John Engates

John Engates is pioneering the future of artificial intelligence through his research on autonomous AI agents and multi-agent systems. After three decades at the forefront of distributed computing, from launching one of Texas's first ISPs to shaping the cloud infrastructure that powers today's Internet, John now explores how swarms of AI agents can collaborate to solve humanity's most complex challenges.

As Field CTO at Cloudflare, John guided global enterprises through their AI and security transformations. Previously, as CTO at Rackspace for almost 18 years, he played a pivotal role in democratizing cloud computing. He helped bring "Fanatical Support" to life, building the culture and teams that set a new standard for customer service in tech. Under his leadership, Rackspace's Intensive Hosting division supported some of the Internet's most demanding workloads, including a little startup called YouTube.

John's knack for seeing around corners led to founding moments in open source infrastructure. When Frank Frankovsky reached out via Facebook message about "open sourcing cloud computing hardware," John's immediate "yes" launched Rackspace's involvement in the Open Compute Project. He also led the RackLabs team that created the distributed storage system that became OpenStack Swift, now powering some of the largest storage platforms on Earth.

Currently, John serves on the boards of Frost Bank (NYSE: CFR) and James Avery Craftsman, and mentors the next generation of founders through TechStars.