I had one day in San Francisco and several hundred events to choose from. So I picked the rooms that sit along Market Street, where the city is flat and BART and Muni run underneath, and stacked them back to back, with one detour to Potrero Hill that was worth it. Every stop shows the walk from the one before and the time to leave. Tick them off as you go.
I flew in straight from the inaugural Hollywood & Mind in New York the night before. Two coasts, one week, and the same question in both rooms: what happens to the people building all of this.
From SFO: BART to 16th St Mission (about 25 min, about $11), then Uber or Lyft about 7 min (about $10 to $14), or walk about 20 min.
Engineers and a venture firm packing food bags for neighbours in need, then brunch. Working side by side is the easiest introduction of the day, and brunch is where the conversation happens.
Leave at 09:55
From Potrero Hill: Uber or Lyft about 15 min ($14 to $20), or walk to 16th St Mission BART and ride to Montgomery (about $2.50). You arrive around 10:20.
Ask a question in the Q&A so people know your name. The 11:00 to 12:00 matchmaking hour is the reason to come.
Leave by 11:55
Same neighbourhood, about 5 to 10 min.
Structured matchmaking. The hosts make the introductions, so you get more real conversations per hour than anywhere else on the calendar. Eat here.
Leave by 13:00
About 10 to 15 min walk, or Muni Montgomery to Powell.
LILA is hiring across research and engineering. Come for the room, then stay 15 minutes to sit down and send follow-ups while you still remember them.
Leave by 13:45
About 25 min on foot, so take a 10 min ride.
A room of fractional operators. They are referral partners, not competition.
Leave by 14:45
About 15 min walk down to Howard.
The enterprise room: how AI governance works when there is a budget, a compliance team and an audit trail.
Leave by 15:45
About 15 min walk, or Muni Montgomery to Powell.
Why companies buy AI and nobody uses it. Same block, same time: Don’t Let Your LLM Go Rogue (TrackIt + AWS), if guardrails are more your thing.
Leave by 16:45
About 12 min walk down Market and onto 2nd.
Arizona companies building in AI, with the state’s economic development agency in the room.
Leave by 17:40
About 10 min walk.
The work of getting a model to actually run inside a customer’s business.
Leave by 18:25
From House of 434: about 5 to 10 min walk in FiDi.
A short talk from the founder of interface.ai on shipping agents where a hallucination is a reportable incident, then dinner with no stage and no deck. A small room, so you actually get to talk. Dinner happens here.
Leave at 20:00
From FiDi: about 10 min walk, flat.
Mission-driven founders and nonprofit leaders. Arrive in time for the open mic at 20:15.
Leave by 20:40
About 15 min walk, or a 5 min ride.
Last room of the night. Founders who are hiring their first engineers.
Leave by 22:30. Montgomery BART back to SFO is about $11.