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Sam's guide

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

High Signal

35 listings

The high-signal events on my own calendar: named investors and labs, dinners, firesides, demo days — in person only.

Today

Sep 30

8 events
  • On now

    Physical AI Hackathon

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    A 10-hour hackathon where you go from a plain-English spec to firmware running on a real dev board, or to a computer vision model doing real-time inference on a GPU, using CraftifAI's AI agents for hardware engineers.

  • On now

    Agent Hackathon

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    Build something an agent would buy. Join us on September 30 for a one-day consumer-focused agent hackathon. You'll build a product, service, or API meant for agents. After a live build period, you'll demo your product to fellow hackers and a panel of judges.

  • 5:30 PM

    Private Founder × Investor Dinner. Palo Alto.

    Palo Alto, Palo AltoFreeApproval required

    A curated, invite-only gathering bringing together SF Startup Labs founders, early-stage investors, and selected members of the Silicon Valley startup community in Palo Alto.

  • 5:30 PM

    AI Infra Dinner: Builders Behind the Next AI Stack

    300 Bryant St, Palo AltoFreeSold out

    Some of the most consequential work in AI is happening underneath the applications. South Bay Renaissance is bringing together a small group of founders, engineers, and researchers building across the AI infrastructure stack for an intimate dinner and conversation in Palo Alto.…

  • 6:00 PM

    Spiros Xanthos (Founder and CEO, Resolve AI) in conversation with Corinne Marie Riley (Partner, Greylock)

    150 Pacific AveFreeApproval required

    Baseten is proud to present Heavyweights, a series of talks where AI founders learn from the greats. Most engineering teams have an agent writing code. Almost none have one that can make being on call obsolete.

  • 6:00 PM

    Dinner with Box' Product Leader & Crunchbase's ex CPO | Berkeley/Stanford Founders

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    About the dinner This is a small, highly curated gathering designed for meaningful conversation. Please complete the application thoughtfully to help shape the group and discussion with Megh.

  • 6:00 PM

    Retell Roundtable: The Future of Agentic Interfaces

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    Designing an AI agent is about more than its interface. The experience is shaped by its models, training data, evaluations, architecture, tools, and the human judgment embedded throughout the system.

  • 6:30 PM

    Pitch & Run San Francisco

    Underdogs CantinaFreeApproval required

    *** JOIN OUR NEXT RUN 10/7! RSVP-> TBD 🗓️ Wednesday, 9/30 ⏰ 6:30p 📍 Underdogs Cantina 💨 Run 1 mile sets with interval training in between, 5 miles total 🌮 Buy your own: cool down, relax, connect over food and drinks.

Tomorrow

Oct 1

5 events
  • 4:30 PM

    The AI Race For Power — In conversation with Seyed Maedaeni (CEO of Verse)

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    The race to AI supremacy is no longer just a race for chips. It is a race for power. New data centers can wait years for enough power to come online. Verse is building software and energy infrastructure to change that.

  • 5:00 PM

    Startup Pitch & Networking in Palo Alto

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    🚀 Join our event in Palo Alto! We design Pitch and Networking nights to help founders sharpen their thinking through direct, candid feedback and to give strong investors access to serious teams.

  • 5:00 PM

    Party Multiplayer Build Night on the Peninsula

    810 Hamilton St, Redwood CityFreeApproval required

    Multiplayer Building is here. Google Docs made documents collaborative. Figma made design collaborative. Now, Party is making building collaborative. Party is the multiplayer workspace where your whole team + agents build together, out in the open.

  • 6:00 PM

    MapTime x GNW Fireside Chat: Mapping Hidden Patterns

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    Join us for a living room styled fireside conversation on the invisible side of maps. The most interesting patterns in a city aren't secret, they're just sitting in plain sight. Public records, open data, everyday streets: the information is often already there.

  • 6:00 PM

    Founder Pitch Night: When Your Career Starts With a Startup

    Entrepreneurs FirstFreeApproval required

    Join ETH UPortunity and Swissnex for an evening of bold ideas, founder pitches, and peer exchange. What happens when entrepreneurship becomes your first career? This night kicks off with a conversation exploring entrepreneurship as a first career step: Why do some people choose…

Friday

Oct 2

4 events
  • 10:30 AM

    Venture Dock Demo Day

    Venture Dock, 555 University Ave, Palo Alto, CAFreeApproval required

    Venture Dock Demo Day Venture Dock, 555 University Ave, Palo Alto Friday, October 2 10:30 AM – 2:00 PM About the Event Five founders. One stage. A month of prep, one shot to make the case.

  • 5:30 PM

    Tech Makers Goes West @Mission Robotics - Pitch Night and Drinks

    Mission Robotics, MissionFree

    Tech Makers is landing in San Francisco, bringing our signature monthly of pitches, live demos, drinks, and little bit of mischief to Mission Robotics on October 2nd Featuring some really cool startups focused around hardware. Meet the founders. See what they’re building.

  • 6:00 PM

    My City Our Music Fireside Chat With Baron Davis (Oakland Tech Week)

    2201 Broadway, OaklandFree

    My City Our Music Fireside Chat & Panel featuring retired NBA star Baron Davis and Erik Moore, Managing P artner and Founder of the Fewture Fund. Mr. Davis is a founder, investor, director, producer, community activist and thought leader. Mr.

  • 6:30 PM

    Embedding <> Numix <> Parthenon Law | Dinner Event

    Location not listedFree

    Private AI Infrastructure Dinner The models get the attention. The infrastructure underneath them is where a lot of the real battles are being fought. As AI applications move from demos into production, the questions are changing: How do you make inference faster and cheaper?…

Saturday

Oct 3

5 events
  • 9:00 AM

    The Multiplayer Coding Hackathon

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    Most hackathons are a room full of people, each one alone with their own AI agent. This one is built the other way round. Your whole team works in a single shared Coshell drive, steering live AI agent sessions together. Every prompt has a name on it. Teams of 2 to 5 only.

  • 9:00 AM

    The AI Commerce Gallery - Hackathon

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    AI Commerce Gallery — ZooWork × AI Valley What does the next generation of AI-powered commerce look like? ZooWork and AI Valley are bringing together builders, founders, engineers, designers, and commerce leaders for AI Commerce Gallery — a curated one-day hackathon and…

  • 10:00 AM

    Build Your AI Team | A hands-on workshop with Turnstone (YC W26) for your everyday work

    555 Hamilton Ave suite 100, Palo AltoFreeApproval required

    Bring a real workflow. Leave with an agent operating system built around the way you actually work. Most people use AI one prompt at a time. This session is about going a step further: taking a real part of your work - client management, research, recruiting, operations,…

  • 2:00 PM

    Agent37 Hackathon

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    "Build an Agent" Hackathon Winners get cash prizes, credits, AND a trip to Vegas ✈️ What’s the workflow you never want to do again? At the "Build an Agent" Hackathon, build an agent that takes over repetitive, frustrating work you’d happily never touch again.

  • 6:00 PM

    Bubble Lab (YC W26) X Lunatechs - Pretty Cool Demos and Pre-Tech Week Social!

    European Startup EmbassyFreeApproval required

    Bubble Lab and Lunatechs is happy to present to you guys our 2026 PRE-SF Tech Week event! We know everyone is SUPER excited for tech week so we designed what hopefully will be the PERFECT event to kick it off!

Monday

Oct 5

4 events
  • 9:30 AM

    The MCP Gateway during SF a16z TechWeek

    JOE & THE JUICEFreeApproval required

    Hosted by Open Future Forum Sponsored by Agentic Fabriq AI agents need access to real tools and data—but every new connection introduces questions about identity, permissions, security, reliability, and control.

  • 1:00 PM

    The Integration Layer for AI Agents during SF a16z TechWeek

    Yes SF Headquarters, Financial DistrictFreeApproval required

    Hosted by Open Future Forum Sponsored by Agentic Fabriq Short description A developer-focused discussion on MCP, connectors, auth, and the infrastructure that lets AI agents securely interact with tools, data, and the real world.

  • 2:00 PM

    AI Buyer Pitch Teardown @ Auth0 -#SFTechWeek

    Okta, SoMaFree

    🚨🚨RSVP on Partiful ONLY --> https://partiful.com/e/rtaNxMHufDNSg4ZVDGDT Join Auth0 for Startups at SF Tech Week for Auth0's Buyer Pitch Teardown! This event is hosted by Auth0 and partners.

  • 3:00 PM

    BraidPay Founders & Investors Dinner | SF Tech Week 2026

    ABSteak by Chef Akira BackPrice not listed

    Join BraidPay for an intimate private dinner at ABSteak by Chef Akira Back during San Francisco Tech Week 2026. We're bringing together a curated group of founders and investors building at the intersection of fintech, crypto, and the next generation of payment infrastructure.…

Tuesday

Oct 6

5 events
  • 9:30 AM

    The Integration Layer for AI Agents during SF a16z TechWeek

    JOE & THE JUICEFreeApproval required

    The Integration Layer for AI Agents during SF a16z TechWeek Monday, October 5, 2026 · 1:00–3:30 PM Hosted by Open Future Forum Sponsored by Agentic Fabriq Short description A developer-focused discussion on MCP, connectors, auth, and the infrastructure that lets AI agents…

  • 1:00 PM

    The MCP Gateway during SF a16z TechWeek

    JOE & THE JUICEFreeApproval required

    Hosted by Open Future Forum Sponsored by Agentic Fabriq Short description How AI agents securely connect to tools, APIs, and enterprise systems through a unified gateway.

  • 3:30 PM

    SF Tech Week Live Models Fireside Chat Visko x Google

    San FranciscoFreeApproval required

    Join the Visko and Google teams for a casual fireside chat on real-time video generation. We'll get into the research, the product decisions behind it, and the parts that are still unsolved.

  • 5:30 PM

    Fireside Chat with Seemay Chou, Co-Founder and CEO of Arcadia Sciences

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    The $500M Experiment to Rethink Science Arcadia Science raised $500 million to fund a decade of ambitious science. What does that level of time and capital make possible? What remains hard even with it? Join Treehub for an intimate fireside chat with Seemay Chou.

  • 7:00 PM

    GTM & AI Dinner (w/ The AI Collective)

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    An evening with a small group of CROs, RevOps, sales, and growth leaders over dinner in San Francisco. We’re bringing together eight guests from different industries to compare notes on where AI is helping their revenue teams, what they’ve tried, and what still isn’t working.…

Wednesday

Oct 7

2 events
  • 1:00 PM

    The Universal Connector for AI during SF a16z TechWeek

    JOE & THE JUICEFreeApproval required

    Hosted by Open Future Forum Sponsored by Agentic Fabriq Short description How MCP is changing the way developers build integrations between agents, applications, APIs, and data sources.

  • 5:30 PM

    Connect Everything: MCP for AI Agents during SF a16z TechWeek

    JOE & THE JUICEFreeApproval required

    Hosted by Open Future Forum Sponsored by Agentic Fabriq Short description How developers can use MCP and integration hubs to give AI agents access to the apps, data, and actions they need.

Thursday

Oct 8

1 event
  • 11:00 AM

    AI Hackathon: Sales Copilot AI

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    Venture Mindset Hackathon - Reinvent Yourself in SF - builders, founders and judges: GSB/MSx, YC ... ⏰ Doors open at 11:00 AM sharp. 🚪 Entry closes at 11:15 AM or once we’re full — come early!

Saturday

Oct 10

1 event
  • 4:00 AM

    OpenAI Codex Masterclass: From Prompting to Agentic Workflows

    Location not listedFreeApproval required

    OpenAI Codex Masterclass: From Prompting to Agentic Workflows Most people use AI in a simple loop: ask a question, get an answer, then ask another question. But that is only a small part of what these tools can do.