Not everyone requires a keynote position to stand out at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Sometimes, the optimal approach to connect with investors, customers, and partners is by exhibiting directly on the Expo Hall floor at San Francisco’s Moscone West from October 13-15.

That’s precisely what our Exhibit Program provides, and it’s still available for showcasing your startup. 

Here’s what $12,500 includes: 

• A 6’ x 30″ table in the Expo Hall, which attracts the most foot traffic at Disrupt, where over 10,000 founders, VCs, and tech figures gather in search of partnerships, investments, and networking opportunities. 

• We take care of the table, linen, chairs, and signage so that you can concentrate on promoting your startup — rather than worrying about logistics.

• 10 Disrupt passes, which include five all-access Exhibitor-Partner passes and five Expo+ passes, enabling your entire team to engage on the floor, not just man a booth. These passes alone cover nearly $4,000 of the exhibition cost!

• Lead generation through the Disrupt 2026 mobile app, ensuring every interaction can turn into a follow-up, rather than a lost business card. 

• Access to the Disrupt 2026 press list and Silver Tier sponsor branding throughout the site, app, and signage. 

Joining fellow exhibitors is the quickest, least demanding method for startups at any phase to reach the critical audience, from investors seeking deals, to operators assessing tools, to founders in search of partners. 

However, there is one condition:  Tables are limited. This offer concludes when the last exhibit table sells out, or on September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT, whichever occurs first.  

Secure your exhibit table now by clicking here. Alternatively, if you’re not ready to exhibit this year, get a Disrupt 2026 ticket here while we’re offering a limited-time $400 discount and start planning your participation for next year!

Vogue World is set to arrive in San Francisco next year — possibly another sign that tech moguls are now influencers in the fashion landscape.

However, the announcement of this grand fashion/art/music gathering doesn’t explicitly state that. Anna Wintour expressed that Vogue is committed to honoring cities and “San Francisco is an unparalleled city.” 

“It’s a hub of diverse communities coexisting, a place that cherishes the arts, embraces creativity, and welcomes change.” She also highlighted the city’s legacy of defiance and inventiveness.

“I admire that San Francisco has consistently advocated for its principles and values,” Wintour stated. “Vogue World will empower San Francisco’s creative talents and enhance the entire ecosystem — showcasing again that San Francisco is experiencing a resurgence.”

Rumors had circulated about Vogue World moving to San Francisco after Wintour was seen meeting with the city’s mayor, Daniel Lurie.

Moreover, over the past year, Wintour has forged connections with influential names in tech, culminating in this year’s Met Gala, where Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez, were prominent sponsors. Google’s Sergey Brin and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg also attended (this being Zuckerberg’s inaugural visit). OpenAI reserved a table, as did Meta and Snap (at a cost of $350,000 each). Although platforms like TikTok, Apple, and Instagram have sponsored the event in the past, the tech presence was so significant this year that the Met Gala was referred to as the “tech gala” in certain circles.

Last year, Vogue featured Lauren Sanchez on its cover following her marriage to the Amazon founder. In the fashion realm, this was seen as Wintour’s endorsement — not only of Sanchez’s rise in the fashion industry but also reflecting that tech and its leaders merit cultural acknowledgment.

Despite Bezos and Sanchez reportedly residing in Florida (and Amazon headquartered in Seattle), no city is as strongly linked to tech as San Francisco. Holding Vogue World there serves as another sign of Wintour’s endorsement.

Vogue, as a media entity, is always chasing the money, and as a cultural authority, is constantly seeking relevance. Aligning with the global headquarters of AI, good or bad, is savvy for business (and Wintour is certainly savvy). 

However, Vogue World has previously taken place in New York, London, Paris, and this year, Milan. Perhaps due to my East Coast perspective, I haven’t heard anyone recently describe San Francisco as a style beacon on par with these cities.  

While the city is known as the home of the free-spirited bohemian, the tech community and its workers are often characterized by hoodies, Patagonia vests, and costly athletic footwear, if they choose to dress up at all.

For example, billionaire Alexandr Wang, now leading Meta’s crucial Superintelligence Labs, conducted an interview with Y Combinator’s Garry Tan in front of a packed audience wearing a worn Nintendo T-shirt and what appeared to be Crocs. Comfortable? Yes. Fashionable? Certainly not.

Yet perhaps that is on the verge of transformation. Wang’s superior, Mark Zuckerberg, who used to always don a simple gray T-shirt and jeans, has made strides recently to elevate his fashion sense. Zuck and his wife Priscilla Chan were seen sitting front row at a Prada show this season. The latest campaign for Meta Glasses features a range of celebrity ambassadors and resembles a Saint Laurent or Balenciaga advertisement.

OpenAI and Palantir have recently launched merchandise collaborations that reflect the minimalist aesthetic of tech workers (the latter’s merchandise line seemingly draws inspiration from Virgil Abloh’s Off-White).

I acknowledge that there is ample opportunity for creativity within the subtle, Northern California aesthetic. Surrounded by stunning nature and cooler climates, many fashion designers could find inspiration in San Francisco’s tech scene. I anticipate seeing Claude-inspired terra cotta-hued gowns and Vogue-branded quarter-zips soon.

Let’s get right to it: As of today, you can enjoy an extra $100 discount on our ongoing $300 reduction for your founder, investor, or attendee TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 pass, which is a fantastic addition to our current discounted rates. 

This limited-time sale will last for just one more complete day, ending tomorrow, August 7 at 11:59 p.m. PT. This discount represents your final opportunity for an additional deal before our upcoming pricing tier takes effect on August 21. 

Register via this link to secure your extra $100 off.

If you wish to gather more information before finalizing your plans, Disrupt will take place at Moscone West from October 13–15, welcoming over 10,000 founders, VCs, tech industry pioneers, and innovators for three days focused on one objective: building momentum for future success. 

This isn’t a passive conference to just observe — it’s a curated schedule of speakers, workshops, networking opportunities and post-event excitement for those actively engaged in building, investing, and anticipating what’s next. 

The Disrupt Stage: The discussions everyone will be engaging in 

The Disrupt Stage is our main focus, and we’ve just unveiled the first lineup. We’ll explore the most significant transitions in tech today, whether it involves a post-smartphone era with Amazon’s SVP of Devices and Services Panos Panay; the real consequences of a world where anyone can create their own software, presented by Replit founder and CEO Amjad Masad; and even more exciting topics. 

However, that’s just one stage. Disrupt 2026 will also host: 

AI Stage, addressing the security vulnerabilities and business model transformations AI is enforcing on every SaaS company.

New Smart Money Stage, discussing stablecoins, instant transactions, and AI’s contribution to financial trust. 

New Smart Systems Stage, offering insights on fusion innovations and grid strains powering AI’s upcoming decade. 

Builders Stage, the beloved stage where founders and investors share practical advice on raising capital, hiring, and scaling. 

Beyond the stages 

Most Disrupt passes also provide access to Startup Battlefield, where 200 startups will compete live for the Battlefield Cup. You’ll also benefit from networking opportunities tailored to your interests as a founder, investor, or learner, in addition to our Expo Hall, where numerous startups showcase their innovations. 

This flash sale concludes Friday 

After 11:59 p.m. PT on Friday, August 7, the additional $100 savings will no longer be available. Regular discounted pricing will conclude on August 21. If Disrupt is on your agenda for this year, this is the most advantageous deal you’ll find before the event. 

Claim an extra $100 discount before Friday.

We’ll see you from October 13–15 at Moscone West in San Francisco! 

In the era of AI-driven autonomous cyber assaults, the basic, established hacking methods of deceiving victims into actions they ought to avoid continue to yield significant outcomes. 

Unidentified hacking groups are infiltrating major financial and investment companies in the United States with the intent of stealing confidential information to extort the victims by threatening to release it, as reported by Google’s security researchers on Thursday.

The firm did not disclose the identities of the victims, but Reuters mentioned among them prominent private equity firms including Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, Blackstone, Bridgewater Associates, CME Group, KKR, Moody’s, and TPG. 

The hacking collectives, which Google identified as Falcon, Helix, Pink, and Redact, are employing a traditional method to breach these firms: making phone calls to employees’ personal cellphones where the hackers impersonate colleagues or IT support personnel, attempting to deceive targets into providing their credentials and multi-factor codes on fake websites, according to Google. This tactic is known in cybersecurity as voice phishing, or vishing.

Some groups highlighted by Google operate websites where they advertise their hacks and threaten to disclose the stolen data to extort the victims into paying a ransom, a prevalent tactic among cybercriminals.

“We engage in every negotiation on professional terms. The release of your data is never our desired outcome; it is a result of declining to cooperate, intentional delays, or failing to adhere to an agreement,” stated one of the websites. “Act swiftly and in good faith, and the issue is settled without further complications.”

Researchers at Google indicated that the various groups might all belong to a broader collective that the company monitors under the designation UNC6671. However, it remains unclear if they are partners, splinter factions, or if they share the same Phishing-as-a-Service framework. 

“We suspect this likely indicates a coordinated assembly of threat actors managing multiple public extortion brands perhaps to compartmentalize operations, obscure overall breach figures, and mitigate any fallout from negotiations,” the report articulated.

As per Google, the hacking groups have previously targeted significant firms across the manufacturing, real estate, healthcare, and insurance industries, as well as in technology, transportation, and hospitality sectors with the aim of stealing “valuable intellectual property, software source code, or sensitive VIP client information.”

More recently, these hackers have focused on legal and financial institutions, including private equity firms. “Targeting organizations involved in mergers, acquisitions, capital distribution, and litigation may indicate a strategy aimed at extracting high-value corporate and confidential data to enhance extortion leverage,” stated Google’s researchers. 

Google reported that one cryptocurrency wallet linked to one of the hacking groups received approximately $10 million in bitcoin during the first few months of this year, and that the hackers typically demand between $750,000 and $3 million from their victims.

Laurie Bischel, a representative for CME Group, chose not to comment.

Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, Blackstone, Bridgewater Associates, KKR, Moody’s, and TPG did not respond to requests for comments.

According to security experts, there is evidence that a spyware linked to China has spread from the mainland to target victims in more than a dozen nations, including countries across Europe and the United States. The previously recognized spyware now possesses new capabilities for stealing extensive data and remotely disabling devices.

Experts at the cybersecurity firm Arctic Wolf reported that the LightSpy spyware, discovered in 2018 and previously associated with state-sponsored Chinese hackers, has matured into a commercial spyware system run by a sole threat actor who serves governments, businesses, and military entities. 

The platform reportedly includes customized branding, billing, and demonstrations to market it to potential clients.

These findings highlight the ongoing spread of spyware usage beyond governmental and state-backed hacking, reaching into the private sector at large. 

LightSpy is a modular spyware system that enables an operator to target various devices, such as smartphones, Apple products, Linux servers, and Windows computers. By leveraging exploits tailored for each type of device, the spyware can access vast amounts of sensitive information from its targets, including exact location data, chat conversations, screen recordings, and saved passwords. The researchers also noted that the code can remotely erase and obliterate data on an affected device.

The researchers reported that LightSpy has been detected infecting routers, a development they had not previously encountered. By compromising routers, the attackers can monitor and access any other device connected to the same network.

Some of the affected routers are linked to NATO member states, according to Arctic Wolf. 

The organization stated that LightSpy operates a network comprising at least 117 servers across various countries worldwide.

The researchers indicated they managed to connect the recent activities to a Chinese contractor after one of the operators of the spyware used the LightSpy administrator panel to place an order with Kentucky Fried Chicken using his actual name and business address.

Few car manufacturers rely on breakthrough successes as much as Ford. It’s almost ingrained in the company’s essence: From the Model T and the Taurus to the F-150 and the Explorer, Ford has staggered from one triumph to another.

However, the automaker has been struggling to find its footing lately. Although its U.S. vehicle sales increased 6% year-over-year to 2.08 million in 2025, they currently sit at less than half of their 2000 peak of 4.48 million. None of the new vehicles Ford has launched in recent years have captured the public’s imagination.

Ford CEO Jim Farley is wagering that the upcoming EV pickup, Fathom, will alter its trajectory, describing the launch of the truck and its Universal EV platform as a “Model T moment” for the company. Ford requires a product that can rival Chinese EVs, which have been gaining global traction. But, due to factors both within and beyond Ford’s influence, the Fathom is probably not going to replicate the success of the Taurus or Explorer, two models that significantly boosted Ford sales in the 1990s.

Currently, the Fathom might achieve modest success. Regardless of perspective, the starting model will present a compelling deal. On Thursday, Ford announced the Fathom would begin at $29,945, inclusive of the destination fee. This amount is considerably below the $50,000 average for new vehicles and the $56,000 average for EVs. It’s also roughly $5,000 less than the Keating Line—the average listing price of the highest price segment offered at dealerships. 

Nonetheless, price alone doesn’t drive consumers to buy a vehicle. This is where Ford might face some difficulties.

The Fathom is designed as a compact pickup truck, a category the market largely overlooked until Ford commenced sales of the Maverick in 2021. The Fathom is stepping into a less saturated niche, but it doesn’t seem to offer colossal potential either. Insights from Maverick sales highlight this: they’ve been strong, yet with only 155,000 sold last year, the small truck doesn’t classify as a blockbuster. The Taurus, at its peak in 1992, sold more than double that.

Now, the Fathom has certain benefits over the Maverick. Passengers are expected to have a bit more interior space, as per Ford. The EV will also feature a frunk, which could appeal to traditional car buyers who have previously dismissed pickup trucks due to insufficient enclosed storage.

However, the Fathom remains a pickup, and not everyone appreciates that design. Presently, SUVs dominate the market, with over 70% of potential buyers indicating a preference for an SUV, in contrast to 33% for pickups, according to Cox Automotive.

Even among pickup enthusiasts, the Fathom may find it tough to attract buyers. For many, trucks are about the aesthetic. They want them to appear ready for challenging terrains, even if they only navigate urban roads. Every automaker understands this. GM, during a recent briefing I attended, emphasized its commitment to delivering the “lifted trucks” customers desire. From the limited visuals we’ve seen of the Fathom, it does not exude “ruggedness.”

Then there’s the EV aspect. Most people who choose to purchase an EV, myself included, would never revert to an internal combustion engine, but a significant number are resistant to change. They are satisfied with gasoline-powered vehicles, and many dealers are prepared to cater to them.

The Fathom’s triumph won’t solely depend on market trends. Ford can invest in marketing and dealer education to tackle the EV challenge and may even persuade people that a truck with a frunk is a perfect substitute for a sedan. It is almost certain that Ford will launch a rugged variant of the Fathom. 

Will that suffice to turn the Fathom into a breakout success? Likely not. But perhaps Ford doesn’t require it to be. 

Perhaps the Fathom serves as a trial for its new manufacturing process, a preliminary step into a market segment that remains relatively untouched. Compact trucks may not be breaking sales records, but demand is still on the rise. Ford can capitalise on this interest to produce every Fathom while fine-tuning its new platform and processes. Then, once it is confident that any issues have been resolved, it can branch out into other segments, such as SUVs. 

The Fathom might not be Ford’s ultimate home run. Perhaps the company’s simply aiming to get on base and lay the groundwork for the next vehicle emerging from the Universal EV platform—the one that truly needs to be a game changer. 

Tinder is not the sole prominent dating application shifting away from swiping in favor of real-life gatherings to engage Gen Z users who are weary of conventional online dating. On Wednesday, Bumble highlighted the initial success of its latest application, Plans, aimed at connecting individuals “IRL” in relaxed group environments, and discussed future developments for Bumble’s primary app following the decline of the “swipe.”

During its second-quarter earnings discussion with stakeholders, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd remarked that Plans has exhibited “encouraging results” in preliminary trials over recent months, and the company intends to “emphasize real-life experiences” moving ahead.

Coupled with Tinder’s announcement this week that it too is recommitting to face-to-face events, it’s evident that a significant transformation is occurring in online dating. In simple terms, the era of swiping is nearing its conclusion.

“I truly believe that the future of meeting people in groups will gain more significance. People enjoy gathering in groups and discovering who they naturally connect with after meeting,” Wolfe Herd shared with analysts during the call. “Group social interaction is a genuine aspect of how Gen Z prefers to meet, and we think Bumble serves as a natural bridge from meeting to socialization to eventually dating.”

The company initially tried out real-world, platonic bonding with Bumble BFF, an application geared towards making friends, which has gained some traction among Gen Z women.

With Plans, however, the aim is to provide young individuals a platform to meet others in their locality to forge friendships over casual drinks and dinners at nearby venues, according to the company when unveiling the app last month. These interactions could eventually evolve into stronger friendships or romantic relationships, Bumble believes. By not being exclusively focused on dating, it alleviates the pressure of initial encounters.

Moreover, users on Plans can continue their conversations on Bumble’s app without needing to swipe or share their phone number. In essence, Bumble is marketing “no swiping” as a benefit here, implying that this method of finding matches is no longer sought after by younger users.

Wolfe Herd also suggested that Bumble is developing a new interaction model that will entirely replace the swipe.

“The fundamental concept is a transition away from optimizing for swipe speed and velocity towards something more deliberate, fewer, better, more thoughtfully considered signals,” she explained, indicating that the transition to the “swipe-free” model would occur progressively to avoid disrupting the ecosystem.

“What will take the place of the swipe? I will keep that under wraps a bit longer for competitive reasons, but it aims to foster more immediate interactions and, crucially, better outcomes, resembling real life and removing the friction and delays present in [the] existing dating app model,” she added.

The company also intends to utilize more AI tools behind the scenes to enhance results, but cautioned that this does not mean Bumble is becoming an “AI-driven experience.”

Although Bumble exceeded earnings expectations in Q2, it remains in a phase of recovery. The company’s revenue plummeted 15.2% to $210.5 million year-over-year, and its stock suffered due to its Q3 forecast, indicating a decrease in paying customers.

Today, OpenAI announced it is lifting restrictions on text-based conversations for all ChatGPT users, a service that has recently reached over 1 billion weekly users.

This interaction will be powered by the new GPT-5.6 Luna model, which will serve as the default for Free and Go users, taking the place of GPT-5.5.

Users will also receive a new “Think” button, enabling them to choose enhanced reasoning capabilities for intricate questions. OpenAI clarified that separate restrictions will remain in place for file uploads, images, voice inputs, and image generation.

The revision also introduces enhancements for Plus and Pro users, granting them access to an upgraded GPT-5.6 Sol model that is more effective for rapid tasks such as inquiries, online research, offering advice, planning, content creation, and decision-making. The company mentioned that this new model will provide more concise and powerful responses. (It’s worth noting that this is a distinct version from the GPT-5.6 Sol utilized for Codex and Work, which remains unchanged.)

Plus and Pro users will also have a thinking slider, allowing them to adjust the extent of deep thought the model applies to an answer. They can modify the thinking slider based on the complexity and steps required to resolve a query.

According to OpenAI, an internal assessment demonstrated that, in comparison to GPT-5.5-Instant, factual inaccuracies were reported to be 62% less frequent for GPT-5.6 Luna and 68% less for GPT-5.6 Sol.

The revamped version of GPT-5.6 Sol is available to Plus and Pro users as of today, while the modifications for Free and Go users will begin rolling out this week. By next week, users will enjoy unlimited text conversations and have access to the new Think button for more challenging questions.

Programmers abhor tediousness. The entirety of the programming field is evidence of how diligently individuals will labor to automate away the monotonous tasks associated with creation. And, as vibe coding has demonstrated, they have even discovered methods to avoid performing a significant portion of the work involved in assembling products.

Therefore, I was not particularly surprised to learn that Naïve, which provides infrastructure enabling AI agents to handle most of the operational duties necessary for running a business, secured over 30,000 developer clients shortly after its introduction.

Advancing vibe coding, the startup asserts its infrastructure can automate the majority of the processes in establishing and managing a business — assuming you provide the AI agents and the necessary token budget, naturally. It consolidates the tasks of assembling payments, email accounts, phone numbers, cloud infrastructure, storage, and company formation into a single API.

Naïve offers a prompt that developers can utilize with tools like Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex, which can link to the company’s API to provision the infrastructure needed to launch a business. It enables an agent to facilitate the establishment of a U.S. LLC by providing details such as the state, industry code, business description, and proposed names, although users must still participate to complete KYC/KYB processes and make any necessary payments.

The remaining setup can be managed by your AI agents, encompassing the creation of email inboxes, virtual cards, phone numbers, databases, computing resources, and connections to services such as Stripe and QuickBooks. A governance layer promises to assist users in setting budgets, restricting their agents’ functionalities, and requiring human consent before sensitive actions are undertaken. The company also supplies templates for businesses, including AI SEO, full-stack SaaS applications, recruitment, accounting, customer support, and even a mobile emulator that allows agents to run smartphone applications on emulated devices.

The appeal of such automation has evidently struck a chord, as indicated by the aforementioned user count. According to CEO and co-founder Sean Dorje, Naïve has increased its annual run-rate revenue tenfold to the low double-digit millions in the past six months.

Reflecting this momentum, the company has now secured $28.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners, as TechCrunch has exclusively discovered.

Dorje informed TechCrunch that his clients are leveraging Naïve to operate autonomous businesses, such as AI automation agencies, “faceless” online content channels on TikTok and YouTube, and even a vehicle rental service. In one instance, he found Naïve’s infrastructure backing a TikTok channel that featured AI-generated videos of cats and dogs dancing and boxing.

“I believe the fastest-growing segment right now consists of AI automation agencies,” Dorje stated. “You see, the first enterprise that many individuals establish is essentially just selling agents to other small businesses […] We have several clients who manage an entire rental car agency autonomously.”

Yet, this toolkit for managing businesses may merely represent a fraction of Naïve’s potential. Utilizing AI to automate everything seems advantageous, but the expenses of maintaining agents can escalate to astronomical levels as they engage costly AI models, transfer substantial context between tasks, and use resources while idle.

Naïve is allocating a portion of the new capital to enhance infrastructure that can improve the efficiency of those agent loops. It’s constructing a model router to direct inquiries to the most efficient model for a task while preserving and replaying previously reasoned data; a memory system that retains and surfaces business context as needed by agents for their tasks; and an orchestrator for distributing work among agents.

Importantly, Naïve is also developing a serverless runtime that executes agents within lightweight JavaScript environments rather than allocating each one a complete virtual machine — a method that allows customers to be charged primarily when an agent is active and facilitates the deployment of large numbers of agents at a lower cost.

Though the autonomous company toolkit is currently in high demand, Dorje noted that optimizing inference costs is one of its fastest-growing areas of interest. “Managing an autonomous company and operating agents, that’s now your largest expense line, and the highest increase in demand right now, I would assert, is [for] inference and serverless agents,” he stated.

He added that there is interest from enterprises in this area, although he refrained from naming any specific organizations.

This could turn out to be a more lucrative enterprise than simply assisting founders in automatically establishing phone numbers and corporate cards. Developers might initially utilize Naïve to alleviate the monotony of forming a company, but as they expand, they may place greater importance on whether it can substantially decrease the ongoing costs of managing a multitude of agents. Established enterprises might also find something of value in this regard.

Naïve presently employs 10 full-time staff members. Dorje mentioned that proceeds from the Series A will be utilized to recruit researchers and advance the company’s four infrastructure initiatives: virtualized sandboxes for agents; model routing and inference optimization; a memory layer; and governance and orchestration.

Y Combinator, Zetta, Liquid 2, and angel investors such as Gokul Rajaram, Apollo.io co-founder Tim Zheng, and former HubSpot COO JD Sherman also participated in the Series A. This funding elevates the company’s total raised capital to approximately $32 million.