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The Builders Stage brings practical strategies for scaling startups to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
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TechCrunch published the Builders Stage agenda for Disrupt 2026, featuring sessions on defending startups against OpenAI and Anthropic competition, product decisions at billion-user scale, and hiring when AI functions as a co-founder.
The agenda reflects dominant concerns in the startup ecosystem right now: platform risk from large AI providers, talent competition driven by AI startups, and the operational shift of treating AI as team infrastructure. Engineers at startups building AI-adjacent products will find the defensibility session directly relevant to roadmap planning.
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The session 'What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap' with Airbyte CEO Michel Tricot and Webflow CEO Linda Tong addresses where defensibility exists against large AI platforms.
Robby Stein, Google VP of Product, will discuss how product decision-making changes from MVP to billion-user scale.
The event runs October 13-15 at Moscone Center in San Francisco, with early registration savings of up to $330.
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