Rob Ferguson is CTO of Microsoft for Startups, where he ensures builders have what they need: GPUs to train on, models to build with, and partnerships that bring frontier AI to their fingertips.

Previously Global Head of AI/ML for AWS, he launched their first GenAI Accelerator and secured the partnerships behind Amazon Bedrock. As startup CTO, he exited Automatic Labs to SiriusXM for $115M and scaled an AI unicorn’s engineering team 10x. His infrastructure bets consistently led markets by years—first Databricks customer, early champion of Weights & Biases and Ray.

With 23 years in AI, Rob has shipped products to millions, keynoted from AI Conference to Mobile World Congress, and shaped industry frameworks from MLOps to RAG to Agents. Today he leverages this experience to help founders avoid the infrastructure pitfalls that derail most AI startups.