The title of this Disrupt SF panel is terrible (two ‘Disrupts,’ seriously?), but its premise is pretty amazing: How do Millennials deal with shaking up an industry to the point where they define it, and are at risk of being overthrown by hungry upstarts?
Seriously, what’s cooler than being cool? Having a sustainable business model, and protecting it from a) copycats b) people who find holes in it to take advantage of.
How do you maintain the top spot once you’ve got it? I mean, it’s one thing to out-think first generation online innovators with your snazzy design and proclivity towards mobile, but how do you out-think the people who are trying to out-think you?
Our panelists Leah Busque (TaskRabbit), Nathan Blecharczyk (Airbnb), Brit Morin (Brit) and John Zimmer (Lyft) are part of the next generation of their respective verticals, and are slowly becoming the new establishment. As all establishment companies, they’re now vulnerable to disruption themselves.
SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Well, our panelists are here to tell you. (Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go re-read the The Innovator’s Dilemma before the panel.)
<Boilerplate> This year’s show is going to be the biggest one yet. Please be sure to check out all of the influential speakers and guests who will be joining us here.
Get your tickets now while you still can. We are only one week away, so act fast if you want to come.
As always, if you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here. Students can also come and be a part of Disrupt SF. We only have 300 student tickets available, so be sure to go here to find out how to get yours quickly. </Boilerplate>
The speakers below will be joining the panel — Disrupting Yesterday’s Disruptors: Paving the Way for the Millennials
Nathan Blecharczyk
Technical Architect, Airbnb
Nathan is the technical architect behind Airbnb. A pragmatist who translates vision and design into tangible product through fast iterations, Nathan uses data to identify and pursue high-growth opportunities. Under his leadership, the engineering team has developed a robust, secure marketplace which now facilitates a massive amount of commerce each day.
Nathan got an early start in business and technology when he founded an online marketing company while still in high school. Since then he has worked a program manager at Microsoft, engineer at OPNET Technologies, and lead developer at Batiq. Nathan graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Harvard University.
Leah Busque
Founder, TaskRabbit.com
A true visionary, Leah Busque (@labusque) is the founder of TaskRabbit.com, the pioneer in service networking. Now an industry-wide concept, service networking describes the productive power of a web-based, social-networked community. Since its founding in 2008, Leah has grown the company to more than 50 employees and has expanded the service to Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Orange County, San Antonio, and San Francisco.
Prior to founding TaskRabbit, Leah was a Software Engineer at IBM, working in the Messaging and Collaboration Software Development group. A rare blend of product talent and business savvy, Leah was recently named one of the “100 Most Creative People In Business” by Fast Company and one of the “15 Women To Watch In 2012” by Inc. Magazine.
Brit Morin
Founder, Brit
Brit Morin is the founder of ‘Brit’. Brit is a hybrid media and technology company that provides apps, products and ideas for creative living. The goal is to show people how to add order to the chaos of their daily lives in a fun, easy and elegant way.
Brit currently operates a content site online at Brit.co, and also designs and builds software applications, the first of which is Weduary.com, a new social wedding website creation service for brides and grooms.
John Zimmer
Co-Founder and COO, Zimride & Lyft
John is the Co-Founder and COO of Zimride & Lyft. John (luckily) left Lehman Brothers in early 2008, where he spent two years after graduating from Cornell University’s Hotel School. He moved from New York City to Palo Alto in July of 2008 by using Zimride to carpool across America.
John and Zimride have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and on ABC World News. He was recognized by BusinessWeek in 2009 as one of ‘America’s Best Young Entrepreneur’s 25 and under’.
Since 2007, John has lead Zimride’s business development efforts forging over 150 university and corporate clients, as well as exclusive partnerships with Zipcar and Facebook. His favorite Zimride is San Francisco to Los Angeles and his favorite Lyft is from home to work.