Year: 2018

Piece by piece Snap is trying to eek a developer platform out of Snapchat Lenses and give users something extra at the same time.

Today, we’re seeing the most user-facing of these efforts as Snapchat debuts a new Lens Explorer section which will give the user base greater access to scouting out new face filters beyond what’s sitting in the oft-refreshed Lens Carousel on the app’s central camera screen. The new update will be rolling out to iOS users slowly, the company says.

There are 70 million daily active users of Snapchat Lenses (more than one-third of total Snapchat DAUs) who spend an average of about three minutes playing around with them per day but up until now discoverability hasn’t been too extensive.

It’s honestly pretty surprising that its taken so long for Snapchat to gain this type of discovery feature, Lenses have long been a distinguishing feature of the platform though Facebook has been aiming to catch up with their own efforts. Why now after all this time? Well, Snap is likely hoping for a bit more of an influx of Lenses now that they’ve begun more heavily building up feature functionality in its Lens Studio software for third-party devs to create their own filters based on Snap’s face-tracking tech.

The company says that over 100,000 Lens filters have been submitted since the launch of Lens Studio and that these creations have been seen some 2.5 billion times by users as they explore. While many of these have undoubtedly been Sponsored Lenses — Snap’s own unique AR ad product — these filters will not be found in the Explorer section at launch, with the hub sticking to the freebies for the time being.

In the long-game as Snap looks to own their revamped vision at a bonafide camera company, something like Lens Explorer may offer a novel way to stack AR functionality into the app’s camera, allowing users to curate what sort of augmented reality functionality they want their device to have. Users can shop for what functionality they might like and the camera could have those abilities readily available. As the company looks at e-commerce and gaming verticals, it’s clear that there could be much more to their future plans than selfie filters alone.

Facebook is giving advertisers new ways to show off their products, including with augmented reality.

At its F8 developer conference earlier this year, Facebook announced that it was working with businesses to use AR to show off products in Messenger. Now a similar experience will start appearing in the News Feed, with a select group of advertisers testing out AR ads.

Ty Ahmad-Taylor, vice president of product marketing for Facebook’s global marketing solutions, showed off ads that incorporated his face into Candy Crush gameplay footage, and other ads that allowed shoppers to see how virtual sunglasses and makeup would look on their own faces.

“People traditionally have to go into stores to do this,” Ahmad-Taylor said. “People still really love that experience, but they would like to try it at home” — so this “bridges the gap.”

These ads look like normal in-feed ads at first, but they include a “Tap to try it on” option, which opens up the AR capabilities. And of course if you like the way it looks in AR, you can go ahead and buy the product.

Facebook says Michael Kors was the first brand to test out AR ads in the News Feed, with Sephora, NYX Professional Makeup, Bobbi Brown, Pottery Barn, Wayfair and King planning their own tests for later this summer.

Ahmad-Taylor made the announcement this morning at a New York City event for journalists and marketers highlighting Facebook’s advertising plans for the holidays.

In addition, he announced a new Video Creation Kit, which will allow advertisers to incorporate existing images into templates for mobile video ads. According to weight loss company Noom, which has been testing out these tools, the resulting videos performed 77 percent better than the static images.

Lastly, Facebook says it will continue to expand its support for shopping in Instagram Stories. It made shopping tags available to select brands in Stories last month, and for the holidays, it plans to roll that out to all brands that have enabled shopping in Instagram. It’s also making its collections ad format available to all advertisers.

After announcing plans to ship cars running Android and work with Nvidia to build automotive AI systems, Audi today put in place the latest piece of its self-driving car puzzle. The German carmaker has signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei — the world’s third-largest smartphone maker after Samsung and Apple — to develop intelligent car technology, specifically in the areas of autonomous driving and services that use a new cellular standard, LTE-V, designed specifically for vehicles.

No financial details were disclosed with the deal, which Audi said is part of a wider agreement between Germany and China to develop more collaborations between the two countries’ respective businesses.

Audi and Huawei also are not providing a lot of specifics about what they would be developing together, except to note that the deal will cover the two building and testing data connectivity, and working on “intelligent driving and the digitalization of services in the vehicle environment.” Vehicles developed in the collaboration will initially be sold in China.

Huawei is one of the world’s big handset makers, but it originally started in networking equipment and this deal appears to be about building on that latter business, specifically in developing services for a new variation on LTE called LTE-V.

“We are entering a new era of intelligent vehicle that will see the emergence of new technological synergies between information and communications technology and the automotive industries,” commented Veni Shone, president of LTE at Huawei, in a statement. “With increased innovation in mobile connectivity, Huawei is committed to transforming the driving experience.”

Last year, Audi was one of the first non-Chinese car makers to test LTE-V services, which appear to work on regular LTE connections but are optimised for use in moving vehicles and for the kind of data communications you might need in a car, versus, say, over a smartphone.

Examples include traffic information that’s calculated by using data from traffic light systems and video monitors in intersections.

While a lot of the focus so far on connected and autonomous cars has been on who will be in the drivers seat when it comes of operating systems, and how soon we might be to watertight self-driving systems (and how we will get there), network connectivity will be one of the obvious, if unsung, aspects that will need to be addressed.

Audi, part of the Volkswagen group, is one of the shareholders of Here, the mapping business that was formerly a part of Nokia, and it has been making a number of moves to line up its strategy in connected and autonomous vehicles. That has also included investing in startups like Cubic Telecom, which is providing the technology that will allow for cars to connect to cellular networks, regardless of which country the cars are operating in and where they were purchased. It’s not clear how and if Audi’s new MOU with Huawei will link up with the work it’s been doing with Cubic. (We have reached out to Cubic to ask.)

“We are intensifying our joint research with Huawei in the area of intelligent connected vehicles,” explained Saad Metz, Executive Vice President of Audi China, in a statement. “Our aim is to improve safety and optimize traffic flows in order to create intelligent cities. The concepts will initially be concentrated on the Chinese market.”

Foursquare has just hired Liz Ritzcovan as Chief Revenue Officer.

Ritzcovan hails from BazaarVoice, where she also served as CRO. She previously held CRO positions at Sizmek and Parade Media Group, and before that, spent time at Yahoo, Time Inc, and Interbrand.

Though Foursquare has been around since 2009, things have changed a lot for the company. What started as a consumer-facing app to log and share location information has become a SaaS company focused on helping brands understand their customer’s real-world habits and convert those habits into meaningful transactions and experiences.

That started with the unbundling of the legacy Foursquare app into Foursquare (a Yelp competitor centered around recommendations) and Swarm (a social location check-in app). As of 2016, both apps have more than 50 million active users, which has in turn yielded the data necessary to create enterprise tools.

For example, Pinpoint by Foursquare (an ad product) has more than half of the Ad Age 100 as advertisers, and Attribution by Foursquare (a metric tracking product) has doubled its revenue in 2017. And that doesn’t include the Pilgrim SDK and Places API, which helped contribute to Foursquare’s 50 percent revenue growth year over year for the past three years.

Ritzcovan is aware that, despite the growth of e-commerce, 90 percent of consumer spending and memorable experiences happen in the real world. But getting clients, usually internet-facing companies, to understand that is her new great challenge.

Here’s what she had to say in her announcement blog post:

So what is my first priority as CRO? Client centricity. Foursquare needs to deepen our connection with our partners: explaining to business leaders why it’s critical to leverage more than a single Foursquare solution—be it ad campaigns with Pinpoint, measurement with Attribution, or location-based CRM and messaging with our Pilgrim SDK and Places API—by taking all of these parts together and connecting the dots. Foursquare is more and more about bundling technology licensing, mapping capabilities, and marketing optimization in a suite of solutions. It’s the reason I joined, to help lead the team into packaging these broad “solution sets” for leading organizations and brands.

While massive restaurant chains might have resources to build out their own management systems or integrate with larger point-of-sale providers, Toast — a provider of tools for restaurants to manage their business — is raising a big round of funding to go after everyone else.

Now Toast is a business valued at $1.4 billion thanks to a fresh infusion of $115 million in its latest round of funding. At its core, Toast is a point-of-sale for restaurants, though over time it’s added more and more services on top of that. Now the goal is to be not just a point of sale, but offer a whole system to help restaurants operate efficiently. That can range from the actual point of sale all the way to loyalty programs and reporting on that information. The round was led by T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from new investor Tiger Global Management and other existing investors.

“We’re just trying to keep our finger on the pulse to what matters to restauranteurs,” CEO Christopher Comparto said. “We hear a lot about the labor side of the equation. We’re working through what to do there. If you ask restaurants about the number one thing they’re thinking about, most respondents say it’s around labor — that’s a really big one.”

Starting off in 2011 as a point-of-sale business, the company now offers a complete suite of tools that help restaurants streamline both the front and back house of the restaurant. And as Toast collects more and more data on how restaurants are using its tools — like any startup with a lot of inbound data, really — it can start helping those restaurants figure out how to improve their businesses further. That might be modifying menus slightly based on what people are enjoying, or pointing them in the right direction as to when to make slight adjustments to their basic operations.

There’s also an online ordering part of the business. Toast helps restaurants boot up an online ordering part of their business quickly, in addition to offering tools to help streamline that process. A restaurant might deal with a flood of orders or throttle them if necessary. Businesses then get reports on their whole online ordering business, helping them further calibrate what to offer — and what might work better for the in-person experience as well.

The next focus for Toast, Comparto said, is figuring out the labor side of the equation. That comes down to helping restaurants not only find new employees, but also figure out how to retain them in an industry with a significant amount of turnover. Attacking the hiring part of the problem is one approach, though there are other approaches like Pared, which looks to turn the labor market for restaurants into an on-demand one. But there’s obvious low-hanging fruit, like making it easier to switch shifts among other things, Comparto said.

“1 in 11 working human beings work in restaurants,” Comparto said. “I would say we’re still trying to figure out what we can do as a central platform of record, continuing to carry a high quality network of partners or us building some things ourselves. We’re early days in figuring them out. If you go to any restaurant in Boston, and look at all the help wanted signs, you can see the barrier to being successful is a lot of times more on the employee side than on the guest side. Then once you have them hired, you have to think about how you can retain those employees and make sure they’re engaged and successful.”

Toast isn’t the only startup looking to own a point-of-sale and then expand into other elements of running a business, though. Lightspeed POST, which also offers a pretty large set of tools for brick-and-mortar stores — including restaurants — raised $166 million late last year.There are also the obvious point-of-sale competitors like Square that, while designed to be a broad solution and not just target restaurants, are pretty widely adopted and can also try to own that whole restaurant management stack from clocking in and out to getting reports on what’s selling well.

Yesterday, we learned that 18-month-old, Bay Area-based electric scooter rental company Lime is joining forces with the ride-hailing giant Uber, which is both investing in the company as part of a $335 million round and planning to promote Lime in its mobile app. According to Bloomberg, Uber also plans to plaster its logo on Lime’s scooters.

Lime isn’t being acquired outright, in short, but it looks like it will be. At least, Uber struck a similar arrangement with the electric bike company JUMP bikes before spending $200 million to acquire the company in spring.

There are as many questions raised by this kind of tie-up as answered, but the biggest may be what the impact means for Lime’s fiercest rival in the e-scooter wars, 15-month-old L.A.-based Bird, which several sources tell us also discussed a potential partnership with Uber.

Despite recently raising $300 million in fresh capital at a somewhat stunning $2 billion valuation, could its goose be, ahem, cooked?

At first glance, it would appear so. Uber’s travel app is the most downloaded in the U.S. by a wide margin, despite gains made last year by its closest U.S. competitor, Lyft, as Uber battled one scandal after another. It’s easy to imagine that Lime’s integration with Uber will give it the kind of immediate brand reach that most founders can only dream about.

A related issue for Bird is its relationship with Lyft, which . . . isn’t great. BIrd’s founder and CEO, Travis VanderZanden, burned that bridge when, not so long after Lyft acqui-hired VanderZanden from a small startup he’d launched and made him its COO, he left to join rival Uber.

Lyft, which sued VanderZanden for allegedly breaking a confidentiality agreement when he joined Uber,  later settled with him for undisclosed terms. But given their history, it’s hard to image Lyft — which also has a much smaller checkbook than Uber — paying top dollar to acquire his company.

Where that leaves Bird is an open question, but people familiar with both Bird and Lime suggest the e-scooter war is far from over.

For example, though Uber sees its partnership with Lime as “another step towards our vision of becoming a one-stop shop for all your transportation needs,” two sources familiar with Bird’s thinking are quick to underscore its plans to expand internationally quickly and not merely fight a turf war in the U.S. (It already has one office in China.) 

That Sequoia Capital led Bird’s most recent round of funding helps on this front, given Sequoia Capital China’s growing dominance in the country and the relationships that go with it. Then again, Sequoia is also an investor in Uber, having acquired a stake in the company earlier this year, and alliances are generally temperamental in this brave new world of transportation. In just the latest unexpected twist, Lime’s newest round included not only Uber but also GV, the venture arm of Alphabet, which only recently resolved a lawsuit with Uber.

Another wrinkle to consider is the exposure that Lime receives from Uber, which could prove double-edged, given the company’s ups and downs. Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, appears determined to steer the company to a smooth and decidedly undramatic public offering in another year or so. But for a company of Uber’s scale and scope, that’s a challenge, to say the least. (Its newest hire, Scott Schools —  a former top attorney at the U.S. Justice Department and now Uber’s chief compliance officer — will undoubtedly be tasked with minimizing the odds of things going astray.)

Lime’s arrangement with Uber could potentially create other opportunities for Bird. First, by agreeing to allow Uber to apply its branding to its scooters, Lime will be diluting its own brand. Even if Uber never acquires the company, riders may well associate Lime with Uber and think, for better or worse, that it’s a subsidiary.

Further, Uber does not appear to have made any promises to Lime in terms of how prominently its app is featured within its own mobile app. which already crams in quite a lot, from offering free ride coupons to featuring local offers to promoting its Uber Eats business.

Consider that in January 2017, Google added the ability to book an Uber ride to both the Android and iOS versions of its Google Maps service. Uber might have thought that a coup, too, at the time. But last summer, Google quietly removed the feature from its iOS app, and it removed the service from Android just last month. If there wasn’t much outrage over the decision, likely it’s because so few users of Google Maps noticed the feature in the first place.

Lime’s arrangement could prove more advantageous. Only time will tell. But everything considered, whether or not Bird flies away with this competition will likely owe less to Lime’s new arrangement with Uber than with its own ability to execute, including making its mobile app the kind of go-to destination that Uber has.

Certainly, that’s what BIrd’s flock would argue will happen. Yesterday afternoon, Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia and a Bird board member, declined to discuss the Lime deal, instead emailing one short observation seemingly designed to say it all: “Travis [VanderZanden] is far more customer obsessed than competitor obsessed. That is a quality we look for in great founders.”

A Bird spokesperson offered an equally sanguine quote, saying that Bird is “happy to see our friends in the ride-sharing industry coalesce on the pressing need to offer a sustainable and affordable alternative to car trips.”

Waze has been sending its partner cities a fire hose of data for the past four years through its free Connected Citizens Program. And while that aggregated and anonymized data holds critical information about traffic patterns, road hazards, potholes, accidents and even road kill, the burden is on cities to make sense of it.

Now, an expanded partnership between Waze and mapping and analytics platform Esri is giving cities a decoder ring of sorts that turns that mountain of crowdsourced data into useable information without having to write code or purchase additional software.

The two companies announced Tuesday that Waze’s live alert data will now be available in Esri’s ArcGIS Marketplace free for members of the Waze Connected Citizens Program. The program launched in October 2014 as a two-way exchange of traffic and road condition data. Waze delivered the data to participating cities and towns, and in return the company received information that would be important for its users. For instance, a city might provide Waze with information about an upcoming event like a marathon or festival or real-time road closures during a professional sporting activity.

But the data delivered to cities required technical expertise or additional software to turn it into actionable information. This expanded partnership with Esri means Waze’s live feed of mapped traffic alerts and other information, such as accidents, congestion and street damage, can be used in applications in minutes.

More than 700 cities globally are part of the Connected Citizens Program. And it’s adding a new city every day, Adam Fried, Waze’s global partnerships manager, told TechCrunch.

Waze has always provided live alert data to its partner cities. But that data comes in a raw format that cities then had to analyze and visualize on a map.

Waze found that many of these cities were already using Esri software. Now these cities can in essentially one click inside of Esri’s platform get access to Waze data and start analyzing it and visualizing it immediately. That’s a huge leap forward for cities, some of which took months to sift through Waze’s live alert data, Fried said.

Mozilla’s Test Pilot program for Firefox has long been the organization’s way to trial some of its more experimental ideas for new browser features. Now it’s expanding this program to include mobile apps, too, with the launch Firefox Lockbox, of a password manager for iOS, and Notes by Firefox, a note-taking app for Android.

Both apps have a connection to Firefox (hence their names), but we’re not talking about Firefox plugins here. These are stand-alone apps that sync with Firefox on the desktop and mobile and share its branding.

Lockbox gives you access to passwords you’ve saved in Firefox and then lets you use them in their respective apps (think Twitter or Instagram). To unlock the app, you can use Face ID or your fingerprint.

If you’re not a Firefox user, you probably won’t get a lot of value out of Lockbox, but if you are, then this now allows you to use Firefox’s native password manager instead of a third-party app. That’s a smart move by Mozilla, which doesn’t necessarily have a lot of market share for its browser on iOS but still wants to keep iOS users involved in its ecosystem.

Notes by Firefox does exactly what you think it does. It’s a note taking app for Android that stores your encrypted notes and syncs them between your phone and the browser. If this sounds a bit familiar, that’s probably because the Notes browser plugin itself is a Test Pilot experiment that launched back in 2017. Now Mozilla is complementing it with a mobile app. Notes in the browser offers all the basic note-taking features you’d want (with support for Markdown if that’s your thing), though we are talking about pretty basic functionality here. Don’t expect a Microsoft Onenote or a similarly fully-featured service.

Billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted at the weekend to say he was working with cave experts to build a mini submarine out of rocket parts that he thought could help a rescue effort to free 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for weeks in a flooded underground cave complex in Thailand.

In the last few minutes, it’s just been confirmed that an eleventh boy has been brought out of the cave complex by the divers. However Musk’s unasked for experimental ‘escape pod’ device has not been involved in the rescue mission — after being deemed impractical for conditions in the caves.

The Guardian reports the head of the joint command centre coordinating the operation, Narongsak Osatanakorn, telling reporters today: “Although [Musk’s] technology is good and sophisticated it’s not practical for this mission.”

The complex rescue mission to extract the football team has been ongoing for several days, with an international team of rescue divers leading each boy individually out of the cave complex, fitted with a full-face scuba mask and carrying a supply of oxygen so they can pass through kilometers of tapering tunnels flooded with monsoon rains.

Musk himself apparently flew to Thailand, posting a video from inside one of the caves to his Instagram account…

Despite Musk’s escape pod idea proving impractical for the rescue effort, AFP reports that a spokesman for Thailand’s military junta thanked the billionaire for his offer of assistance and for taking a personal interest in the operation.

Musk tweeted earlier to say he would leave the sub in Thailand “in case it may be useful in the future”.

TechCrunch Disrupt is the world’s biggest and most impactful tech startup conference, and this year, we’re upping the stakes even more. Taking place at Moscone West, Disrupt SF will feature the biggest names in tech, from Reid Hoffman to Kirsten Green to Dara Khosrowshahi.

The agenda will have something for everyone.

Into transportation tech? We’ll be joined by Cruise’s Kyle Vogt, BMW’s Dieter May, and Uber’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Want to learn more about AI? Kai-Fu Lee from Sinovation and Clinc’s Jason Mars have plenty to show off. Or maybe you’re into cryptocurrencies? Well, we’ve got Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse, Arrington XRP Capital’s Michael Arrington, Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, and SEC SF Regional Director Jina Choi.

And that only scratches the surface.

Alongside the Main Stage agenda, we’ll also have the Next Stage with longer sessions and more panelists. This will give attendees the opportunity to dive deep on a particular subject.

We’re very proud of the show we’ve put together and are thrilled to give you a look at what’s in store.

Editor’s Note: Not all of our speakers are included on this agenda as we like to keep a couple tricks up our sleeves. ;)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH

Early Morning

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How Did I Get Here by Cyan Banister (Founders Fund)

Founders Fund Partner Cyan Banister tells her surprising origin story and explains how people, not processes, were the key to her success. Main Stage @ 9:05AM

Beyond Moonshots with Alan Stern (NASA)

Alan Stern has overseen ambitious projects from NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission to Moon Express’s attempt at a privately developed lunar landing. Hear what’s next for interplanetary exploration and commercialization from an aerospace veteran. Next Stage @ 9:05AM

Gaming’s Next Respawn with John Riccitiello (Unity Technologies)

Unity wants to turn consumers into creators. Hear CEO John Riccitiello explain how his company’s gaming engine is making that possible by building development tools accessible to anyone. Main Stage @ 9:25AM

Rewriting Life’s Future with Rachel Haurwitz (Caribou Biosciences)

A fireside chat with Rachel Haurwitz, the chief executive and founder of Caribou Biosciences and one of the patent holders for CRISPR — the gene editing technology that may rewrite life as we know it. Next Stage @ 9:25AM

Insuring the Future with Mario Schlosser (Oscar Health) and Daniel Schreiber (Lemonade)

Two leading insuretech CEOs will discuss the challenges and opportunities of building a company in one of the world’s most sclerotic industries. Next Stage @ 9:45AM

Late Morning

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From Private to Public with Drew Houston (Dropbox)

Dropbox’s CEO spent more than 10 years preparing his cloud storage company to go public; he’ll talk about what kept him going and where Dropbox goes from here. Main Stage @ 10:05AM

Beyond Startup Battlefield with Bobby Lo (Vurb), Aaron Patzer (Vital Software) and Michelle Zatlyn (Cloudflare)

Participating in the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield can give your startup a distinct advantage. We talk to several Battlefield alumni and find out how the experience affected them. Next Stage @ 10:10AM

Decoding the DNA Opportunity with Anne Wojcicki (23andMe)

Anne Wojcicki co-founded 23andMe to empower consumers with their genetic information. Now, 12 years after its founding, hear from CEO Wojcicki on the tremendous opportunities that can be unlocked by genetic testing. Main Stage @ 10:50AM

The Promise and Perils of Early Branding with Emily Heyward (Red Antler), Philip Krim (Casper) and Tina Sharkey (Brandless) 

Building a brand isn’t as simple as choosing a color scheme and designing a logo. Emily Heyward, Philip Krim and Tina Sharkey are experts in the business. Listen as they share their insights.  Next Stage @ 11:05AM

The Race to Win at AI: A Cross-Border View with Kai-Fu Lee (Sinovation Ventures)

Distinguished technologist and investor, Kai-Fu Lee on his provocative, forthcoming book, “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and The New World Order.” (Dr. Lee will also participate in a separate audience Q&A session after this interview.) Main Stage @ 11:15AM

Making Sound Investments with Ashton Kutcher and Effie Epstein (Sound Ventures)

Sound Ventures partners Ashton Kutcher and Effie Epstein on their firm’s investment thesis, the influence of celebrity status, and more in this wide-ranging interview. Main Stage @ 11:35AM

Advancing Equity in Silicon Valley: In Conversation with Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital) and Aniyia Williams (Black & Brown Founders)

Silicon Valley does not have a good track record when it comes to diversity and inclusion. Companies point to the “pipeline problem” as the culprit. But that’s a myth. Hear Arlan Hamilton and Aniyia Williams discuss how black and Latinx founders can take a bigger share of Silicon Valley’s money. Next Stage @ 11:50AM

Afternoon

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Back in Fashion with Sophia Amoruso (Girlboss)

Sophia Amoruso founded and ran Nasty Gal and, along the way, turned her book Girlboss and Netflix series into a media company. Amoruso will sit down with former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Bonatsos to discuss the challenges facing young executives of startups. Main Stage @ 1:00PM

Hardware (Investing) is Hard with Peter Barrett (Playground Global), Helen Boniske (Lemnos Labs) and Cyril Ebersweiler (Hax)

Three top hardware VCs discuss how AI, better sensors and GPUs, and the changing labor markets are remaking the robotics world. Next Stage @ 1:15PM

Live Demo with Jason Mars (Clinc)

See the latest in conversational artificial intelligence with this startup out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Main Stage @ 1:20PM

Defending the Future with Marillyn Hewson (Lockheed Martin)

As the CEO of Lockheed Martin, Marillyn Hewson has the tall order of leading the massive technology company in the age of Trump. Hear about the company’s latest efforts in artificial intelligence and space travel from the 35-year veteran of the company. Main Stage @ 1:35PM

Building the Car of Tomorrow, Today with Reilly Brennan (Trucks VC), Chris Urmson (Aurora) and others to be announced

Hear a discussion around regulations, technology and processes that need to be in place before self-driving cars can become a reality. Next Stage @ 1:40PM

Introduction to Startup Battlefield

Startup Battlefield host Anthony Ha explains the rules. Main Stage @ 2:05PM

Launching a New Space Economy with Natalya Bailey (Accion Systems), Peter Beck (Rocket Labs) and Will Marshall (Planet)

As rockets and satellites proliferate, Natalya Bailey, Peter Beck and Will Marshall will discuss how a new space economy is being built with room for nations and startups alike. Next Stage @ 2:05PM

Startup Battlefield Competition – Flight #1

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Main Stage @ 2:10PM

In Conversation with Avichal Garg (Electric Capital) and others to be announced

Electric Capital’s Avichal Garg and others discuss all the variables that go along with an Initial Coin Offering. Next Stage @ 2:50PM

Early Evening

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From Blockchain to Banking with Brad Garlinghouse (Ripple) and Michael Arrington (Arrington XRP Capital, founder, TechCrunch)

What sets XRP apart from the rest of the crypto crowd, and what’s in store for this intriguing, if volatile, category? Main Stage @ 3:00PM

Venture Capital in 2018 with Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures), Megan Quinn (Spark Capital), Sarah Tavel (Benchmark Capital)

Hear three leading venture capitalists talk about the trends impacting, and in some cases roiling, the business of investing in startups. Main Stage @ 3:25PM

Reaching The Next Gamers with Roblox’s David Baszucki (Roblox)

The founder and CEO of Roblox built one of the most popular gaming platforms of this generation. During his fireside chat he’s set to talk about building a brand that’s embraced by younger players, and why Roblox is moving into education. Main Stage @ 4:10PM

Deliverance with DoorDash’s Tony Xu

As long as people are hungry and busy, food delivery will continue to have a huge market. All the same, it’s also a fiercely competitive business, with hundreds of me-too offerings, and hundreds more variants on the basic model. Hear from the founder and CEO of one of the leading startups in that space, DoorDash, talk about how he built a startup that stands apart from the fray and where it will go next. Next Stage @ 4:35PM

The Future of Finance with Jina Choi (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, San Francisco)

Jina Choi is the director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office where she sits at the epicenter of startups and finance. In this wide-ranging discussion we’ll explore what it takes to regulate, manage, and grow the financial world in a place where the rules change every minute. Main Stage @ 4:50PM

The Screen Is The Most Important Place In The World with Clark Valberg (InVision)

Prototyping an app or website used to take far too long. InVision’s collaboration and design software have changed that, but will it be enough to dethrone Adobe?  Next Stage @ 4:55PM

Startup Battlefield Competition – Flight #2

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Main Stage @ 5:10PM

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH

Early Morning

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Product Launch and Fireside Chat Dieter May (BMW)

Watch the unveiling of BMW’s next innovation and hear what it took to build the technology. Main Stage @ 9:05AM

Running Toward Connected Fitness with John Foley (Peloton)

Peloton has transformed the fitness game with its internet-connected stationary bikes. Founder and CEO John Foley will join us to discuss the unicorn company’s rapid growth in the world of high-tech fitness. Next Stage @ 9:05AM

Finding the Next Silicon Valley with Doug Leone (Sequoia)

Hear how the global managing partner of Sequoia Capital helped set an overseas strategy — and cemented the firm’s status for years to come in this wide-ranging fireside chat with a icon in venture capital. Main Stage @ 9:25AM

Out of Prison, Off the Streets

Strong communities inside and outside of prison can help foster success. Hear from Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins (Promise), Rose Afriyie  (mRelief), Frederick Hutson (Pigeonly) and Neil Shah about how tech can help empower inmates and create pathways to success in communities.  Next Stage @ 9:25AM

A Very Busy Bee with Whitney Wolfe Herd (Bumble)

As the founder and CEO of one of the hottest dating apps, Whitney Wolfe Herd is set to discuss Bumble’s rapid growth, expansion into new verticals, and the company’s unconventional strategy around funding. Main Stage @ 9:45AM

Security in the Age of AI with Nicole Eagan (Darktrace) and Fengmin Gong (DiDi Labs)

Machine learning can help companies better protect their networks, but it also provides attackers with new tools. DiDi Labs Security VP Fengmin Gong and Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan will discuss how their companies use these new technologies to keep hackers at bay and how others can do the same to keep their systems secure. Next Stage @ 9:50AM

Moonshot Philanthropy with Priscilla Chan (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative co-founder Priscilla Chan will discuss how tech giants can fund the next era of charity, balancing global giving with local causes, and funding social good startups to create a sustainable positive impact. Main Stage @ 10:10AM

Having Space in the Fund with Rob Coneybeer (Shasta Ventures), Tess Hatch (Bessemer Venture Partners) and Matt Ocko (DCVC)

They wanted moonshots, and now they have them. Hear from three top VCs on how space is no longer the final frontier of investing. Next Stage @ 10:10AM

Late Morning

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10:50 AM – 11:20 AM
Uber, One Year Later with Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber)

Dara Khosrowshahi joined Uber last September following the ouster of then-CEO Travis Kalanick. It’s been a year since Khosrowshahi has taken the helm, and it’s time to talk about the challenges so far. Main Stage @ 10:50AM

Fireside Chat with Nikolay Storonsky (Revolut)

Nikolay Storonsky took his company from a $350 million valuation to a $1.7 billion valuation in under six months. Hear how he did it. Next Stage @ 11:05AM

Investing Outside the Valley with Steve Case (Revolution) and J.D. Vance (Rise of the Rest)

Aol co-founder Steve Case and best-selling author J.D. Vance are on a quest to find and fund startups throughout the United States. With a fresh $150 million ready to invest, hear why the pair is bullish on startups operating outside of Silicon Valley. Main Stage @ 11:20AM

The Art of Scaling with Reid Hoffman (Greylock)

As PayPal’s COO, LinkedIn’s co-founder, and a Greylock partner, Reid Hoffman turns ideas into world-changing companies. Hear his thoughts on tomorrow’s startup opportunities, today’s industry problems, and evergreen strategies to improve your business. Main Stage @ 11:40AM

Answering the Door with Jamie Siminoff (Ring)

Hardware is hard but Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff makes it look easy. Siminoff took the company from upstart to Amazon-owned in a few short years. How do you keep hardware fresh and how do you ensure privacy and security in a world of IoT? Siminoff has some ideas. Next Stage @ 11:50AM

Afternoon

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Electronic Apparel Demo with Rich Mahoney (Seismic)

Seismic founder and CEO Rich Mahoney will debut the latest version of his startup’s powered clothing. Through a combination of textiles and robotics, Seismic’s garments are a kind of soft robotic exoskeleton. The suit’s electro-mechanical muscles increase the wearer’s mobility, while remaining discreet under their clothing. Next Stage @ 1:05PM

Taking on Silicon Valley with Marty Chavez (Goldman Sachs)

Goldman Sachs is taking over the tech world through engineering (and not the financial kind); we’ll talk with its CFO (and former COO) about the banking giant’s road map through Silicon Valley. Main Stage @ 1:20PM

United in Discord with Jason Citron (Discord)

Hear CEO Jason Citron talk about how the company he founded dominated an emerging market for messaging and leveled up online gaming by erasing the stereotype of the lonely gamer. Next Stage @ 1:20PM

Fireside Chat with Baiju Bhatt (Robinhood)

Hear how Robinhood figured out how to woo a younger audience into investing. But the startup, now worth $5.6 billion, can’t just remain a free stock trading app if it wants to become a next-generation financial institution — and it’s now looking to take over the whole notion of an investment portfolio including with cryptocurrency. Main Stage @ 1:40PM

Building for Voice with Jason Mars (Clinc) and Alex Smola (Amazon Web Services)

Once upon a time, we used our voices for the vast majority of our communication. And then came the written word, and then came the internet. But everything old is new again. Hear from Jason Mars and Alex Smola as they discuss how voice may be the next dominant interface and how to build for that future. Next Stage @ 1:40PM

Startup Battlefield – Flight #3

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $50,000. Main Stage @ 2:05PM

Connecting the Blocks with Sam Cassatt, Amanda Gutterman and Joseph Lubin (Consensys)

There is perhaps no firm that has done as much to promote the adoption of Ethereum as the dominant cryptocurrency platform for actual product development as Consensys. Hear the firm’s leaders discuss the possibilities of Ethereum and share their insights. Main Stage @ 2:55PM

Fireside Chat with Michael Rubin (Fanatics)

Hear serial entrepreneur Michael Rubin talk about what it’s like to run an e-commerce business worth billions.  Next Stage @ 2:50PM

Early Evening

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The Sky’s the Limit with Chris Anderson (3DR), Adam Bry (Skydio), Laura Major (CyPhy) and Arnaud Thiercelin (DJI)

The drone revolution has just begun. From hobbyists to agriculture to the military, UAVs are set to have a profound impact on our economy and lives. Chris Anderson, Adam Bry and Arnaud Thiercelin will discuss the potential impact — and roadblocks — drones will face in the coming years. Next Stage @ 3:30PM

Driving Self-Driving Cars with Kyle Vogt (Cruise)

Fresh off a $2 billion investment from Softbank, hear a discussion with the CEO and co-founder of Cruise on building a self-driving startup, working through regulations and working as a startup within a massive company like General Motors. Main Stage @ 3:40PM

Building Successful E-Commerce with Warby Parker’s David Gilboa

Warby Parker’s co-founder and co-CEO David Gilboa launched and scaled Warby Parker to become an iconic eyeglass brand. He’ll fill us in on what it took to build the e-commerce company in the age of Amazon. Main Stage @ 4:00PM

Scooting Through Regulation with Emily Warren (Lime) and others to be announced

Emily Warren, formerly of Lyft’s transportation policy, joined Lime in early 2018 to help navigate the murky waters of on-demand transportation. Now that she’s settled in, we’ll learn what makes scooters and bikes trickier to navigate than on-demand car rides. Next Stage @ 4:15PM

Even Harder Things with Ben Horowitz (Andreessen Horowitz)

The renowned A16z investor and startup whisperer will sit down to discuss the hard things facing founders right now and how he feels they should overcome them. Main Stage @ 4:20PM

Launch and Demo with Brynn Putnam (Mirror)

Watch the unveiling of Mirror, which aims to redefine personal fitness. Main Stage @ 4:40PM

Why Chinese Tech Companies Go Public in the U.S. with Hans Tung (GGV Capital) and Yi Wang (LingoChamp)

Will the Belt and Road initiative pave over U.S. capital markets? GGV Capital managing partner Hans Tung and Yi Wang the CEO of Liulishuo discuss Chinese tech companies’ road to public markets in the U.S. Next Stage @ 5:05PM

Startup Battlefield – Flight #4

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Main Stage @ 5:15PM

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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH

Early Morning

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Beauty and the Beat with Emily Weiss (Glossier) and Kirsten Green (Forerunner Ventures)

Cosmetics company Glossier got its start as a spinoff of a beauty blog, Into the Gloss, and both have become that rare thing in the world of startups, breakout hits. Hear from the mastermind behind both, Emily Weiss and her star investor Kirsten Green, about how the two were built, and why they don’t worry about being beat by Amazon. Main Stage @ 9:05AM

The Power and the Promise of 5G with Chaitanya Kanojia (Starry) and others to be announced

5G has been on the horizon for years, and it looks like it’s almost here. What does that mean?  Will it be the technological leap we’ve been waiting for? Next Stage @ 9:05AM

Quantum Supremacy with Dario Gil (IBM)

IBM has long been at the forefront of quantum computing research. Dr. Dario Gil heads up IBM’s AI research efforts and commercial quantum computing program. We’ll talk about what quantum computing is, what it means for the future of tech and how we can separate hype from reality. Main Stage @ 9:30AM

Dismantling Algorithmic Bias with Patrick Ball (HRDAG), Brian Brackeen (Kairos) and Kristian Lum (HRDAG)

We often hear of racist and biased algorithms, but what does it take to ensure the algorithms used to make decisions about potentially life-changing circumstances like bail and policing are fair? And what does fair even mean? Human Rights Data Analysis data scientists Patrick Ball and Kristian Lum are going to help answer those questions. Next Stage @ 9:45AM

Building a Quantum Computing startup with Chad Rigetti (Rigetti Computing)

Rigetti Computing wants to make quantum computing available to every developer. To do that, the well-funded startup is building its own quantum computers that will compete with those of its bigger competitors. Rigetti Founder and CEO Chad Rigetti will join us to talk about the challenges of building a quantum computer in 2018 and where the company is going next. Main Stage @ 9:50AM

Printing the Next Footwear Joseph DeSimone (Carbon) and Eric Liedtke (Adidas)

Carbon’s unique technology has already printed thousands of Adidas 3D Futurecraft sneakers, with plans to expand into the millions. Hear executives from both companies talk about using technology to design soles that can’t be created with more traditional methods. Main Stage @ 10:10AM

Y Combinator Do’s and Don’ts: In Conversation with Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel (Y Combinator)

Y Combinator fundamentally changed the investing game circa 2007 with its approach of taking shots in the dark on a wide array of companies. That strategy finally paid off earlier this year when Dropbox went public, a “dream come true” for the firm. But now there are dozens of accelerators and an at-times ridiculous amount of seed capital available — so it comes down to what Y Combinator can offer its founders and where it thinks the whole idea of an “accelerator” is going. Next Stage @ 10:10AM

Late Morning

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Creating A Monster with Mike Judge (HBO’s Silicon Valley)

No show has done a better job of portraying Silicon Valley than… well, Silicon Valley. Co-creator Mike Judge talks about the show’s monster success. Plus, what’s new for Season 6? Main Stage @ 11:15AM

Demo with Brian Brackeen (Kairos)

Facial recognition is coming whether we like or not, but Kairos CEO Brian Brackeen is particularly cautious about how this technology might be used. Main Stage @ 11:35AM

In Conversation with Laura Deming (The Longevity Fund), Arvind Gupta (SOSV), Nina Kjellson (Canaan Partners)

Join us to discuss what’s overhyped and underfunded in the world in the world of biotech investing. 

Next Stage @ 11:45AM

The Future of African Tech with Tayo Oviosu (Paga) and others to be announced. 

Elite members of Africa’s startup landscape like Paga Payments chief executive Tayo Oviosu talk to us about the challenges and opportunities in one of the newest (and most exciting) emerging markets for tech entrepreneurship. Main Stage @ 11:50AM

Afternoon

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Are Fat Rounds Eating the Lean Startup? with Eric Ries (author, The Lean Startup) and David Hornik (August Capital)

In an era of multi-billion dollar investment rounds and hundred billion dollar funds can a lean startup survive? Eric Ries, the architect of the lean startup model, and David Hornik, the managing partner of August Capital, will help us find out. Next Stage @ 1:10PM

Startup Battlefield Alumni Update

Battlefield startups from the past return to the stage to tell us what they’ve been up to since they competed for the Disrupt Cup. Main Stage @ 1:15PM

Extinguishing Silicon Valley’s Trash Fire with Danielle Brown (Google) and Bo Young Lee (Uber)

Uber and Google’s respective heads of diversity have been busy. While Uber looked to recover from a year of sexual harassment allegations, Google had some problems of its own. We’ll hear from Uber’s Bo Young Lee and Google’s Danielle Brown about how each company is trying to make amends. Next Stage @ 1:35PM

Startup Battlefield Final

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Main Stage @ 1:40PM

Hackathon Finals

Finalists from our first-ever virtual Hackathon will take the stage to pitch their wares. Next Stage @ 2:00PM

How Coinbase Keeps Building with Brian Armstrong (Coinbase)

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has kept his company going through booms and busts. In this one-on-one we’ll explore what Coinbase did to keep its focus on providing cryptocurrency services. Main Stage @ 3:20PM

Launch and Demo with Delane Parnell (PlayVS)

Hear from Delane Parnell about the evolution of esports, and check out the high school esports platform for the very first time. Main Stage @ 3:40PM

Early Evening

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Startup Battlefield Closing Awards Ceremony

Watch the crowning of the latest winner of Startup Battlefield. Main Stage @ 4:15PM