Jason Taylor, the former vice president of infrastructure at Meta, has joined Microsoft as corporate vice president and deputy CTO for the company’s AI supercomputing efforts. Taylor brings over 13 years of experience from Meta, where he led various infrastructure projects. Prior to his time at Meta, he was the CTO at ink2 and founded a gift certificate company called Lucidity in 1999. Taylor also served as the chair of the Open Compute Project Foundation from 2015 to 2017, promoting best practices for data center IT infrastructure. Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott highlighted Taylor’s expertise in taking on challenging computing tasks and expressed excitement for him to work with the Microsoft AI team to push the frontier of AI forward.
In addition to Jason Taylor, Microsoft has brought on John Aisien to lead its Unified Security Intelligence business. Aisien was previously the CEO of Blue Cedar, a mobile app security company, and has held executive roles at Mocana and Oracle. This move is part of Microsoft’s efforts to bolster its security intelligence capabilities and strengthen its overall cybersecurity posture. The company continues to recruit talent with diverse backgrounds and experiences to drive innovation and growth in strategic areas of its business.
Former longtime Amazon executive Jeff Blackburn has joined the board of DoorDash after retiring from Amazon in 2022. Blackburn, who also joined the board of Roku last year, brings extensive expertise in e-commerce and digital media to both companies. This strategic move is expected to provide valuable insights and guidance as DoorDash continues to navigate the competitive landscape of the delivery and logistics industry.
Eric Benson, a former executive at AWS and VMware, has been appointed as the chief revenue officer at data startup Matillion. Benson, who most recently led cloud sales for the Americas at VMware, will play a key role in driving revenue growth and expanding Matillion’s customer base. With experience in leading sales teams at top tech companies, Benson is well-positioned to help Matillion scale its operations and capitalize on market opportunities.
Seattle-based startup Esper has hired Sam Lee as its head of legal, a role that will involve overseeing legal matters as the company helps businesses manage fleets of devices. Lee brings experience from his previous role as the director of legal at Seattle startup Outreach, as well as his time at J.P. Morgan and Kriss & Feuerstein. His legal expertise will be vital in navigating regulatory and compliance issues as Esper continues to grow and expand its services to more customers. By strengthening its legal team, Esper aims to ensure that its operations are conducted in accordance with industry regulations and best practices.
