Techleap

What is Cities?

Cities takes a small group of Dutch founders into the world's leading tech hubs. No conference badges, no panels for the sake of panels. Just working sessions with top operators, candid conversations with founders further ahead, and a cohort small enough to actually get to know.

This time: four days in San Francisco. And for the first time, two tracks.

You set the agenda. We build the rooms.

Two tracks, one trip

San Francisco is too big for one agenda. So we're running two focused tracks side by side — shared travel, shared dinners, separate rooms.

Track 1: Gaming

For founders building in and around games. We're connecting the cohort with the leaders of the industry — the people running the platforms and studios that define gaming today.

Track 2: AI

What are the best companies in San Francisco actually doing with AI? This track goes deep on how the frontier operates: GTM with AI, pricing AI products, and conversations with the local leaders.

First confirmed speakers

Humam Sakhnini - CEO, Discord Sakhnini has run Discord since April 2025, taking over from co-founder Jason Citron at a platform used by more than 200 million people a month. He came in with fifteen years in gaming: Vice Chairman of Activision Blizzard, where he oversaw Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush, and before that President of King. His mandate is commercial — deepening Discord's gaming roots while building out advertising and in-app monetisation. If your growth depends on reaching gamers, this is the room.

Jason Kwon - Chief Strategy Officer, OpenAI Kwon has been in OpenAI's leadership since 2021 and runs everything facing outward: policy, legal, risk, international. Before that, General Counsel at Y Combinator Continuity and Assistant General Counsel at Khosla Ventures. He started out as an engineer and product manager. He's unusually direct about where OpenAI will and won't build — which is exactly what founders need to hear to work out where the openings are.

GTM with AI

A practical session on go-to-market in the AI era: how to position and create demand in a crowded market, land and expand enterprise customers, and prove 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.

Darri Atlason - Head of Growth & Marketing, Harmonic: leads Growth and Marketing at Harmonic, the startup discovery engine used by investors to track millions of companies and founders in real time. An Icelander with an HBS MBA, he previously built go-to-market at fincrime AI scaleup Lucinity and co-founded consultancy Brú Strategy.

The programme (draft)

We're still shaping the programme with the cohort. Here's the direction:

Put your challenges on the table

Joint kickoff

Both tracks open together with your real scaling challenges. Every founder brings the problem that's keeping them up at night. The group digs in, and what surfaces here shapes the rest of the trip.

Track sessions

Two days of focused rooms

Each track runs its own working sessions with the operators and leaders that matter for that world — playbooks, pricing, product, partnerships. Demo-heavy, no slides-for-the-sake-of-slides.

Founder AMAs

Off the record

A candid hour with a founder who's further ahead — scaled through the stage you're in now. Ask anything. Nothing leaves the room.

The rest? You decide.

The remaining sessions are built around what each track wants. Investors, clients, new perspectives — tell us your priorities when you sign up, and we'll build the rooms to match.

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

When: 11–14 October 2026
Where: San Francisco — venues to be confirmed
Group: two tracks, each capped
Costs: €8,000 (includes hotels and local travel; flights excluded)

More speakers, the full programme, and venues will be confirmed with the cohort in the run-up.

CTA

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. We'll arrange an online session per track once five members sign up to discuss what the group wants from the trip.