TRUE VENTURES // AI ACCELERATOR

01 // The Problem

Your team has AI tools. You're not close to AI‑native.

The gap between "some people are using AI a lot" and "AI is changing how your entire org operates" is massive.

Very few people have crossed the chasm. A few of those people will be in this room.

The problem isn't access to tools. It's that no one has yet taken the time to invest in the workflow changes, technical readiness, or team mentality shift required to turn individual adoption into organizational leverage.

Your codebase isn't ready for agents.
Your PMs create prototypes and expect them to get built.
Your designers don't know how to get their fixes to production.
Your best engineers are at Level 3. Everyone else is at Level 1.

Hands on keyboards. Real practitioners. No consultants.

02 // Speakers + Practitioners

State of the State

Kevin Rose

Partner, True Ventures

Founder, Digg. Building in AI daily. Host and panel moderator.

Alexis Ohanian

Founder, Seven Seven Six

Co-founder, Reddit. Investor and builder across AI-native companies.

Practitioners

Dan Shapiro

CEO, Glowforge

Senior Research Fellow, Wharton Generative AI Lab. Creator of the "5 Levels of AI-Assisted Development" framework. 60+ patents.

Justin McCarthy

Co-founder/CTO, StrongDM

Built the Software Factory: three engineers, no human writes code, no human reviews code. The most cited case study in agentic development.

Addison Kowalski

Founder, PicStudio.ai

Staff Product Designer and Design Engineer. Former Disney, Eight Sleep, Blue Bottle, Digg. A designer who ships production code.

Nathan Baschez

Founder/CEO, Lex

AI Scout, True Ventures. Co-founded Every, first employee at Substack, co-created Product Hunt. Building AI-native product workflows.

03 // Agenda

April 29–30, 2026

Day 1 — Tuesday, April 29

Setting the frame. Shared language. Honest baselines.

3:00 – 3:10pm

Welcome + Kick-off

Madeline Minshew & Kevin Rose

Why we're here, what this isn't (a conference), what it is (a working intensive). Ground rules: laptops open tomorrow, tonight is about honesty and connection.
3:15 – 3:45pm

State of the State
Conversation

Kevin Rose & Alexis Ohanian

Kevin built Digg. Alexis built Reddit. Now they're both building with AI every day. What's fundamentally different about building now vs. then? What are the open questions they're still wrestling with? And if they had to make one bet on where this is all going — what would it be?
3:45 – 4:30pm

Practitioner Panel: The Mindset Shift
Panel

Dan Shapiro, Justin McCarthy, Addison Kowalski — Moderated by Kevin Rose

Dan, Justin, and Addison in conversation. Each has fundamentally changed how they build. What does AI-native actually look like day to day? Where do most teams get stuck? What surprised them most? Setting the frame for Day 2.
4:30 – 4:45pm

Break
5:00 – 6:00pm

The Room: Intros + Baselines

Full room, circle format. Every attendee answers four prompts: who you are, where you are on the AI adoption spectrum, what's blocking you, and what would make tomorrow worth the trip. This sets the foundation for Day 2.

6:30pm

Dinner at Paloma, Venice Beach

Day 2 — Wednesday, April 30

Hands on keyboards. Build real things. Leave with a plan.

9:30 – 9:35am

Back At It

Madeline Minshew & Kevin Rose
9:35 – 11:05am

Make Your Codebase Agent-Ready
Hands-On

Justin McCarthy — Co-founder/CTO, StrongDM

Your agents are only as good as the environment you give them. Justin walks through how he built the Software Factory at StrongDM, then you'll work on your actual repo — hands on keyboards.

What you'll build

A CLAUDE.md file and agent rules for your actual repo. A validation harness design. The start of an agent-ready codebase.
11:05 – 11:15am

Break
11:15am – 12:30pm

Level Up: From Where You Are to the Next Gear
Hands-On

Dan Shapiro — CEO, Glowforge / Wharton Generative AI Lab

Dan walks through the 5 Levels and shows what each one looks like in practice. Then you take a real task from your backlog and work it at one level higher than you normally would — live, with the room.

What you'll build

A personal workflow for operating at Level 4. A leveling rubric for your team — what Level 2 vs. 3 vs. 4 actually looks like in daily work.
12:30 – 1:15pm

Lunch

Sit with someone you haven't talked to yet.
1:15 – 2:30pm

Rebuild Your Workflow for Agents
Hands-On

Nathan Baschez — Founder/CEO, Lex / AI Scout, True Ventures

Nathan walks through how he rebuilt product development at Lex around AI — from writing specs agents can execute to shipping features in hours. Then you take one workflow from your actual company and redesign it.

What you'll build

One complete AI-native workflow — spec to ship. A spec template that agents can actually execute. The workflow you'll run on Monday.
3:45 – 4:30pm

Parting Thoughts

A.I. Accelerator

Your team has AI tools. You're not close to AI‑native.