Disrupt 2026 Panel Tackles AI Prototype-to-Production Gap — SkimNews
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- TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 returns to Moscone West in San Francisco October 13–15, bringing together 10,000+ founders, investors, and operators across 250+ sessions.
- John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of MBRYONICS, will speak about transforming a photonics spinout into a leader in space-based optical communications while scaling high-volume manufacturing.
- Boris Sofman, co-founder of Bedrock Robotics, will draw on his prior work at Waymo, where fully driverless vehicles logged more than 100 million miles, to discuss scaling autonomous systems safely outside controlled environments.
- Adrian Macneil, co-founder of Foxglove, will speak about building the data platform at Cruise that supported autonomous vehicles at scale, focusing on the infrastructure that allows complex tech to move beyond experimentation.
- The session brings together founders tackling production from space communications, autonomy, and AI infrastructure — different industries facing the same transition from controlled testing to real-world reliability.
- Disrupt registration offers up to $200 in savings before the September 25 deadline, with tickets covering all three days of programming.
Why it matters: The session signals TechCrunch's framing of 2026's startup conversation: AI's prototype glut has shifted the bottleneck to manufacturing, infrastructure, and reliability — giving founders with operational scars (Waymo, Cruise, space-photonics) outsized authority as capital chases deployment-ready companies.
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