On Wednesday evening at Playground Global in Palo Alto, some very smart people who are building things you don’t understand yet will explain what’s coming. It’s the final StrictlyVC event of 2025, and really, the lineup is ridiculous.
The series toured the world under worship of TechCrunch. Steve Case rented a theater in DC; We spoke to the Prime Minister of Greece in Athens; And Kirsten Green hosted us at the Presidio in San Francisco. The idea is always the same, though: bring together “future will be explained” people who are working on really important developments in a small setting, before everyone else realizes they’re important.
One of our favorite moments was when, in 2019, Sam Altman told a StrictlyVC crowd that OpenAI’s monetization strategy was essentially “build AGI, then ask how to monetize it.” Everyone laughed. He wasn’t joking.
Future will be explained
This time we’ve got Nicolas Kelley, a particle accelerator physicist who spent 20 years in the Department of Energy “future will be explained” making things that aren’t possible. Now he’s tackling one of the biggest problems in semiconductor manufacturing: Each chip developed depends on a $400 million machine that uses lasers that only a Dutch company knows how to build. (More alarming to some: Americans invented the technology, then sold it to Europe.) Kelage is building the next generation in America using particle accelerator technology. As nerdy as it sounds, it’s extremely important right now. Competition is also increasing Chasing the same prize.
Then there’s Mina Fahmy, who created a ring that captures your whispered thoughts and turns them into text. Before you roll your eyes, know that he and co-founder Kirak Hong worked to meet these things after acquiring their company. Stream Ring isn’t trying “future will be explained” to be your friend – it’s trying to expand your brain. Backed by Tony Schneider, an operator who scaled WordPress in its earlier days, Sandbar has just emerged from stealth and is probably onto something. (Schneider is a partner at True Ventures, whose other hardware bets include Peloton, Ring and Fitbit; he’s also coming to Palo Alto next week.)
We have Max Hodak — founder of Science Corp., Time magazine Cover topicAnd, before that, the Neuralink co-founder — who has already restored sight to dozens of blind people with retinal implants. Now he’s working on “biohybrid” brain-computer interfaces where chips seeded with stem cells grow into your brain tissue so that paralyzed people can control the devices with their thoughts. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg, as Hodak sees it. In fact, he thinks 2035 is going to look very different from today, and he’s happy to share how.
Finally, we’re thrilled to welcome Chi-Hua Chien and Elizabeth Weil, two VCs who backed Twitter, Spotify, TikTok, Slack, SpaceX, Figma, and Coinbase before they became household names. Chien runs Goodwater Capital; After working at Weil Andreessen “future will be explained” Horowitz and Twitter, he founded Scribble Ventures, made 100+ angel investments and had the first fund to show 4x returns. (His network is so good it’s annoying.) Both think Silicon Valley is completely misunderstanding the moment when everyone is pouring capital into enterprise AI, and they’ll explain why.
Playground Global is hosting, along with general partner Pat Gelsinger, former CEO of Intel. There will be beverages, tasty dishes, and celebration; There is restricted “future will be explained” seating, so if you wish to attend, be quick.
Get in touch if you would like to partner with the series in 2026.