Techleap

Cities: San Francisco 2026

Explore the cutting edge of tech | 11 to 14 October 2026

What is Cities?

Cities takes a small group of Dutch founders into the world's leading tech hubs for working sessions with top operators. No conference badges, no panels. This time: four days in San Francisco, and for the first time, two tracks.

Two tracks, one trip

Shared travel, shared dinners, separate rooms where it counts.

Gaming: for founders building in and around games. Direct access to the platforms that define gaming today: Discord, Sony Ventures, and TikTok.
AI: for founders building with AI at the core. How the frontier operates: GTM in the AI era, capital, and the local leaders.

Confirmed speakers

Both tracks

TBC, OpenAI. We will have an AMA with a senior representative from OpenAI (speaker tbc)

Humam Sakhnini, CEO, Discord. Sakhnini runs a platform used by more than 200 million people a month, after fifteen years in gaming as Vice Chairman of Activision Blizzard and President of King. If your growth depends on reaching gamers, this is the room. Breakfast AMA at the Discord offices.

Douwe Kiela, Research Scientist Director, Google DeepMind. A Dutch AI heavyweight: co-author of the original RAG paper, former co-founder and CEO of Contextual AI, and previously Head of Research at Hugging Face. Now driving research at DeepMind. Closing AMA on Wednesday.

Danny Guo, VP of Engineering and Science, Uber, and Abhinav Gupta, Director, AV Labs, Uber. Uber launched AV Labs in 2026 to turn its network of hundreds of cities into the data engine for the autonomy ecosystem, working with more than twenty AV partners including Waymo, Nuro, and Zoox. Danny leads the division; Abhinav, ex-Cruise, leads product. A rare inside view of how one of the world's largest marketplaces is positioning itself around autonomy.

Gaming track

Justin Wong, VP of Business Development, Discord. AMA at the Discord offices on partnerships and building on the platform.

Ludovic Copéré, Sony Ventures. Lunch on how Sony looks at games and entertainment startups, and how founders can plug into the Sony ecosystem.

Brian Koffman, Vertical Manager, Mobile & XP Gaming, TikTok. Brian leads the mobile and XP gaming vertical at TikTok, managing full-funnel campaigns for global gaming clients after four-plus years in gaming brand partnerships at TikTok and ByteDance. How a short-form content platform actually thinks about games, game streaming, and gaming advertisers.

AI track

Katie Keller, Investor, General Catalyst. Katie invests in AI and data infrastructure at General Catalyst, the $43 billion firm behind Airbnb, Stripe, Anthropic, and Mistral. A former Salesforce PM and Menlo Ventures investor, she brings a builder's eye to what US investors want to see from AI companies right now. Track lunch, Tuesday.

GTM with AI. A practical working session on go-to-market in the AI era: positioning and creating demand in a crowded market, landing and expanding enterprise customers, and proving ROI to buyers still making sense of AI. Plus the inward view: using AI across your own sales and marketing motion to move faster with a leaner team. With:

Darri Atlason, Head of Growth & Marketing, Harmonic, the startup discovery engine used by investors to track millions of companies in real time. He previously built go-to-market at fincrime AI scaleup Lucinity.
Wouter van den Brande, VP Strategic Sales, Decagon, the founding go-to-market hire (employee #12) at the AI customer support company valued at $4.5 billion. A Dutch native who made the move to San Francisco himself.

In final negotiation

Todd McKinnon, co-founder and CEO, Okta
May Habib, co-founder and CEO, Writer

More speakers will be confirmed with the cohort in the run-up.

Rough timetable

Mon 28 Sep (Amsterdam)

16:00 to 21:00: Cohort kick-off

Sun 11 Oct

Travel to San Francisco and hotel check-in
Evening: Welcome dinner at the Ambassador's residence

Mon 12 Oct

Morning: Kick-off, challenges on the table with local founders
Lunch: Investor lunch at the Dutch Consulate
Afternoon: Session with the Uber Autonomous Vehicles team
Evening: Dinner with senior representative from OpenAI

Tue 13 Oct

Breakfast: AMA with Humam Sakhnini at the Discord offices
Morning: Gaming: AMA with Justin Wong
Lunch: Gaming: Sony Ventures. AI: General Catalyst
Afternoon: Gaming: TikTok with Brian Koffman. AI: GTM with AI
Evening: Social with the full founder group

Wed 14 Oct

Morning: AMA with Douwe Kiela, Google DeepMind, and trip wrap-up
Afternoon: Return travel

Timings are indicative and will be finalised with the cohort.

Who it's for

Founders of Dutch tech companies scaling internationally: building in gaming, building with AI at the core, or figuring out how to put it to work. Each track is kept small to keep every conversation real.

Practical

Kick-off: Monday 28 September, 16:00 to 21:00, Amsterdam
Trip: 11 to 14 October 2026, San Francisco
Group: two tracks, each capped
Costs: €8,000 (includes hotels and local travel; flights excluded)

Interested?

Let us know early, and tell us your track. The programme is built around the founders in the room, and the earlier you're in, the more it's shaped around you.