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COMING UP

SF Open Source AI Week
Oct 18 - Oct 26

Newark Tech Week
Oct 12 - Oct 20

NY App Week
Oct 19 - Oct 22
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
With Jeetu Patel (President & Chief Product Officer, Cisco), Shuo Chen (General Partner, IOVC), Yuriy Timen (Head of Growth, Superhuman), Vaibhav Aggarwal (Head of Growth Engineering, OpenAI), Guy Marion (Chief Marketing Officer, Chargebee), Jerel Lim (CEO, DECODE), Anu Bharadwaj (Partner, ICONIQ), Ty Sbano (CISO, Webflow), Eric Tan (Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Goodwin), Mayank Mehta (Founder & CEO, Gather).
Nov 14 (Sat) @ 12:30 PM       $128
Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Main stage: Goldman Theatre (1st Fl), Berkeley

 
      Register      
 
Sold out in 2025. Register before it sells out again.
3 things that make this different:
It is built for the earliest stage. Every session targets a blocker pre-seed & seed founders are hitting right now, & sends you home with tactics you can use on Monday.

Close interation with speakers, who stay in the room. After each main-stage session, the panelists sit down for an off-the-record roundtable with 12 to 15 founders.

Every speaker has been in your seat. All of them have founded, funded, or advised a pre-seed or seed startup.

Agenda:
Knowing When To Build For Speed And When To Build For Scale

Jeetu Patel (President & Chief Product Officer at Cisco)

Shuo Chen (General Partner at IOVC; Lecturer at UC Berkeley & Stanford)

Building a Repeatable Growth Engine

Yuriy Timen (Head of Growth at Superhuman)

Vaibhav Aggarwal (Head of Growth Engineering at OpenAI)

Guy Marion (Chief Marketing Officer at Chargebee)

Jerel Lim (CEO at DECODE)

Landing a Customer Ten Thousand Times Your Size

Anu Bharadwaj (Partner at ICONIQ; Board Member at Toast; Ex-President at Atlassian)

Ty Sbano (CISO at Webflow; Ex-CISO at Vercel)

Eric Tan (Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Goodwin; Ex-CIO & Chief Security Officer at Flock Safety)

Mayank Mehta (Co-Founder & CEO at Gather; Ex-GVP at Gartner)

Finding Talent Where No One Else Is Looking

Brandon Sammut (Head of People at Mind Robotics; Ex-Chief People & AI Transformation Officer at Zapier)

Erica Galos Alioto (Chief People Officer at Retool)

Brad Bowery (Head of Startups & VC Partnerships at Deel)

Engineering AI Systems That Don't Break in Production

Tashfeen Suleman (Director Engineering, Enterprise Data & AI Platform at NVIDIA; Ex-YC Founder)

Megh Gautam (Head of Product (Apps) at Box; Ex-Chief Product Officer at Crunchbase)

Parul Singh (Partner at 645 Ventures; Board Partner at Initialized Capital)

What Investors Need To Believe In Your Company

Doug Donzelli (Founder & CEO at Synfini)

Jake Flomenberg (Partner at Wing Ventures)

Sam Angus (Partner, Fenwick & West)

What Breakout Companies Get Right Before Anyone Notices

Lila Tretikov (Partner & Head of AI Strategy at NEA; former Deputy CTO at Microsoft; Board Member at UBS, Volvo, Xylem & Capgemini)

Esther Wojcicki (Founding Advisor at Treehub by AI Health Fund; Godmother of Silicon Valley)

Gaurav Vohra (Startup Advisor & Growth Leader at Superhuman, Wispr Flow, Clay, Replit; a16z scout)

Sandy Diao (Former Director of Growth, Descript)

Why attend? (Apply to join the founders lunch/dinner with no additional cost)
Bring your current blockers & work it with the panelists on the spot, in intimate roundtable discussions.

Join an invite-only lunch/dinner with founders & speakers

Ask the investors in the room what would make them pass on your round, before you start raising

Success Stories
Past attendees have ...

Successfully raised pre-seed, seed & series A rounds from top tier investors they met through DECODE roundtables & dinners, including a16z, Sequoia & Y Combinator

Found advisors & mentors to help 10x growth in their startups through DECODE speakers, including experts from Apple, Google & Microsoft

Identified co-founders & early hires for their startups through DECODE community members, representing Databricks ($62bn valuation), Agora (IPO) & FlowGPT (Series A)


What are roundtables (Recommended if you are already building)?
Your Roundtable ticket guarantees one seat. 12-15 founders per table with the panelists, right after their session.

Your table is assigned from your application, so tell us the blocker you want worked on.

This kind of direct time with someone like an NEA partner or a former Atlassian president usually needs a warm intro or an existing relationship. It's included in this ticket.

We will reach out separately to confirm your session & gather your bio to share with panelists beforehand.

What is the lunch / dinner (Apply here)?
For founders attending our conference & working on/already have early traction, apply to attend a pre-conference lunch or post-conference private dinner with other founders, speakers & advisors.

Both are small rooms of founders, speakers, & advisors, seated together.

We will reach out separately to confirm your spot & gather your bio to share with other dinner attendees beforehand.

Get Relevant Matches
Don't leave your networking to chance. This event is packed with founders, investors & builders, & we help you find the right people to meet before you walk in.

How it works

Register & opt in. Fill in your Linkedin profile, who you want to meet, & other information when signing up, & answer "Yes" to attendee matching.

We find your matches. We will create a digital twin account for you & match you only with other attendees who opted in for this event.

Get your matches. Matches arrive by email the day before the event, each with a reason why you should meet.

Reach out & meet. Connect with your matches before the event day & have an IRL meet during the event.

Note: Matching registration closes 2 days before the event day at 11:59 PM. Only guests who answer "Yes" will be matched. If you answer "No", we will not use your registration information for matching. Opting in is optional, & you can still attend the event without it.

Important Note
We have a packed day & will be starting promptly at 12:30pm as some speakers have hard stops. A number of speakers are coming early & we highly encourage everyone to arrive earlier to meet them!

Please have something to eat before our conference. Due to food waste generation policies at the David Brower Center, we are unfortunately unable to provide food for all attendees while keeping ticket prices reasonable.

Also note that there should be no food & drinks consumption in the main theatre. Food & drinks can be consumed at the gallery area or in the roundtable rooms.

About DECODE
As a 501(c)3 non-profit, our mission is to help founders in the earliest stages of building a startup.

Since 2008, we have become the largest founder community co-hosted across Berkeley & Stanford.

Get FREE Tactical Tips by DECODE here
Follow & Subscribe:

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Reach out to jerel.lim@decode.build if cost is a barrier. We provide scholarships to those who are serious about their entrepreneurship journey.
 
 
 
 
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