Takeaways from New York Tech Week

The things we saw and heard when 50,000 people descended on NYC for Tech Week

New York Tech Week just wrapped, and it was a big one, with 50,000 attendees across over 1,500 events.

The a16z speedrun team was on the ground hosting events and meeting with founders and investors, so we polled the team for hot takes and observations about their time in NYC.

The official Tech Week NYC kickoff event featured a cocktail-making robot.

One theme that came up was the cultural difference between SF and NYC, especially when it comes to AI adoption. a16z speedrun investor Troy Kirwin observed:

“NY is becoming AI pilled, but there is definitely a 4-6 month lag to counterparts in SF. I spoke with a number of non-tech knowledge workers whose companies are just now adopting Claude Code/Cowork while most people I talk to in SF are now jumping to Codex.”

Selfie-worthy views from THE ROOF on Chrystie st.

Bella Nazzari from the a16z speedrun talent team said that people love the NYTW events hosted by New Yorkers:

“New Yorkers think Tech Week is just San Francisco coming to New York yet New Yorkers are coming to events, hosting them, and trying to find the offshoot culturally. They want tech hosted in New York by the people who know New York in all of its angles.

“There’s a want for something more anonymized. The gossip hotline, posters around the city, the dinner you get invited to with no partiful. People in New York are more likely to attend with the strong referral of one person versus the scan of a whole list on a platform.”

a16z speedrun’s Tom Hammer hosted his annual NYC “Culture Brunch” chat with Union Square Ventures Head of Talent Jess Oynick, Liftoff CEO and cofounder Eleanor Morgan, and Partiful CEO and cofounder Shreya Murthy.

Tom Hammer’s take on the brunch this year:

“The topic of culture has an unfortunate tendency to entropy into Linkedin-worthy platitudes, especially in front of a public audience. Making this conversation explicitly private was intended to let the founders get a little bit spicier... and it worked 😀.”

On the mic: Jess Oynick of Union Square Ventures

The ElevenLabs NYC pop-up store featured a session that was open to founder exclusively.

Sunny scenes from the NY Tech Week closing party

Many of the best events were focused on serving founders. HubSpot for Startups featured a blind pitch event where a16z speedrun investor Kenan Saleh listened to and gave feedback on pitches from founders hidden behind a partition:

Kenan Saleh gives notes.

Student events and hackathons were a big draw too. Cindy Morand co-hosted a “vibe code & tea” event that was sponsored by Google Developers Group of NYC, FinOptiv, and Columbia Entrepreneurship Organization.

“We had 1.1k requests, accepted 224, and 143 vibe coded an actual app,” Morand says.

Image courtesy Cindy Morand

Lejla Johnsen said a lot of the magic of Tech Week was the chance for startup founders to meet buyers and decision-makers from top cos:

“Incredible energy, and met so many senior and C-suite execs from Fortune 500 companies. So magical to see win-win partnerships take place due to Tech Week!”

The line to get into the closing party.

Events with creators and media tended to draw some of the largest lines and best discussions. Substack tended to come up a lot in these discussions.

“I heard multiple times that everyone is now leaning into Substack, that Instagram has gone LinkedIn and TikTok is too infantile, so Substack is the middle road for creators.”
—Bella Nazzari

Scenes from “The Future of Media Soirée” hosted at a16z’s NYC headquarters

The Tech Week team says they’re already gearing up for TW SF and LA this October.

You can submit your own event for listing on the Tech Week site. Hope to see you there!

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