Twilio Founder Jeff Lawson on Betting on Fusion Power with Inertia | Disrupt 2026

Jeff Lawson built Twilio into a communications giant, and now he's leading Inertia, one of the world's best-funded fusion power startups. In this candid fireside chat at Disrupt 2026, the Inertia CEO discusses his journey from software founder to deep-tech leader and what changes when you take on a capital-intensive engineering challenge. Lawson shares how scaling Twilio informs Inertia's approach to talent, timelines, and fundraising, and he opens up about the hard engineering questions still ahead for fusion. The conversation also explores the mindset shift required when a software founder moves into an industry measured in decades and billions of dollars. For founders and investors interested in deep tech, this session offers a rare look at the transition from SaaS to fusion and the lessons that carry over. Subscribe to TechCrunch for more Disrupt 2026 coverage.