Google Search Product Chief Robby Stein to Join TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Builders Stage

TechCrunch says the event will bring together more than 10,000 start-ups, investors and technology decision-makers. The session is expected to examine how product teams balance speed with trust and innovation with reliability when their decisions affect billions of users. It will also address how founders can keep experimenting when users expect a product to work every time, how to introduce something new without undermining what people already value, and which early-stage instincts should be retained as a company grows.

According to TechCrunch, Stein's discussion will focus on the shift from building a first minimum viable product to making decisions inside one of the world's largest product organizations. The article frames the value for founders not in copying Google's processes but in examining the decisions behind them: where speed creates an advantage, where greater care becomes essential, and how to recognize when the way a company builds must evolve alongside its product.

Stein's experience includes both startups and large consumer platforms. TechCrunch reports he co-founded and led Stamped, a social recommendations startup acquired by Yahoo, and later spent five years leading consumer products at Instagram, where he helped build and scale the products and teams behind Stories, Feed, Direct Messaging and Reels. Before returning to Google in 2024, he was head of product at Artifact, an AI-powered newsfeed.

At Google, Stein works on generative AI products and experiences within Google Search. According to TechCrunch, Google reported in May that AI Mode had surpassed 1 billion monthly users, a year after its debut. Earlier this year, Stein also outlined updates that let people move from an AI Overview into a follow-up conversation in AI Mode, describing a search experience designed to accommodate both quick answers and deeper exploration.

TechCrunch says that work provides a timely backdrop to the session's central question: how to keep pushing a product forward without losing the qualities that make people depend on it. For founders introducing AI into their own products, the article says the discussion is a way to think beyond what the technology can do and consider how people will actually experience it.

Tickets for Disrupt 2026 are available, and TechCrunch says prices will increase on September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Attendees can save up to $200 before the increase, and groups of four or more can save up to 30 percent more. The conference will include more than 250 other speakers across more than 200 sessions, six industry stages, roundtables, breakouts, an Expo Hall, Startup Battlefield and networking opportunities.