The Code Conference was at the center of the tech world last month, with Google’s new driverless cars, Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats and frank discussions with many of the biggest names in tech.
Re/code’s next conference is in October, focused on the world of mobile. It’s our venue for bringing together the rising stars and topics in technology. (You should also catch the Code/Media evening in September in New York.)
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum, T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom will all be speaking at Code/Mobile.
Today we’re adding to the line-up the co-founders of Instagram, Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom; YouTube star and entrepreneur Michelle Phan; Motorola Mobility head honcho Rick Osterloh; Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani; and Virgin America CEO David Cush and Gogo CEO Michael Small.
We expect Code/Mobile to sell out, so if you want to join us, sign up now.
Now let’s talk about how excited we are about this line-up.
Krieger and Systrom, who continue to lead the hugely popular app at Facebook, will make a rare joint appearance to talk about the original mobile-first star, how it has grown and where it is headed.
The Instagram story didn’t end when Facebook neutralized the threat of losing its stronghold in photos. Instagram has only become more relevant; it now has more than 200 million monthly active users who share an average of 60 million photos per day, with 20 billion total photos shared on Instagram as of April.
Meanwhile, as one of the most popular creators on YouTube, Phan’s make-up tutorial videos have been seen more than 1 billion times. She now has her own make-up line, lifestyle video network, beauty blogger conference and book deal.
We’re particularly interested in hearing about Phan’s leap into the intersection of commerce, content and community with Ipsy, a make-up subscription service that is hugely popular with her young fan base.
Next, newly minted Motorola Mobility President and COO Rick Osterloh has a lot on his plate. First off, the handset unit is in the process of transitioning from Google to Lenovo.
Motorola is also still in the midst of an effort to return to past glory. While the smartphone field is crowded and dominated by Samsung and Apple, Motorola has tried to find a niche bringing premium phones at budget prices, most notably with the Moto G and with the recently introduced Moto E smartphones. Moto is also working on the Moto 360, an Android-powered smart watch.
Also joining us is Hiroshi (Mickey) Mikitani, the founder, chairman and CEO of Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant.
Mikitani is a savvy international observer of and participant in technology, having aggressively picked off upstarts from around the world for acquisitions and investments, including video site Viki, messaging app Viber and social discovery site Pinterest.
Last but not least, if there’s anything people like more than surfing and texting on the ground, it’s doing so from the air. Connectivity, once a novelty, is now seen as essential for airline travelers.
With physical limits on bandwidth and social limits on things like talking and Skyping, we’ll talk to Small and Cush, two pioneers in the space, about how they weigh which technologies to support and when.
We'll have more speakers to announce this summer; in the meantime, you can follow the Code/Mobile conversation #codemobile. See you soon.
