Execs from Atlassian, Cisco, Microsoft, NEA, NVIDIA | Unstuck your startup | Berkeley & Stanford founders

Sold out in 2025. Register before it sells out again. All speakers have founded, funded, or advised a pre-seed or seed startup directly. All of them take real questions from the room. Close interaction with speakers including: Jeetu Patel (President & Chief Product Officer at Cisco) Lila Tretikov (Partner & Head of AI Strategy at NEA; former Deputy CTO at Microsoft; Board Member at UBS, Volvo, Xylem & Capgemini) Anu Bharadwaj (Partner at ICONIQ; Board Member at Toast; former President at Atlassian) Ty Sbano (CISO, Webflow) Brandon Sammut (Head of People at Mind Robotics; former Chief People & AI Transformation Officer at Zapier) Erica Galos Alioto (Chief People Officer at Retool) Tashfeen Suleman (Director Engineering, Enterprise Data and AI Platform at NVIDIA; Ex-YC Founder) Esther Wojcicki (Founding Advisor at Treehub by AI Health Fund; Godmother of Silicon Valley) Mayank Mehta (Co-Founder & CEO at Gather; Ex-GVP at Gartner) Eric Tan (Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Goodwin; Ex-CIO & Chief Security Officer at Flock Safety) What will the sessions cover? Seven sessions, each built around one real blocker, with live questions from the room: Knowing when to build for speed and when to build for scale Engineering AI systems that don't break in production Finding talent where no one else is looking Getting discovered and winning first users Landing a customer ten thousand times your size The real work of closing a round What breakout companies get right before anyone notices Why attend? (Apply to join the founders lunch/dinner with no additional cost) 💬 Bring your current blockers and work it with the panelists on the spot, in intimate roundtable discussions. 🍽️ Join an invite-only lunch/dinner with founders and 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 and series A rounds from top tier investors they met through DECODE roundtables and dinners, including a16z, Sequoia and Y Combinator Found advisors and mentors to help 10x growth in their startups through DECODE speakers, including experts from Apple, Google and Microsoft Identified co-founders and early hires for their startups through DECODE community members, representing Databricks ($62bn valuation), Agora (IPO) and 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 and gather your bio to share with panelists beforehand. What is the lunch / dinner (Apply here)? For founders attending our conference and working on/already have early traction, apply to attend a pre-conference lunch or post-conference private dinner with other founders, speakers and advisors. Both are small rooms of founders, speakers, and advisors, seated together. We will reach out separately to confirm your spot and gather your bio to share with other dinner attendees beforehand. Important Note We have a packed day and will be starting promptly at 12:30pm as some speakers have hard stops. A number of speakers are coming early and 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 and drinks consumption in the main theatre. Food and drinks can be consumed at the gallery area or in the roundtable rooms. About DECODE DECODE is the largest founder community with roots from Berkeley and Stanford. As a 501(c)3 non-profit, our mission is to help students and alumni transform their part-time projects into full-time startups. Get FREE Tactical Tips by DECODE here Follow & Subscribe: Website LinkedIn YouTube Reach out to [email protected] if cost is a barrier. We provide scholarships to those who are serious about their entrepreneurship journey.