The longer term can be defined to you in Palo Alto

On Wednesday night at PlayGround World in Palo Alto, some very sensible people who find themselves constructing stuff you don’t perceive but will clarify what’s coming. That is the ultimate StrictlyVC occasion of 2025, and actually, the lineup is ridiculous.

The collection has bounced across the globe underneath the auspices of TechCrunch. Steve Case rented a theater in D.C.; we talked to Greece’s prime minister in Athens; and Kirsten Inexperienced hosted us on the Presidio in San Francisco. The idea is at all times the identical, although: get people who find themselves engaged on genuinely essential developments in a room earlier than everybody else figures out they’re essential.

Our favourite second? In 2019, Sam Altman instructed a StrictlyVC crowd that OpenAI’s monetization technique was principally “construct AGI, then ask it the right way to generate income.” Everybody laughed. He wasn’t joking.

This time we’ve bought Nicholas Kelez, a particle accelerator physicist who spent 20 years on the Division of Vitality constructing issues that shouldn’t be doable. Now he’s tackling semiconductor manufacturing’s greatest drawback: each superior chip relies on $400 million machines that use lasers just one Dutch firm is aware of the right way to make. (Extra galling to some: People invented the expertise, then offered it to Europe.) Kelez is constructing the following era in America utilizing particle accelerator tech. It’s as nerdy because it sounds however extra essential than you may think.

Then there’s Mina Fahmi, who’s made a hoop that captures your whispered ideas and turns them into textual content. Earlier than you roll your eyes, know that he and cofounder Kirak Hong spent years at Meta engaged on these things after their firm was acquired. The Stream Ring isn’t making an attempt to be your good friend, by the way in which — it’s making an attempt to increase your mind. Backed by Toni Schneider, an operator who scaled WordPress to a billion guests, Sandbar simply emerged from stealth and may properly be onto one thing. (Schneider is a accomplice at True Ventures, whose different {hardware} bets have included Peloton, Ring, and Fitbit; he’s additionally coming to Palo Alto subsequent week.)

We’ve Max Hodak — Science Corp founder, Time journal cover subject, and, earlier, Neuralink cofounder — who has already restored imaginative and prescient to dozens of blind folks with retinal implants. Now he’s engaged on “biohybrid” brain-computer interfaces the place chips seeded with stem cells develop into your mind tissue so paralyzed folks can management gadgets with their ideas. And that’s simply the tip of the iceberg, as Hodak views it. The truth is, he thinks 2035 goes to look wildly completely different from immediately, and he’s joyful to share how.

Lastly, we’re thrilled to welcome Chi-Hua Chien and Elizabeth Weil, two VCs who’ve backed Twitter, Spotify, TikTok, Slack, SpaceX, Figma, and Coinbase earlier than they had been family names. Chien runs Goodwater Capital and thinks Silicon Valley is totally misreading the AI second whereas everybody piles into enterprise AI. Weil based Scribble Ventures after stints at Andreessen Horowitz and Twitter, made 100+ angel investments, and has a primary fund displaying 4x returns. Her community is so good it’s annoying. Each assume the very best shopper tech alternatives are those everybody’s ignoring, and so they’ll clarify why.

PlayGround World is internet hosting, together with basic accomplice Pat Gelsinger, the previous CEO of Intel. There can be drinks, scrumptious meals, and merriment; seating is proscribed, so if you wish to come, act quick.

If you wish to accomplice with the collection in 2026, get in contact.