Scenes from NY Tech Week

It was beautiful madness in NYC last week as over 40,000 people attended 1,000+ live events. Here's what it was like, and how you can get in early on Tech Week SF + LA later this year.

💡 This Week’s Big Ideas

🇮🇱 If you’re a founder based in Israel, you’re going to want to join Troy Kirwin as he hosts both an exclusive dinner and a mixer for Israeli founders. Learn more here.

📝 The Tech Week team’s Shrikala Kashyap wrote a great summary of her first NYTW on her Substack.

🎤 Current cofounder and CEO Stuart Sopp offers the hilarious and contrarian advice that more founders should “be a little dumb.”

💼 There are currently over 400 open jobs listings across our portfolios. Join our talent network for more opportunities. If we see a fit for you, we'll intro you to relevant founders in the portfolio.

If there was ever any doubt that NYC is a major hub for tech and startups, last week put it to rest. Over 40,000 attendees showed up for 1,020 events in the city as part of New York Tech Week, the decentralized tech conference that’s organized by a16z.

“This was our third NY Tech Week and by far the biggest yet,” says Tech Week lead Katia Ameri. “The most surprising thing was seeing just how global it has become. I met people who had flown in from all over—Canada, India, France, the Dominican Republic, London. I also spotted so many out-of-home ads for Tech Week events around the city. It was amazing to see the new Tech Week branding out in the wild.”

For those who missed it: don’t worry. Tech Week is coming to both San Francisco and Los Angeles (the “birthplace” of Tech Week, as Ameri puts it) this October. If you’re interested in hosting an event, apply here.

Otherwise, read on for a quick photo recap of what the events were like for Tech Week attendees:

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On Monday, the speedrun team hosted “One Last Round” at OS NYC, an opportunity for hundreds of founders to meet the a16z speedrun team in person and take “one last chance” to apply to join SR005 before it kicks off in July.

Our own Andrew Lee doing some crowdwork

In between sips of boba tea and brutal 1v1s in Super Smash Bros. Melee, our team tackled questions from founders—many of which we’ll aim to also address with content on this Substack in the coming weeks.

a16z speedrun’s Samira Behrouzan

Immediately after that, we were off to the official Tech Week kickoff event: a hangout with a DJ, Tech Week cocktails, and plenty of room for conversation at Bar Calico.

On Tuesday, we hosted new media pioneers at the private, invite-only “Titans of New Media” dinner. The theme of the night: What exactly is new media, anyway?

Wednesday’s biggest gathering was an event for VCs and LPs in a gorgeous venue at 701West.

Clockwise from top left: a16z speedrun investors Andrew Lee and Troy Kirwin; Mayowa Ajayi from our Capital Network team; BD partner Macy Mills; Goldie Chang and Doug McCracken from the speedrun operating team

Thursday’s big event was a fireside chat in the Roxy Hotel with A24’s Scott Belsky, hosted by a16z GP Andrew Chen. The two discussed the future of AI and its impact on creativity in front of a standing-room-only theater.

Scott Belsky and Andrew Chen

Special thanks from Scott and Andrew to this audience for being such a great crowd!

Thursday was also when the Tech Week team snagged a Times Square takeover.

Tech Week team lead Katia Ameri in Times Square

There were countless other incredible events at NY Tech Week. For those of you who made the journey to attend one, thanks again! And for everyone else, we hope to see you at either SF Tech Week or LA Tech Week in October!

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That’s it for this week. Want to ask us anything about Tech Week? Ask us in the comments.

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