Jim Gao is the CEO and co-founder of Phaidra, a Seattle-based AI company building autonomous, self-learning control systems for the world's most complex industrial facilities, from data centers to vaccine plants. A mechanical engineer by training, he spent roughly a decade designing cooling systems for Google's data centers before teaching himself machine learning on nights and weekends. After AlphaGo, he launched DeepMind Energy, where reinforcement learning cut Google's data-center cooling energy by up to 40 percent. In 2019 he and two co-founders spun that idea into Phaidra, which by 2025 had raised over $120 million to make AI factories radically more efficient.
Rick Luebbe is the CEO and co-founder of Group14 Technologies, the Woodinville, Washington company behind SCC55, a silicon-carbon battery material that boosts energy density up to 50% and enables extreme fast charging. A former Army aviation officer who flew scout helicopters in Desert Storm and later commanded an Apache attack company, he traded the cockpit for a Stanford MBA and three startups. After building B2B integrator Hubspan and selling battery-materials pioneer EnerG2 to BASF in 2016, he spun out Group14 in 2015 with co-founder Rick Costantino. The company has raised more than $1 billion, including a $463M Series D, and is building the world's largest factory for advanced silicon battery materials. His mission, stated plainly: electrify everything.
Dawn Klinghoffer is Vice President of HR Business Insights at Microsoft, where she leads people analytics for one of the world's largest technology companies. A mathematics major from Bucknell University who started as an actuary in Hartford, Connecticut, she joined Microsoft's fledgling people analytics team in 2003 and spent over 25 years turning HR data into strategic decisions. Her most recognized contribution: replacing the industry's standard 'employee engagement' metric with 'employee thriving' - a framework adopted by Microsoft in 2022 that has influenced HR practices globally and was published in Harvard Business Review.
Danit Moni is Vice President of Marketing at Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the world's largest and most influential cloud computing platforms. Based in Seattle, Washington, she leads marketing efforts for a platform that powers a significant portion of the internet's infrastructure - from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. Operating at the intersection of enterprise technology and brand storytelling, Moni oversees marketing for a cloud portfolio that spans compute, storage, AI/ML, security, and developer tools used by millions worldwide.
Disha Rustogi is the Vice President of Product Marketing at Twilio, where she leads global Product Marketing and Go-To-Market Enablement teams. With 15+ years of marketing leadership at household-name tech companies — Microsoft, Adobe, Atlassian — she has shaped how enterprise software gets positioned, launched, and sold to the world. Now at Twilio, she is at the forefront of the agentic AI communications era, helping define how companies build intelligent customer experiences using Twilio's platform.
Douglas Pearce is Corporate Vice President of Product Management for M365 Copilot Growth at Microsoft, where he leads the strategy to bring AI-powered productivity tools to hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Based in the Seattle area, he has spent over two decades at Microsoft, previously heading product management for Office Growth and Fundamentals before pivoting to spearhead the company's flagship AI copilot initiative across Microsoft 365.
Erin Russell Wieland is a Program & Communications Lead at Microsoft, serving in the Office of the EVP & CRO for Global Enterprise Sales in Seattle. With over a decade at the intersection of consulting and technology, she built her career from Bridge Partners Consulting - where she rose from Consultant to Manager over seven years - to Microsoft, where she has led readiness, communications, and social strategy for some of the company's largest commercial partner and sales organizations. Her work on the first-ever digital Microsoft Inspire conference earned her a Delivering Success Award, and she has also received the Microsoft Gold Club Award for extraordinary individual performance. She operates at the nerve center of Microsoft's enterprise revenue engine, translating complex organizational priorities into programs and communications that land across thousands of field sellers and partners worldwide.
Jake One (Jacob Brian Dutton, born May 11, 1976) is a Seattle-bred hip-hop producer whose beats have moved from underground cult status to pop-culture ubiquity - he's the man behind John Cena's WWE entrance theme 'The Time Is Now,' the iconic De La Soul / MF DOOM collaboration 'Rock Co.Kane Flow,' and production credits across albums by Drake, J. Cole, The Weeknd, 50 Cent, Freeway, Brother Ali, Travis Scott, and dozens more. Operating under the Snare Jordan brand, he has released solo instrumental albums, collaborated on the funk duo Tuxedo with Mayer Hawthorne (Stones Throw Records), and built a parallel career as a sample-kit and beat-tutorial educator. He remains one of hip-hop's most versatile and quietly prolific producers, still releasing acclaimed work in 2024-2025.
Leah Bibbo is a seasoned technology marketing executive with 20+ years of experience in strategic communications. She spent eight years at Amazon Web Services (AWS), rising to Vice President of Product Marketing and Strategic Communications, where she was instrumental in landmark initiatives like the AWS DeepRacer autonomous racing league. Known for her philosophy of embracing uncomfortable opportunities, she has since moved to OpenAI as Vice President of Strategic Pursuits, helping drive enterprise scale and global expansion at one of the world's most consequential AI companies.
Liza Magee is the Chief of Staff for the Consumer Chief Marketing Officer & Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, where she sits at the intersection of billion-dollar marketing strategy and cross-functional execution. With a career built at the nexus of tech and consumer behavior, she has led marketing across Microsoft's education division, Bing, MSN, and now the company's global consumer marketing apparatus. Before Microsoft, she honed product instincts at Amazon as a Senior Product Manager in Merchandising. Based in Seattle, Magee is a strategic operator whose career tracks the evolution of digital marketing from keyword portfolios to AI-powered consumer experiences.
Lynne Kjolso is VP of Global Partner and Retail Media at Microsoft Advertising, where she leads the company's retail media strategy and global partner ecosystem. A philosophy PhD turned digital advertising executive, she has spent over 15 years at Microsoft shaping search, retail, and commerce media. Named to Ad Age's Tech Power List 2024 and The List 2025, she is a leading voice on retail media standardization, gaming as an advertising frontier, and the intersection of AI and commerce.
Michael Schechter is Corporate Vice President of Search Growth and Experiences at Microsoft, where he has spent over two decades shaping how people discover information on the web. A computer science graduate of the University of Maryland, he has been at the center of Bing's evolution - from leading the captions feature in its early days to orchestrating the AI-powered transformation of Bing with Copilot Search. Known for his candid voice on search industry trends and his willingness to engage publicly on topics like citation transparency and AI reliability, Schechter represents the rare executive who can speak both engineer and user fluently.
Muneeza Zaidi is VP of Product Strategy and Growth at Microsoft, where she leads cloud ecosystem strategy and AI for Security initiatives. With over 12 years spanning Microsoft, AWS, and Splunk, she has shaped product direction at some of tech's most influential companies. A guest lecturer at Stanford's CS229 machine learning course and a vocal advocate for women in technology, she brings a rare blend of financial modeling rigor and ecosystem-scale thinking to her work.
Nancy Lesueur is a seasoned technology leader with over 20 years of experience, currently serving as Chief of Staff for the Corporate Vice President of Customer Experience Engineering at Microsoft Security. Based in Sammamish, Washington, she bridges strategic leadership with operational execution at one of the world's most critical security organizations. Her career spans roles in risk intelligence, fraud and abuse prevention, and enterprise program management, with previous positions at FiveBy Solutions and Murphy & Associates. Known for her collaborative leadership style and exceptional listening skills, Nancy is also an advocate for inclusive workplace cultures, having championed Microsoft's Indigenous Employee Resource Group partnerships during a visit to Aotearoa New Zealand.
Toby Bowers is Vice President of Commercial Cloud & AI Marketing at Microsoft, based in the Seattle area. With over 20 years at the company, he leads market strategy across Microsoft's Cloud and AI product portfolios, including business and technical audience marketing, global events, and partner ecosystem engagement. He is the architect of Microsoft's 'Frontier Firms' initiative - a framework identifying and showcasing organizations reimagining their operations through AI - and was a driving force behind the ISV Connect program that grew to 700+ independent software vendors. A prolific blogger on the Microsoft Cloud Blog, Dynamics 365 Blog, and Power Platform Blog, Bowers is one of Microsoft's most visible voices on AI-driven enterprise transformation.
Tom Phillips spent 18 years at Microsoft rising to VP of Communications, where he led PR strategy for the company's advertising business, managed media around major acquisitions, guided CEO communications, and drove narratives through cultural transformations. With over four decades of total PR experience, he left Microsoft in late 2024 to launch Upstream Communications, a Seattle-based strategic communications firm focused on helping clients tell their stories with precision and purpose.
Yann Calvez is a Microsoft executive based in Seattle, currently serving as VP of Partner Sales, Marketing & Operations within the Device & Partner Sales (DPS) organization. A graduate of emlyon business school, he spent more than fifteen years climbing through Microsoft's consumer device ranks - from coordinating marketing in France, to building worldwide Surface retail strategy, to leading the Surface Business Group for Western Europe.
Don Johnson is the CEO of Docker, Inc., the company behind the world's most widely used container platform. Appointed in February 2025, he brings decades of hyperscale cloud infrastructure experience from founding Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and serving as a founding technical leader at Amazon Web Services. A builder at heart who spent years constructing the plumbing of the modern cloud, Johnson now leads Docker's mission to make software development frictionless, secure, and AI-ready for the world's 20 million developers.
Justin Schram, MD, is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of August Health, an AI-enabled electronic health record platform built for senior living communities. A physician by training from the Perelman School of Medicine at UPenn, Schram spent years on the front lines of value-based care for older adults at Landmark Health before channeling that clinical experience into building the software he wished existed. August Health has raised $44M total - including a $29M Series B in August 2025 led by Base10 Partners - and now serves hundreds of senior living communities nationwide, including Sonida Senior Living's 94-community network.
Craig Swanson is a Seattle-born serial entrepreneur who co-founded CreativeLive with photographer Chase Jarvis in 2010, helping build the platform into a $60M-backed live-streaming education company that served 10 million creators before being acquired by Fiverr. Now based in San Francisco and working as CEO of a stealth-mode startup, Swanson has spent his career operating quietly behind high-profile brands - turning influencers and educators into multimillion-dollar businesses while accumulating $92.5 million in digital goods sold across all ventures.
Jeff Bramel is a Partner on the a16z Perennial team at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads real assets investing for ultra-high-net-worth clients and families. With 25 years of investment and portfolio management experience spanning derivatives trading, endowment-style alternatives at Jasper Ridge Partners, co-founding the Sequoia Heritage Fund, and heading real assets at both Jordan Park Group and UBS Asset Management, Bramel brings a rare blend of engineering rigor and financial depth to one of venture capital's most storied firms. A Caltech-and-Stanford-trained engineer turned multi-billion-dollar allocator, he now helps the world's most successful tech founders and families build durable, multi-generational wealth.
Megan Casey is a Partner in Investor Relations at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms. A former book editor at Penguin Random House's Portfolio imprint, she pivoted through the startup world - leading content at NFX, serving as CMO at crypto custodian PolySign, and producing the Pushkin Industries podcast 'Making a Killing with Bethany McLean' - before landing at a16z where she bridges the firm's storytelling prowess with its LP relationships. She is based in Seattle, Washington.
Sharon Williams is a business development Partner on the Enterprise team at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms. Based in Seattle, she leads go-to-market strategy and partnership efforts within a16z's infrastructure and enterprise portfolio. Her career spans hedge fund investing in London and Boston, building cloud partner programs at Microsoft, P&L management at fintech startup Remitly, and leading strategic alliances at customer data platform Amperity — before landing at a16z in 2023. She holds an MBA from MIT and has been recognized as a champion for women in cloud technology.
Tom Hammer is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he leads People Practices for a16z speedrun, the firm's early-stage accelerator investing up to $1M in pre-seed startups. A veteran people operator who has scaled teams at Riot Games and Bird Rides, Tom coaches founders on talent strategy, organizational design, and building high-performance cultures from day one. He is known for his direct, founder-first approach and his belief that strong hiring is the single greatest lever a startup has.
Minda Brusse is a Venture Partner at 2048 Ventures and Co-founding Partner at First Row Partners, a pre-seed firm backing technology companies that empower brand builders, content creators, and storytellers. With 25+ years in the startup ecosystem spanning Andersen Consulting, multiple co-founder roles, angel investing, and fund management, she also teaches Angel Investing and entrepreneurship at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business. A champion of expanding participation in Pacific Northwest venture capital, she co-founded The 1K Project during the pandemic, raising $3.3M for 1,100 families in need.
Rand Fishkin is the co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, an audience research platform that helps marketers understand where their audiences spend time online. Previously, he built Moz into the world's leading SEO software company before stepping down as CEO in 2014 after a public battle with depression. Author of 'Lost and Founder' (Penguin/Random House, 2018), he is known for radical transparency about the messy reality of startup life, pioneering the Whiteboard Friday video series, and championing a 'chill work' philosophy that rejects hustle culture in favor of sustainable, sub-30-hour work weeks.
Joe Beda is the co-creator of Kubernetes and Google Compute Engine, a software engineer who helped build the infrastructure layer that now underpins the modern cloud. After a decade at Google where he made the first Kubernetes commit on GitHub, he co-founded Heptio to commercialize Kubernetes adoption, which VMware acquired in 2018 for roughly $550 million. Now semi-retired, he advises companies like Tailscale, invests in startups including Bluesky and Edera, and writes about technology at eightypercent.net - a blog named after his belief that a simpler system solving 80% of the problem beats an overengineered one that never ships.