At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, all five Benchmark general partners — Jack Altman, Peter Fenton, Chetan Puttagunta, Everett Randle, and Eric Vishria — will appear together on the Disrupt Stage in San Francisco for the first time. The session, "What We Believe Now," shifts focus from venture capital's past to its future: where the next breakout startups will emerge, which founder assumptions need rethinking, and what opportunities remain hidden in plain sight.

The timing is significant. In 2026, Benchmark made its biggest playbook change in decades, raising approximately $2 billion across a $750 million flagship fund and its first $1.25 billion growth fund. The market shifted, and Benchmark adapted. Meanwhile, AI has reshaped venture capital with extraordinary speed. According to the OECD, AI companies captured 61% of global venture investment in 2025 — $258.7 billion of $427.1 billion total — with deals over $100 million representing roughly 73% of AI investment value.

This concentration creates a paradox: massive appetite for technology businesses, yet fierce competition for the few companies investors believe can become category leaders. The partners will debate whether the next billion-dollar company is another AI application, where defensibility truly lies, and what makes a company investable when products can be built faster than ever. With diverse backgrounds spanning founding, enterprise software, frontier tech, and IPOs, complete agreement is unlikely — and that's the point.