Only at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: What happens when OpenAI ships your roadmap? — SkimNews
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- TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will host a Builders Stage session titled "What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap?" during its October 13–15 event at Moscone West in San Francisco.
- The session, led by Michel Tricot (Airbyte), Linda Tong (Webflow), and Rob Toews (Radical Ventures), reframes startup strategy from "Can we build it?" to "Can we still own it?" as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google introduce new capabilities every few months.
- Airbyte has grown under Tricot to 7,000+ customers, including 18% of the Fortune 500, anchoring the panel's data infrastructure perspective on where durable AI businesses get built beyond the foundation model.
- Linda Tong brings SaaS scaling experience from Webflow and prior leadership at Google, Cisco, and the NFL to address how software companies stay differentiated as AI reshapes customer expectations.
- The panel argues lasting AI defensibility lies in what models can't easily replace: proprietary data, deeply embedded workflows, customer relationships, domain expertise, and trust.
- Disrupt expects 10,000+ founders, investors, and operators across 250+ sessions, with passes offering up to $200 in savings before rates increase on September 25.
Why it matters: The panel crystallizes a strategic question now reshaping AI startup economics: as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google ship new capabilities every few months, features that once justified valuations risk becoming commodity platform functionality. For the 10,000+ founders attending Disrupt, the answers determine whether their company remains a business or becomes someone's feature update.
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