The Infrastructure Bet: Fireside Chat with Amr Awadallah + Mixer

Join Amr Awadallah, co-founder of Cloudera and founder of Vectara, for a conversation about recognizing technology shifts before the market fully forms and building companies around opportunities that are not yet obvious.

From big data to generative AI, Amr has built through major changes in enterprise technology. We’ll discuss how founders identify real platform shifts, how investors evaluate emerging categories, where technical innovation becomes commercial opportunity, and how to distinguish being early from simply being wrong.

For founders, it is a conversation about timing, product, market education, and enterprise adoption.

For investors, it is a look at how category-defining infrastructure companies emerge before their markets become obvious.

After the fireside, join a Founder & Investor Mixer with the Tech Founders SF 2026 cohort and meet 20 Saudi founders building across AI, enterprise technology, fintech, healthtech and more.

The final hour is designed for direct conversations between founders, investors and operators, without a pitch timer or stage between them.

September 30 | 5:00–8:00 PM PT | San Francisco

5:00–7:00 PM Fireside Chat + Q&A
7:00–8:00 PM Founder & Investor Mixer

Hosted by SparkLabs as part of Tech Founders SF 2026, in partnership with CODE, MCIT and UC Berkeley.