driven largely by data (evals and human feedback) rather than compute alone; reinforcement learning and repeated attempts boost performance
• Generalization remains limited-performance often requires many attempts or task-specific evals

Workforce & jobs

• AI will augment productivity and create new work rather than simply eliminate it; human expertise remains crucial for complex, creative, physical, and scientific tasks
• Long tail of niche skills and knowledge work will persist for decades, requiring ongoing human involvement

Product, network effects & culture

• Companies with durable network effects will better leverage AI-driven feature velocity
• Core’s culture: hires former founders/entrepreneurial talent, emphasizes intensity, and hiring young high-potential people to scale agent-driven workflows

5 pm: The Future According to Sequoia

Sequoia partner Alfred Lin shares his industry musings in a wide-ranging interview.

Sequoia’s Measurement & Mission

• "The thing that we measure is being a net liquidity provider to our LPs”
• We believe in alignment of interest, and we think about founders first, then LPs, then our team and then ourselves”

Returns, Legacy, and the Moving Target of “Legendary”

• "We have the luxury of having a 53‑year history...but we're only as good as our next investment”
• On shifting benchmarks: "When I first got here to Sequoia, what was required to get onto that [iconic winner’s] wall was a $100M gain. Today, it is an excess of $1B gain”
• “What is exceptional performance is a moving target”

The pace of change and AI as a megatrend

• "AI is the biggest megatrend over the course of my career”- he joined the firm in 2010, and was named a co-steward of the fund in late 2025
• "You can do things with fewer resources... you can start a company with way fewer resources and get started much, much faster”
• “Every single line of code that's generated has a marginal cost of zero. So therefore software lines of code is no longer a moat”

Paradigm shifts and embracing change

• He emphasized the end state for surviving companies: "The end state is where all these companies that are going to survive, whether it's traditional software companies, SaaS companies, or native AI companies, all of them are going to embrace AI
• On Sequoia’s discipline: "We're very selective...each partner only makes more than two investments per partner per year. There is really no price on intelligence. If your system is more intelligent, if your product is more intelligent... you're going to make more money"

Founders & vision

• Advising founders, Lin emphasizes execution: "Your job as a founder... is to connect the dots along the way between these two states and these two worlds”
• Urges founders to amplify their unique strengths: "Discover what that is, because everything else…this AI that's coming around is making a lot of our weaknesses not a liability”
• Offers a personal guiding principle: "Try to make every year better than the previous year... see automation as an opportunity to do the things that you are uniquely good at”

5:30 pm: The Return of the Woolly Mammoth

Ben Lamm is building Colossal Biosciences, the world's first de-extinction company

• Colossal uses synthetic biology + AI to pursue de-extinction and conservation; raised $600M+ and valued >$10B
• Successfully created living dire wolves from ancient DNA; faced public/media attention and some scientific critique about how “true” they are
• Tech stack spans computational genomics, DNA synthesis, cloning, assisted reproductive tech, artificial womb research, and conservation-focused software/hardware
• Open-sourced conservation tools initially; now working with governments on nine-figure conservation deals while subsidizing partners via a separate foundation
• Emphasis on ethical limits (no human/primates/Neanderthal work), measurable ecological goals (restore niches, remove invasives), and outreach/inspiration (large media footprint)
• Near-term milestones: embryo-stage progress reported and ongoing development of artificial wombs and production-scale endangered-species toolkits

Day 1: Investor Summit

9 am: Investing at Scale

Coatue Across Public and Private Markets with Thomas Laffont, Coatue co-founder - his first interview since leading Anthropic's $30B round.

Coatue's framework for success

1. Big idea, innovation investing - spotting trends early
2. Risk management

• "The ability to endure and compound is what defines generational investing"
• Passion for "big idea investing" even amid AI boom - internally at Coatue they use the moniker "BFI" (big fucking idea) - it's jolting for a little bit, but that's what a big idea should do. AI tools are incredible for "teasing your brain" and let you focus on the biggest ideas

On AI

• Are we in an AI bubble? "By definition, if everyone thinks we’re in a bubble we’re not in a bubble"
• On Claude Code: "Its incredible adoption hasn't been something we could have predicted...These late stage companies live in a quasi public-private market. Even though they're private, you do have some disclosure and insights into their growth"
• Optimizing productivity among software engineers - it's not about cutting staff, it's about allowing people to be better at their jobs
• The future of creativity - will machines assist or replace? "Creativity is reflective of someone's taste"

Market musings

• Future of public market juggernauts: What does the next magnificent 7 look like? SpaceX, OpenAI, Revolut, Databricks would likely be part of the mix, according to Laffont
• "The public market is the best valuation mechanism - it offers transparency, liquidity, and opportunity in access. That will happen in two ways - companies have incentives to go public or we have to create more methods to democratize more access to private companies"
• Laffont was an analyst of the iPhone in 2003 - there wasn't enough TAM for handset manufacturers - he has the privilege of having the hindsight and wisdom to know TAM should never be the limiter

Coatue co-founder Thomas Laffont with Sourcery's Molly O'Shea

9:35 am: Building Power & Compute in Space

Baiju Bhatt, Robinhood co-founder and Aetherflux founder on his career arc, vision for the future, and why he's betting everything on space:

Deep passions

• Baiju's father worked at NASA. He says his dad loves the fact that he's working really hard. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!
• Post-Robinhood life: "The most tempting thing I turned down was going full automotive mechanic...I got really into building physical things, and really into building cars over COVID. Building software for so long, I wondered if I could translate my skills into the physical world"
• The common thread across his passions: "I have a love of new takes on old industries...you have to lean into developing good relationships with regulators"

On Aetherflex

• Aetherflex is developing an orbital power grid: launching its first satellite this year - the idea is to deliver power where there's no existing power grid. Longer term vision is space to atmosphere power beaming - it's been written and talked about since the 1970s but it's coming to life now
• "We're the generation for building real human infrastructure in space. It requires deliberate management of how we use outer space"
• He's sounding the alarm: "We're going to run out of power on earth. It's hard to generate the amount of power this technology is going to take"
• "Space is a horrible place for humans to be, but a pretty great place for computers to be"
• Winning investors and talent to bet on orbital compute: "potential to be one of the first new applications for space where you can compete with terrestrial stuff"
• What the world looks like in 2035: "We see the expansion of humanity beyond this planet. People have built outer space. We build rings around this planet of infrastructure. That's the fantastical future world"

Aetherflux Founder Baiju Bhatt

10 am: Unplugged- Building MTV

MTV founder Tom Freston on the power of narrative in building culture-forward businesses:

• Perseverance and empathy were his two guiding leadership principles
• Freston helmed a "band of misfits and eccentrics in their 20s"
• Target audience: young people who loved music were crazy about MTV - did an ad campaign called "I want my MTV"
• Duran Duran, Stray Cats and other indie bands were the initial folks who utilized MTV to sell their records. Other A-listers eventually followed, making MTV an undeniable marketing tool
• In a fragmented media world, Tom shares how building a strong brand that stood for something and had a POV were of paramount importance. "Creativity was our main aptitude"
• What happened the day Freston got fired from the company he helped build: "Got fired for not buying MySpace. Sumner Redstone's chief competitor Rupert Murdoch bought it...I had been there for 26 years. We were trying to figure out how to morph into the new digital era. I got my banker's box and went down the elevator, trying to sneak out of 1515 Broadway in Times Square. There were 1,000 employees gathered as a flash mob to send me off"
• "The culture of a business is how you feel the Sunday before you go to work" -Jason Hirschhorn, who worked under Tom, and considers him a mentor and friend

10:40 am: Creator-Led Studios- The Future of Storytelling

Dhar Mann and Sean Atkins on transforming struggles into stories, and growing to 163M+ followers:

• By the numbers: 8 years of creating, 300M views per week, 3 different studios, 75+ sets
• "I'm the gas pedal, my wife is the brake, and Sean is the GPS - he tells me where we need to go," according to Mann
• As the creator business took more and more attention, Atkins says he was drawn into working with Mann for 3 primary reasons 1) no talent risk (Mann is not on camera) 2) already at scale 3) ability to diversify revenue streams
• The network effect: becoming the hub of the creator community - production, post-production, and recruiting processes - now they have an in-house agency called "Fifth Quarter"
• Mann became NFL's first ever "Chief Kindness Officer" ahead of the Super Bowl - it generated so much buzz (1.8% of the entire NFL conversation this year)

Creator Dhar Mann

11 am: Regaining American Supremacy in Energy Through Nuclear

From investing at Founders Fund to founding General Matter, Scott Nolan breaks down "fuel being the bottleneck preventing nuclear from scaling"

• "Being a VC is a pretty good life. I definitely didn't want to start my own company, but it felt like I had no choice but to start building"
• Energy consumption as a proxy for wellbeing and economic activity. "If you want to scale the economy, you have to scale energy. The cleanest and safest is nuclear energy"
• Strong tailwinds and inertia from the government: General Matter recently announced $900M DOE contract earlier this year
• Lessons from Elon Musk: Started as an intern at SpaceX, eventually becoming the ~50th full-time employee. SpaceX always focused on optimizing speed to market and cost. Work on the thing that no one's working on that you can help with. Leads to bootstrapping on talent where you can get talented people to work on something mission-critical
• Very excited about the talent pool for hardtech in HQ of Los Angeles, and from there, recruiting nuclear talent to the city
• "Don't follow a theme or trend, just do what makes sense"

11:20 am: How Ring is Core to Amazon's Future

Ring founder & chief inventor Jamie Siminoff boomeranged back to Amazon after its $1B sale. Why?

• 100 million Rings in the world - sold for $1B to Amazon in 2018
• Ring was such a capital-intensive business, and needed to get really big to become profitable
• "Ring is a story of grit. Perseverance and not giving up," Siminoff recounts 4-5 near-death experiences where the company almost failed
• Stayed for 5 years post-acquisition, left for 1.5 years, and then came back because AI has "allowed Ring to become a new startup"
• Ring straddles the liminal space between full privacy and surveillance state, according to Siminoff
• How to build culture within Amazon: "I give them credit...whether Audible or Zappos - founders stay for a really long time. Founders stay because they let you have autonomy, but you can also actually get your product into the hands of millions of people. A good founder wants to have a large impact. When you can actually build a bigger product, it's intoxicating. It's hard to leave that"
• "Invention isn't about a product. It's about how you run a business"
• "I love Amazon, and I don't think any keys are being thrown around" in response to whether Siminoff would be interested in running the company

Ring Founder Jamie Siminoff with Share Ventures Founder Hamet Watt

11:50 am: Rise of the Retail Investor- How Venture is Radically Evolving

Cathie Wood, ARK Invest CEO shares her sharp perspectives on today's market:

The exuberance of innovation

• "We in our lifetimes have never seen anything like today. We have to go back to the Industrial Revolution. This one will be twice as big. Capital spending as % of GDP topped out at 6% then. We think this capital spending cycle will go north of 12% of GDP, and it's really still in its early stages
• "As an investor, I much prefer this kind of environment where there's a lot of controversy and angst - "the wall of worry" - these are the most robust and durable full markets (the 90s were very dangerous because no one was worried)
• What we must do is define companies correctly and identify how the tech stack has evolved, and always go back to first principles
• "Always start your business in a recession or a bear market, it's usually a very good time"

On AI

• The impact of AI: 16-24 unemployment rate has moved into double digits - the entry-level jobs are being subsumed by AI. But, the positive here is now we can create our own businesses with the help of vibe coding, Claude, Chat GPT, etc.
• The average duration of unemployment today is 6 months. "Why don't you try to figure out a solution to a problem you have that frustrates you, where AI can help? Create a business and just try it out. Anyone looking for a job now has to devour AI in all ways - tinkering, taking a point of view. Those are the people who will be very valuable with their skillsets even if they do decide to enter big corporations"

The ARK origin story

• Traditional finance world was going passive / benchmark sensitive - and in the process we lost a lot of research on innovation. So we built an unmet need. This is the way the world is going to work - our niche strategy will become a core strategy
• We recognized there needs to be new ways to define companies: Case study of being bullish on Tesla - Tesla was not defined correctly.. we didn't define it as an automanufacturer - using Elon's masterplans alone, better categorized robotics and energy storage spheres
• Two years ago, we showed the tech stack (1) infrastructure 2) platform as a service 3) applications) - you could see in the last 5 years vs. 5 years prior - incremental growth was going to the platform bucket even more than infra.. that's why Palantir surprised people enormously because people incorrectly labeled them a consultant

2026 Upfront Summit at Nya Studios, Hollywood

1:50 pm: Understanding the Sheer Scale of AI's Exponential Growth

Grant Lee of Gamma and Tuhin Srivastava of Baseten (both South Park Commons alumni) in conversation with Aditya Agarwal of South Park Commons

First things first

• South Park Commons (SPC) is an “anti accelerator," according to Agarwal, who is drawn to founders with a rare blend of patience and impatience
• "Right now, all that's important is speed" as best companies find the right combination of open and closed software - model layer is changing very, very fast, says Srivastava

On building teams

• Gamma has 70M users, $100MM ARR and profitable with just 50 employees. “We wanted to hire painfully slowly - it's in our best interest that we stay super close to our customers - it's not about chasing shiny objects," says Lee. "You can’t forecast so far ahead - the ability to make real-time decisions is critical, and we're forced to be highly adaptable and course-correcting as necessary. Be more like a speedboat rather than a large freight ship"
• Priority is to hire player-coaches, reassessing what “great” looks like - and building for tomorrow, says Lee. "How few people there are who are truly first principle - can’t just apply old playbooks - there’s a law of humility and going back to first principles"
• Agarwal echoes this sentiment: "Adaptability is a skillset - it's the key factor for the industry - it’s not necessarily dictated by age

The bubble question

• The panel debated whether AI is a bubble, the topic du jour. "Value is being created for the end user," says Srivastava. Lee points to the smiling retention curve, even within consumer/prosumer businesses. "People are coming back and really using these products - there’s some enduring value beyond the initial willingness to pay. It still feels like we’re so early - vast majority of people are barely scratching the surface - it’s going to take time - compared to dot com or crypto winter, correction will look different - and will probably be prolonged over a period of time"

Sage advice to early stage founders

• "Find your community, it’s incredibly lonely, surround yourself who are going through same thing or people who have made it and can help you see around the corner - what's special about SF builders, it’s not “what if” it’s a “yes, and” - you’re building and riffing together - energy and momentum to keep going every single day," says Lee
• "Opportunity cost has never been higher - find the thing you want to work on, but also know that the progress around you isn’t slowing down. We wouldn’t have gotten here had we not picked something we’re passionate about," notes Srivastava

The 14th Annual Upfront Summit in Los Angeles

2:25 pm: US Sovereign Wealth- How New Mexico is Driving Domestic Competitiveness

Chris Cassidy, of the New Mexico State Investment Council, and Rob Black, of the New Mexico Economic Development Department, talk about reimagining innovation in their state, and how they're trying to attract new partners and founders

From cradle to career

• "That's our pitch for anyone to invest in New Mexico," says Black. "We'll fund you from early childcare through college. We're investing in you." The state indirectly funds one-third of K-12 education in New Mexico
• Most of these economic development programs fail. Utah and Israel are two exceptions, says Cassidy. These programs tend to fail and turn off entrepreneurs and company building - we have to partner with Silicon Valley, not poorly attempt to replace them, adds Black. "We're not a software state, we’re a deep tech state"

Key advantages of the state

• Black: New Mexico has a legacy of building really hard-to-build things - Vision, Fusion, and Quantum
• The duo shares that New Mexico historically didn’t commericalize a lot of its innovation, and now wants to go from R&D to commercialization and development. "New Mexico can be the center of quantum computing and the center of fusion"
• “We’re here to do this as a speed of business, not speed of government. We want to be an empowerment for business, not a roadblock"

2:55 pm: What's Coming in Generative Media

Burkay Gur of fal breaks down generative media & why human creativity still has cache

Generative Media vs. LLMs

• fal = platform for generative media that just passed $300M ARR
• ChatGPT moment was all about LLMs, but parallel tech breakthrough was generative content, which captures generative images, videos, audio, 3D and other assets
• Have 1,000 different models on the platform - very distinct from LLMs
• Every week, the company is adding 10 new models - from different labs and workflows

fal by the numbers

• Have had 3 million sign-ups since launch, with a primary focus on enterprises
• Top use cases: marketing and advertisement (product photography and video assets), creative short series
• Sixty of the Fortune 100 companies are using fal - large retail platforms able to automate all their ad creation and product photography

Looking into the future

• 5-10 years out: "I’d make the claim that generative media will be bigger than language models. I think LLM executions are actually going to happen between machine to machine, whereas within the content realm, the end user is always human"
• Are humans getting replaced by generative media? "It does even the playing field. But we still need the creativity - it's still obvious the chasm of expertise...I prefer the veteran's output to someone who’s only done it for the last few years with the help of AI"
• We've seen this story before - "there’s resistance, but those who embrace change will succeed"

fal founder Burkay Gur and Kindred's Steve Jang

3:25 pm: Why the US is Poised to Win in Space

A rapid series of presentations from:

• Ian Cinnamon, Apex
• Dan Roelker, Observable Space
• Eric Romo, Impulse Space
• Will Bruey, Varda Space Industries

#longla!

4 pm: Leading Product at X- The Future of AI & Community

Nikita Bier, X - growth hacker extraordinaire on the future of consumer

• Leads core product at X with 30 people serving 500M users
• “I’ve always been looking for hacks. It’s in my DNA.” Learned design and systems thinking early through experimentation
• On building consumer software: “When you’re thinking as an adversary, it’s actually kind of helpful. Everyone is going to try to manipulate things. You have to build the right guardrails”

Consumer framework for virality

• A kernel of an idea is not the right atomic unit for viral growth
• Products that break through typically tap into one of three primal drivers 1) Does it help me make or save money 2) Does it help me find a mate 3) Can it help me unplug from reality
• “Founders want to build these highbrow products, but those are harder to push through the noise"

Path to X & working with Elon

• Had been building social apps 0 to 1 for over a decade and advising companies
• After selling his company, received a DM from Elon Musk
• After meeting in Palo Alto, Musk told him, “Start now”
• Worked 48 hours straight
• “I’ve never seen an executive as deep in the weeds as him. He has very strong points of view"
• While many founders look for shortcuts, Musk pushes long term thinking - Where does that put us in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years? “He is committed to identifying the terminal point we need to reach, and everything else is a distraction" “We’re always thinking about the next headline in Silicon Valley, but he’s thinking about saving the world"

AI, bots, and the coming flood

• “People come to X to get a pulse on humanity. We have the highest agency, wealthiest users,” especially in finance and AI
• “We do build in public,” iterating quickly and stress testing edge cases
• With open AI tools, “we’ve given everyone access to the most sophisticated spam tools in the world"
• Automated agents running from laptops with residential IP addresses are already integrating into communication platforms
• “Over the next 45 to 90 days, I think our communication channels will be completely flooded. Every platform. I’m a little worried"

AI agents and consumer litigation

• AI is acting like a team of lawyers on behalf of consumers
• Consumers escalating refunds and disputes at scale
• “Consumers are going to start increasing their offenses, and companies will have to raise their defenses"
• A future with an “integrity report” for every consumer may not be far off

X Head of Product Nikita Bier

4:25 pm: Scaling AI with Purpose

Guillermo Rauch, Vercel in conversation with Eric Ries

• Founding Vercel was simple: from idea to live application should be instantaneous
• “I basically vibe coded my way to success”
• Speed is not the enemy of purpose if anchored in principles and mission

Staying incorruptible (also the name of Ries' new book)

• “We’ve been incorruptible. I keep coming back to our principles and values”
• Clear line in the sand: “We’re not going to do any random acts of AI"
• Focus on building with intention rather than chasing hype cycles

Defensible moats in the AI era

• Brand and trust
• Clarity of vision
• Deep customer centricity as the overarching strategy

Why Vercel resonates in the AI ecosystem

• Favored by agents and AI native builders because of usability and trust
• “Education is the best kind of marketing.” Teaching developers creates long term loyalty

4:55 pm: What Your Mature Portfolio Can Learn From Handshake's Success

Garrett Lord, Handshake Founder shares his inspiring journey and what's next for the 12-year-old company.

Origin story and early conviction

• Started from a personal problem in college
• Blue-collar family, paid his way through community college
• An internship at Palantir changed his trajectory
• Frustrated that opportunity and future career path was often dictated by what your parents did and where you grew up
• Built Handshake starting junior year at Michigan Tech to level the playing field
• Today it's the #1 place where young people go to find a job
• Powers 92% of universities in the US
• 22 million users

Early fundraising and grit

• Drove school to school signing up campuses and booked a one-way ticket to Silicon Valley
• True Ventures took an early bet
• Pitched more than 100 investors - “It was hard but oh so worth it”
• Lesson from selling into universities: “The only thing universities share in common is a staff parking lot.” Highly decentralized institutions require persistence and adaptability

The fork in the road

• Christmas Party 2024 marked a turning point - founder mode unlocked
• Noticed human data companies building datasets for AI labs
• Then saw the labs themselves asking directly for specialized candidates, especially PhDs
• Asked: What type of technology would we need to build to serve this moment?

Going all in

• Recognized a structural advantage: deep brand recognition under age 32
• “Went all in” on the new AI driven business
• Committed a full quarter to systematic exploration and realized it was paying dividends
• Moved methodically across their data assets
• Scaled from zero to high hundreds of millions in revenue in months
• The new business has surpassed the original core
• On track for $1 billion+ in ARR

AI thesis

• “AI is three-pronged: compute, algorithms, and data.”
• Handshake's AI bet is a 10 year+ buildout
• The opportunity is extracting human knowledge and judgment into verifiers to automate work and increase productivity
• Companies like Figma will need to capture real product activity and artifacts, encode decision making, and build proprietary models and IP
• Handshake is building the data infrastructure layer
• Long term vision: full-time work for humans shifts toward capturing exceptions and overseeing automated systems

Leadership evolution

• “Reinvent the CEO every six months”
• Still operates with extreme work ethic
• “I don’t have an element of fear anymore. I’m in the Super Bowl of technology. There’s no need to cradle all that fear and negative energy"

5:20 pm: Can This Planet Be Unfucked?

Chris Sacca, Lowercarbon Capital in conversation with Adam Bain

Walking away at the top

• Bain and Sacca have known each other for over 15 years, dating back to Bain’s time as COO of Twitter (and Sacca was an investor)
• After building Lowercase Capital into one of the top-performing funds with early investments in Twitter, Uber, Stripe, and Instagram, among others, Sacca quit
• “I walked away. I wasn’t feeling it"
• “Nothing’s more harrowing than when you’re raising for your own fund. When someone says no, they’re basically looking into your eyes and saying, I don’t think you’re going to give back my money"
• Early days of investing had been fun and easy, especially around Y Combinator, but the work required infinite time and energy
• “Is this worth the tradeoff of time? Is this why I can’t tell my kid I can’t play?”
• He reframed success around a new scorecard: fun, fulfillment, interest, impact.

From social to climate

• “I couldn’t care about gaming, dating apps. I was in a different phase”
• Rejects shame as a strategy for changing behavior. “Shame will never get you anywhere...You can’t shame big ag, big energy, big oil”
• The cost benefit curve has shifted. Carbon is expensive
• The builders taking climate seriously are capitalists, engineers, scientists who believe in abundance. “We’re not going to sacrifice our way out of this”
• Many Lowercarbon companies sell directly to oil and gas. “You have to meet the customer where they are”
• Every investment is deeply underwritten before the first check is written. The approach is pragmatic, not ideological. Most solutions today are substitute goods that outperform incumbents on economics

On power and personality

• “Nothing on this planet ever gets solved by normal people”
• “You have to be unreasonable to make any material change at scale”
• Lowercarbon is targeting massive, entrenched systems where incrementalism does not work
• “We have to embrace our weirdness, serendipity, and imperfections"

AI, disruption, and discomfort

• “The end customer is AI"
• AI will unlock enormous benefits but will also displace hardworking people across law, coding, accounting, and more. “Let’s not pretend there’s not going to be downside.”
• “Saying you’re not an AI maximalist will get you kicked out of the room.”
• “Today is the dumbest AI will ever be, it will only get smarter from here"
• “We’re in insanely fucked, unprecedented times"

On the next gen

• “We’re the last of the feral kids” who were able to roam freely
• Earlier generations learned self reliance, problem solving, and how to trust each other through unstructured failure.
• “Kids today actually have a permanent record"

Lowercarbon Capital co-founder Chris Sacca