Cal AI’s Zach Yadegari joins the Disrupt 2026 lineup

What happens when the app you started in high school goes viral? For Zach Yadegari, the answer was more than 15 million downloads, $30 million in annual revenue, and an acquisition by MyFitnessPal — all before his 20th birthday. Yadegari was just 17 when he co-founded Cal AI, the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered nutrition app that lets users track what they eat by snapping a photo. But those numbers leave out the part most founders would like to know: How did Cal AI get that kind of viral attention in the first place? And once millions of people showed up, how did the company make the most of that momentum? Cal AIis built around a simple proposition: Snap a photo of a meal, and the app uses image recognition and the phone’s depth sensor to calculate calories, protein, carbs, and fat. Yadegariwas still a high school senior when he co-founded Cal AI, but it wasn’t his first experience attracting a large online audience. At 16, he sold Totally Science, a gaming platform he founded that drew more than 5 million users during the COVID-19 pandemic, for six figures. Cal AI moved even faster. In less than two years, it had more than 15 million downloads and was generating more than $30 million in annual revenue. MyFitnessPal took notice, acquiring the company in a deal that closed in December 2025. The deal kept Cal AI as a standalone app, retained its seven-person team, and left Yadegari at the helm. At Disrupt, Yadegari will share what Cal AI learned about building in a distribution-driven market where a product can find a massive audience fast — and what it takes to exploit that viral growth when it happens. For founders chasing growth, Yadegari’s story offers a look at both sides of a viral breakout: how a product finds a massive audience and what it takes to turn that attention into durable retention and long-term company building. Yadegari’s fireside chat is one of200+ sessions across six industry stagesatDisrupt, October 13–15 at Moscone West in San Francisco. More than 10,000 founders, investors, operators and tech leaders are expected, along with 250+ speakers, roundtables and breakouts, and 300+ exhibiting startups. Beyond the agenda, matchmaking, dealmaking and networking give founders opportunities to connect with investors, potential customers, partners and other builders working through many of the same challenges.