AI Startup Rodeo: Machine-to-machine payments · Austin Tech Week, Oct 30
AI Startup Rodeo · Edition 02: Machine-to-machine payments
Two passes for $25. Your ticket includes a free pass for one builder you bring.
Friday, October 30, 9 AM to 5 PM, at Q Branch in downtown Austin. Part of Austin Tech Week.
Software is starting to pay software. One day of technical talks and live demos from builders working on AI agents, developer tools, security and payments between machines. One room. One stage. No parallel sessions. For developers and technical founders, teams of one included. Investors are welcome.
Edition 01 had 18 speakers, including speakers from Chaincode Labs and contributors to Bitcoin Core. Watch the talks from the first Rodeo.
Agenda
9:00 AM · Doors Open, Breakfast & Coffee
9:30 AM · Opening Kickoff: Welcome to the Rodeo · Car Gonzalez, PlebLab
9:45 AM · Talk: From SQL to AI Agents: Building Secure Data APIs · Roberto Fuentes, Synapto
10:15 AM · Presentation: Build Your Own Sovereign AI Stack · Christopher Scott
10:45 AM · Coffee Break
11:00 AM · Presentation: Grok Bot > Claude: Building with Autonomous AI Agents · Eddy Hernández
11:45 AM · Presentation: PlebLab's Next Chapter: Building What's Next · Car Gonzalez, PlebLab
12:00 PM · Lunch by Chef Johnny Ochoa
1:00 PM · Workshop: Open-Source AI in Action: Goose, Mesh LLM & Lightning Payments · Ben Carman, Spiral
2:00 PM · Presentation: Who Owns the Cloud? Sovereign Compute in the Age of AI · HT, Sovereign Hybrid Compute
2:30 PM · Presentation: Private AI for Your Team: Shared Intelligence Without Giving Away Your Data · Mark Suman, Maple AI
3:00 PM · Fireside Chat: Who Writes the Code Now? AI, Developers & the Future of Austin · Austen Allred, Gauntlet AI, moderated by Car Gonzalez
3:45 PM · Presentation: When AI Gets a Body: Robotics, Autonomy & Security · Robert Willis, Sakura Samurai
4:00 PM · Presentation & Product Launch: OpenAgents: Building the Open Agent Economy · Christopher David, OpenAgents
4:30 PM · Presentation & Live Demo: Inside Anthropic's IPO Filing: AI-Powered Financial Analysis · Soru Kumar, OrangeMetrics & Bitcoin Data Labs
4:55 PM · Closing Remarks: What's Next for the Rodeo · Car Gonzalez
5:00 PM · AI Startup Rodeo Networking Afterparty · Upstairs at Caroline, 621 Congress Avenue
On stage
Austen Allred, Founder, Gauntlet AI. Austen Allred is the founder and CEO of Gauntlet AI. Gauntlet trains top engineers for ten weeks to build real systems with AI, then places every graduate in a $200K to $950K role, at no cost to them. He previously founded a technical education company that trained more than 10,000 engineers and raised over $100M from GV, Y Combinator and Stripe.
Robert Willis, Hacker and writer, Sakura Samurai. Robert Willis (rej_ex) is a white-hat hacker with Sakura Samurai and a co-author of Tribe of Hackers.
Ben Carman, Developer, Spiral. Ben Carman builds the Lightning Development Kit at Spiral. His LDK Server ships with an MCP server, so AI agents can run a payment node as a tool.
Christopher Scott, Bitcoin developer. Christopher Scott has 12 years in Bitcoin and 15 in security architecture. He builds multi-signature and threshold signing.
Roberto Fuentes, Founder, Synapto. Roberto Fuentes is the founder of Synapto, a developer-focused platform that transforms SQL and business data into secure, reusable APIs for applications and AI agents.
Car Gonzalez, Co-founder and CEO, PlebLab. Car is the co-founder and CEO of PlebLab, an Austin-based Bitcoin hackerspace and startup accelerator focused on supporting developers, founders, and early-stage technology companies.
Eddy Hernández, VC Scout and Software Engineer. Eddy Hernández is a software engineer and VC scout in Austin. He builds with AI agents, TypeScript and Next.js, and maps Austin tech events and VC firms at eddyhdzg.com.
HT, CEO, Sovereign Hybrid Compute. HT “Hodl Tarantula” (@HODLtarantula) has been building off-grid Bitcoin mining operations since 2017, turning energy sovereignty into hands-on infrastructure. He is CEO of Sovereign Hybrid Compute, which is building Bitcoin rail native cloud computing, including VPS, VPN, and AI services. Their work brings together Bitcoin, off-grid energy, and sovereign compute.
Christopher David, Founder and CEO, OpenAgents. Christopher David is the Founder and CEO of OpenAgents, building agent-native infrastructure that helps teams deploy and operate reliable AI agents in the real world. He focuses on turning modern LLM capabilities into practical, production-ready systems that automate workflows, integrate with existing tools, and ship measurable outcomes.
Soru Kumar, Founder, OrangeMetrics & Bitcoin Data Labs. Soru Kumar is the founder of OrangeMetrics and Bitcoin Data Labs. He returns to AI Startup Rodeo for a live demo of AI-powered financial analysis.
Mark Suman, Co-founder and CEO, Maple AI. Mark Suman is Co-founder and CEO of Maple AI, the private AI platform. He was a founding engineer at Instructure Canvas and spent six years at Apple working on privacy-focused AI. At Maple he builds AI that runs on infrastructure anyone can verify.
With the builder communities behind Edition 02: Q Branch, Synapto, PlebLab, React ATX, Bitcoin Builders Club and Zaprite.
Your $25 ticket includes
The full day of talks and live demos.
Bring a builder: a free pass for one builder you bring. After you register, we email you a private guest link to forward.
Breakfast and lunch by Chef Johnny Ochoa. Coffee and drinks all day. Food is available while supplies last.
The afterparty from 5:00 PM at Upstairs at Caroline, 621 Congress Ave, 2nd floor. Free drinks for ticket holders with the wristband.
Paying with Bitcoin?
Pay with Bitcoin via Lightning through Zaprite. We email your admission and your guest pass. Already paid there? Do not buy another ticket here.
Venue rule: no smoking on the balcony.
Ship what is next.