Startup Season's Biggest Gathering Is About to Get Pricier — Here's the Window to Beat It
San Francisco's flagship startup conference is closing its lowest-price registration window this week, giving founders, investors, and operators a short runway to lock in discounted entry before rates climb.
If a trip to San Francisco this fall has been sitting on your maybe-list, this is the week that decision needs to get made — the cheapest tier of registration closes in just a few days.
A Closing Window on the Lowest Rates
Discounted registration for this year's edition of the conference wraps up at the end of the week, after which the entry-level and group pricing tiers disappear for good. Anyone who has been weighing whether to attend now has a firm deadline to act, whether that means grabbing an individual pass or coordinating a group rate for a team.
The gathering returns to Moscone West in San Francisco this October, and organizers are framing it as the moment the startup world reconvenes to take stock of where building, funding, and scaling companies stand heading into next year.
Built Around the AI Era
This year's agenda leans heavily into how artificial intelligence is reshaping company-building, with three new stage tracks joining the lineup. One is dedicated to AI moving off the screen and into physical systems — robotics, automated manufacturing, healthcare applications, and defense technology among them. A second zeroes in on where AI intersects with capital: fintech, stablecoins, payments infrastructure, and embedded finance. A third digs into the compute and infrastructure layer — chips, energy, networking, and data centers — that underpins every AI product built on top of it.
Alongside the new tracks, the event's established stages covering venture strategy, applied AI, and hands-on company-building return with a fresh round of programming.
Who Founders and Investors Will Hear From
The confirmed speaker roster spans a mix of operators and executives from across the tech landscape, including leadership from an electric-vehicle maker known for pairing autonomy with robotics ambitions, a senior devices executive from one of the largest consumer tech companies, and the leadership pair behind a decentralized social platform. Organizers describe the full lineup as one of the broadest yet, with additional names still being added ahead of the show.
The founders who treat this week as a networking sprint rather than a spectator event are usually the ones who leave with a term sheet, a hire, or a partnership in motion.
- The clock is running out on savings. Discounted and group pricing ends this Friday at 11:59 p.m. PT, after which rates rise.
- AI is the connective thread. Three new stages cover AI in the physical world, AI in finance, and the infrastructure powering it all.
- It's not just for founders. Investors, operators, hiring managers, and students all have a reason to be in the room.
- The speaker list keeps growing. Confirmed names span EVs and robotics, consumer devices, and decentralized social platforms.
- Location and dates are locked. The event runs October 13–15 at Moscone West in San Francisco.