LA Tech Week 2026: The Complete Guide to Los Angeles’s Original Tech Conference
Presented by a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), the decentralized technology conference known as LA Tech Week runs across Los Angeles from October 12 to 18, 2026. As the original Tech Week city, now in its fifth year, LA Tech Week brings together founders, investors, and operators for a week of hackathons, panels, demo days, and founder dinners hosted independently across the city rather than at one central venue.
There is no single conference badge or main stage. Every event is organized by a different company, fund, or community group and listed on the official calendar at tech-week.com, where attendees register for each one separately.
This guide covers everything about LA Tech Week 2026: the confirmed dates, who is sponsoring and speaking, what the week actually looks like on the ground, and how it compares to Tech Week’s other city editions.
What Conference Is LA Tech Week?
LA Tech Week is part of Tech Week, the multi-city startup and technology festival that a16z launched in Los Angeles back in 2022. It was, in fact, the very first Tech Week edition. San Francisco joined the following year, and by 2026 the program had expanded to four cities total: Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. For the full history of how the program grew from one city to four, see our Tech Week explained guide.
LA’s edition has kept its original identity even as the program has scaled. It leans more heavily into entertainment technology, content, gaming, and consumer products than the other three cities, reflecting the industries Los Angeles already leads in outside of pure software.
When Is LA Tech Week 2026?
LA Tech Week 2026 runs from Monday, October 12 through Sunday, October 18, 2026, immediately following SF Tech Week, which runs October 5 to 11. The two California weeks have run back to back every year since SF joined the rotation in 2023, and 2026 is no exception.
The official combined SF and LA calendar for 2026 went live with more than 2,300 event submissions across the two cities, most of them free to attend. Registration opens on a rolling basis at tech-week.com/calendar as hosts submit and get approved.
LA Tech Week 2026 by the Numbers
The 2026 edition landed with some of the clearest year-over-year data the program has published so far. Across the combined SF and LA calendar:
- 2,300+ total event submissions across both cities, most free to attend
- 124 hackathons spanning hardware, defense, media and creative, fintech, and civic and social good categories
- 53 events in LA were explicitly built around AI agents, up from roughly a dozen agent-focused events across the entire program in 2024
- LA’s 2025 edition drew an estimated 10,000+ attendees, with the broader three-city Tech Week program (LA, SF, and NYC combined) reporting attendees from over 100 countries the prior year
- LA has doubled down on deep tech, with more than 100 dedicated deep tech events and heavy activity concentrated in El Segundo, the city’s growing aerospace and hardware corridor
Where SF Tech Week has historically claimed the title of the single largest edition by event count, LA has carved out a distinct identity as the deep tech and entertainment-adjacent counterpart, rather than trying to out-scale its northern sibling.
Who Organizes and Sponsors LA Tech Week 2026
LA Tech Week is presented by a16z, which runs some flagship programming directly, including daily events from its speedrun accelerator team, but the bulk of the week is built from outside submissions. Confirmed 2026 sponsors and partners include a16z, Fenwick, HSBC Innovation Banking, Adobe Acrobat Studio, and Cloudflare, alongside a16z’s own speedrun program.
Major companies confirmed as event hosts across the week include OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and AWS, hosting alongside hundreds of individual startups, funds, and community organizers. Companies like Fireworks AI, ElevenLabs, Vercel, and Stripe have also run daily programming during the SF and LA weeks in recent years.
Speakers at LA Tech Week 2026
Tech Week’s official lineup for 2026 includes a mix of founders, operators, and a16z partners appearing across both the SF and LA weeks:
- Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM
- Brian Halligan, Co-founder, HubSpot
- Will Ahmed, Founder and CEO, WHOOP
- Biz Stone, Co-founder, Twitter
- Cristóbal Valenzuela, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Runway
- Steve Fredette, Co-founder, Toast
- Shuo Wang, Co-founder, Deel
- David Haber, Anish Acharya, Jorge Conde, Seema Amble, Jonathan Lai, and Bryan Kim, General partners across a16z’s investment teams
Past LA editions have also drawn appearances from Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Ari Emanuel, though the full 2026 speaker list continues to grow as individual hosts confirm their own event lineups closer to the week.
What Actually Happens During LA Tech Week
LA Tech Week’s calendar mixes a wide range of formats spread across neighborhoods from Santa Monica to Downtown LA:
Hackathons. With 124 hackathons running across the combined SF and LA weeks, formats range from hardware builds to defense tech, media and creative tools, and civic and social good projects.
Panels and fireside chats on AI, venture capital, developer tools, automation, and design, often hosted inside company offices or coworking spaces rather than formal conference rooms.
Demo days and pitch competitions, including a16z’s speedrun-affiliated events, where founders pitch investors in rapid succession.
Media and entertainment mixers. A recurring feature of LA’s edition specifically. The 2026 Tech Media Mixer, hosted by Fr8qu8ncy and Rockstar Wireless at The Melrose House, is a good example, bringing together leaders across tech, media, entertainment, gaming, and consumer brands rather than a purely startup-and-VC crowd.
Founder dinners and operator brunches. Several hosts run recurring, invite-style gatherings each year, including private, Chatham House-style discussions aimed specifically at startup operators and advisors rather than founders pitching for funding.
Deep tech and aerospace programming, concentrated heavily around El Segundo, reflecting the cluster of hardware, robotics, and aerospace startups based in that part of the city.
Black LA Tech Week: A Companion Event
Running alongside the main calendar, Black LA Tech Week is a separate, community-organized conference held during the same October window, October 12 to 18, 2026 in 2026. Organized by TEC Leimert alongside partners including the Hidden Genius Project, NSBE LA, and the Black Professionals Network, it is built specifically to spotlight Black technologists, founders, and professionals through workshops, panels, and networking events. It is not officially branded as part of a16z’s Tech Week, but it runs on the same weeklong schedule and has grown into one of the largest Black-tech conferences in Los Angeles, with prior editions drawing several thousand attendees across multiple events.
Where LA Tech Week Events Take Place
Unlike NYC or SF’s more concentrated event clusters, LA Tech Week spreads across a wider geographic footprint, reflecting the city’s own sprawl:
- Downtown LA, home to a concentration of coworking spaces, hotel venues, and larger panel-style events
- Santa Monica and the Westside, which lean toward media, entertainment tech, and consumer-focused startups
- El Segundo, the city’s fastest-growing deep tech and aerospace hub, hosting the bulk of hardware and robotics programming
- Melrose and Mid-City, home to boutique venues hosting smaller media and creative-industry mixers
Attendees covering multiple events a day should plan for real driving time between neighborhoods, since LA’s event geography is far less walkable than New York’s or San Francisco’s downtown clusters.
How LA Tech Week Compares to SF and NYC Tech Week
LA Tech Week runs immediately after SF Tech Week every year, and the two weeks share sponsors, speakers, and in many cases the same hosts running events in both cities back to back. Where SF stays closest to Tech Week’s original AI-infrastructure and venture capital identity, LA leans harder into entertainment, gaming, consumer tech, and deep tech and aerospace, industries the city already leads in outside of pure software.
NYC Tech Week, which runs earlier in the year in June, skews toward fintech, enterprise software, and media, reflecting the industries already headquartered in New York.
How to Prepare for LA Tech Week
Given the city’s geographic spread, planning matters even more in LA than in Tech Week’s other cities.
- Pick a home base near your priority events. Trying to cover Downtown LA and Santa Monica in the same evening rarely works given traffic.
- Follow the official calendar early. New events post on a rolling basis right up through the week, and the highest-demand sessions fill fast.
- Decide your goal before building your schedule. Fundraising, hiring, deep tech networking, and entertainment-industry crossover events call for very different days.
- Budget real driving time between neighborhoods, especially between El Segundo and anywhere downtown, since these are genuinely separate parts of the city.
- Apply early to invite-style dinners and operator-focused events. These fill up faster than open panels and tend to deliver more direct value than large keynotes.
Frequently Asked Questions About LA Tech Week
When is LA Tech Week 2026?
LA Tech Week 2026 runs from Monday, October 12 through Sunday, October 18, 2026, immediately following SF Tech Week (October 5 to 11).
Who organizes LA Tech Week?
LA Tech Week is presented by a16z, which runs some flagship programming directly, but the bulk of the week is built from events organized independently by companies, funds, and community groups.
Do I need a badge or ticket for LA Tech Week?
There is no single conference badge or main stage. Every event is organized separately and listed on the official calendar at tech-week.com, where attendees register for each one individually; most events are free to attend.
Where do LA Tech Week events take place?
Events spread across Downtown LA, Santa Monica and the Westside, El Segundo’s deep tech and aerospace corridor, and Melrose and Mid-City, so plan for real driving time between neighborhoods.
LA Tech Week has grown from a16z’s original experiment into the Tech Week program’s entertainment and deep tech counterpart, pairing startup culture with the industries Los Angeles already leads. With more than 2,300 event submissions across the combined SF and LA calendar, the week rewards attendees who plan around a clear goal and a realistic map. Pick your home base, follow the calendar early, and make room for the founder dinners and El Segundo hardware programming that make LA’s edition distinct.
Read More
What Is Tech Week? A16z’s Guide To All 4 Cities
SF Tech Week 2026: The Complete Guide to San Francisco’s Biggest Tech Gathering
a16z Tech Week: SF vs LA vs NYC Editions Compared
Seattle Tech Week: Complete Guide
Related Stories
