# Keynote speaker: AI agents, state machines & React

Canonical: https://davidk.dev/speaking/

David Khourshid is a software engineer, the creator of XState and the founder of Stately, a platform of tools and services for visual software modeling. XState has over 30,000 stars on GitHub and roughly 3 million npm downloads per week. Before founding Stately in 2021, David was a software engineer at Microsoft working on Visual Studio Live Share. He has taught five courses on Frontend Masters, watched for 37,790 hours, and has spoken at conferences including JSConf, React Advanced London, React Summit, ReactiveConf, YOW! and Agent Conf. A trained pianist, he lives in Orlando, Florida.

## Signature talks
- **Goodbye Slop; Welcome Determinism** (AI engineering, product & platform teams): Agent rules hidden inside a long prompt become harder to inspect, test and trust. Explicit state machines make agent behavior observable while leaving room for models to handle the flexible work.
- **Goodbye, useEffect** (React & frontend teams): From fetching data to fighting imperative APIs, side effects are one of the biggest sources of frustration in React. A better mental model for effects, and where they really belong.
- **Goodbye, useState** (React & full-stack teams): useState is fine for simple component state, until it isn’t. Patterns for state management that scale with your app instead of against it.
- **Stop Drawing Pointless Arrows: Taming Complexity with Diagrams** (Architects, staff engineers, product): Diagrams that actually mean something: using statecharts to make complex behavior visible, reviewable and executable.
- **Making State Management Intelligent** (Frontend & UX engineering): Managing state is complicated, and humans are even more complicated. Adaptive, intelligent interfaces built on explicit models of behavior.

Available worldwide for in-person and virtual events.

## Fees (starting prices, USD, travel and lodging billed on top)
- **Corporate keynote, in person**: from $15,000 (+ travel). Company all-hands, engineering summits, customer events; Includes a 30-minute prep call.
- **Corporate keynote, virtual**: from $7,500. Live, with Q&A.
- **Conference keynote, in person**: from $10,000 (+ travel). Commercial conferences; Opening/closing keynote slot.
- **Conference keynote, virtual**: from $5,000. Live or pre-recorded.
- **Conference session (non-keynote)**: from $5,000 (in person + travel). Virtual or pre-recorded: from $2,500.
- **Panel, fireside chat or MC**: from $2,500 (per appearance). MC: from $5,000 per day.
- **Conference workshop (ticketed)**: from $7,500 (guarantee, or 40% of gross). Whichever is greater: $7,500 or 40% of gross ticket revenue (or 60% of net); Suggested ticket: $500–$800 per person per day; Cancelled if fewer than 10 tickets sold 2 weeks out.
- **Vendor or sponsored event**: from $15,000 (corporate rate). When the event promotes a company’s product.

## Speaker terms
- Travel and lodging always covered on top of the fee (actual cost or flat buyout: $2,500 continental / $5,000 intercontinental); business class for flights over 4 hours.
- 50% non-refundable deposit holds the date; balance due 30 days before.
- Free public conference recordings welcome; paywalled distribution +50%; internal corporate recording +30% (12 months) / +60% (perpetual).
- Talk + workshop on the same trip: 10% off combined fee. Net-new talk: +$5,000.

## Past events
JSConf Iceland (2016, 2018); CSSconf EU 2017; CSSConf Budapest 2019; CSSConf Australia; dotCSS 2019; React Rally (2017, 2019, 2023); ReactiveConf (2018, 2019); React Finland (2018–2022); ReactNext (2019, 2021, 2022); React Summit Remote 2021; React Advanced London 2022; Reactathon (2022, 2023); RenderATL 2022; React Miami 2024; React Conf AU 2020; React Alicante (2019, 2022–2024); React fwdays 2021; Nordic.js (2017, 2019); HolyJS; Uphill Conf 2019; Craft Conference (2019, 2024); Øredev 2022; JSHeroes 2023; Infobip Shift 2021; RxJS Live (2019); DevFest Florida (2017, 2019); FEDC Taiwan 2018; JSDC Taiwan; Effect Days 2024; YOW! Australia 2024; Agent Conf (2020, 2023, 2026); Algolia DevBit 2025; Beyond the Prompt 2026

## Upcoming
- Oct 22, 2026: CityJS Athens: Workshop: Graph Engineering: Making State-Machine Powered Agents (https://greece.cityjsconf.org/home)
- Nov 16–19, 2026: React Summit US & AI Coding Summit NYC: Cloning Full-Stack Apps with AI: What It Really Takes (https://gitnation.com/events/ai-coding-summit-nyc)
- 2026: React Day Berlin: Goodbye Slop; Welcome Determinism (https://gitnation.com/person/david_khourshid)