The student-run flagship technology, startup, and venture capital conference returned for its ninth iteration in February, co-organized by Amelia Stucke ‘26 and Brandon Steidley ‘26. Through three keynotes, eight panels, and a pitch competition, the conference brought students, founders, investors, and industry leaders together for a day of forward-looking conversation and insight.
As part of its central theme, “Ignite,” the conference featured keynote addresses from Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner at Founder Collective; Raja Rajamannar, Senior Fellow and former Chief Marketing & Communications Officer of Mastercard; and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, co-founder of Venmo and founder of JellyJelly. Panel discussions featured leaders in healthcare innovation, branding, sports, and finance. The conference’s Pitch Competition was won by Cindy Morand ‘26, founder of FinOptiv.
In his opening remarks, Dan Wang, Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise at CBS, framed the central tension of the day: if technology is improving at exponential speed, why act now? The incentive to wait for better tools, he argued, creates an “incentive trap of progress” that can lead to inaction rather than innovation. True progress, he noted, requires experimentation, risk, and learning in the present moment.
Below are several of the key ideas that emerged from the speakers and panelists — and what they suggest about building in an age of rapid technological change.
1. In Venture Capital, Discipline Beats Hype
Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner at Founder Collective, offered a candid assessment of the venture landscape after years of excess capital and inflated valuations.
“VC is a drug,” he told the audience, describing how too much capital — especially too early — can distort incentives. Reflecting on his own startup experience raising about $20 million before achieving product-market fit, Rosenbloom acknowledged that overcapitalization can undermine long-term resilience.
Today, his firm operates with a different philosophy. “Your fund size is your strategy,” he said. Large funds require billion-dollar exits to move the needle. Smaller funds, by contrast, allow for alignment with founders pursuing durable — even if not unicorn-scale — outcomes.
He also warned against trend-chasing. Looking at historical data, Rosenbloom noted that by the time a sector becomes fashionable, investors are often years too late. The most valuable companies are rarely built in the year a theme dominates headlines.
In an AI-driven market where capital is concentrated in a small number of firms and companies, his message was that conviction matters more than consensus.
2. Traditional Marketing Is Broken
During his talk, Raja Rajamannar tackled the collapse of traditional marketing, noting that consumers today are exposed to between 5,000 and 10,000 ads per day. Meanwhile, attention spans have fallen to “under eight seconds,” which he pointed out is “less than a goldfish.”
Rajamannar described the need for what he calls “quantum marketing.” Just as classical physics could not explain new phenomena at the atomic level, traditional marketing models no longer explain emotionally driven, identity-based consumer behavior.
At Mastercard, that meant moving beyond purely transactional messaging—the typical focus on rates, offers, and features—and instead building immersive, multisensory brand experiences across music, sports, and culinary partnerships. Mastercard sought to embed the brand into the passion points people care about most, creating deeper emotional resonance and long-term brand affinity.
The impact was significant. During his tenure, Mastercard rose from the world’s 87th most valuable brand to one of the top brands.
Looking ahead, Rajamannar argued that AI will democratize execution. “Scale doesn’t differentiate you as it used to,” he said. “Creativity is what will differentiate.”
3. In an AI-Saturated World, Authenticity is Scarce
Keynote speaker Iqram Magdon-Ismail traced Venmo’s origins to a simple moment: wanting to tip a band at a concert but having no cash. He also noted being frustrated with not being able to easily send money from the U.S. back home to his family. That frustration evolved into a platform where payments became social signals.
Venmo worked, he suggested, because it treated transactions as shared experiences rather than isolated financial events. Now, as founder of JellyJelly, Magdon-Ismail is focused on a different challenge: how generative AI is reshaping online identity.
“We’ve basically been flooded with all of this fear around how AI is going to infiltrate everything we do,” he said. As synthetic content proliferates, he warned that people risk feeling “a little lost” and “a little disconnected.”
His current venture aims to create verified, human-first digital spaces — platforms where users can confirm that the person behind the screen is real.
Rather than framing AI as a threat, Magdon-Ismail framed it as a shift in terrain. In a world of infinite content, the scarcity may not be information — but trust.
4. AI Lowers the Cost of Execution — But Raises the Bar for Judgment
At a panel on branding and AI moderated by Oded Netzer, Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Business at CBS, speakers answered the question of what happens when creative execution becomes cheap?
Generative AI dramatically accelerates ideation and production cycles. It lowers barriers to entry and increases testing velocity. But panelists warned of “AI slop” — homogeneous content generated from the same training data.
“AI is an incredibly powerful execution layer,” said Zach Zelner, Founder and CEO of OuterSignal. “But what it can’t replace is judgment and taste.”
As tools become widely accessible, differentiation will depend less on access to technology and more on discernment — the ability to interpret cultural nuance, communicate clearly, and think critically.