Builders Stage Fireside Lessons from Internet Architects

Fireside Preview

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, three builders who helped shape the modern internet will share how they built, scaled, and funded breakout companies. On October 28, Adam Bain, Dick Costolo, and David Fischer — now partners at 01 Advisors — will sit down for an exclusive fireside chat on the practical playbooks that prove out at scale.

Who they are and what they've done matters because these are operators who moved companies from early-stage revenue to category leadership.

• David Fischer — Built Google’s early sales engine and, as Meta’s CRO, grew revenue from under $1B to over $100B, connecting millions of businesses to customers.
• Adam Bain — As Twitter’s COO, built sales, product, and ad operations from scratch, scaling revenue into the billions in five years.
• Dick Costolo — Former Twitter CEO who grew headcount 400% and annual revenue from $28M to $2.25B; earlier founded Feedburner (acquired by Google).

What the conversation will cover

• Finding and validating product-market fit under uncertainty.
• Scaling intentionally—when to hire, when to automate, and how to avoid costly missteps.
• Fundraising in today’s market and signals investors use to back founders.
• Real examples of repeatable GTM motions and revenue engines.

This isn't a nostalgia act. The session will focus on how those hard-won tactics translate to today’s problems: tighter capital, faster product cycles, and new enterprise buyer behaviors. For founders, it’s a condensed blueprint for building companies that last.

TechCrunch Disrupt's 20th anniversary brings over 10,000 founders, investors, and operators to Moscone West October 27–29. The Builders Stage conversation is one of 200+ sessions featuring leaders from top firms and startups — a concentrated place to network and test your pitch.

For companies planning growth, the practical value is immediate: spot specific GTM patterns that scale, map hiring to revenue milestones, and sharpen fundraising narratives so pitches resonate with sophisticated investors.

QuarkyByte watches these conversations to distill measurable frameworks—turning executive lessons into diagnostics, KPI roadmaps, and testable go-to-market experiments that teams can run in weeks, not quarters.

If you’re building, investing, or advising, this session is a rare chance to hear how the people who scaled the modern internet think about the next wave of winners.