Sam Lightstone — CTO

I lead research & development and ops for data infrastructure at Airbnb. My career has focussed on database, data analytics & AI. I am a frequent keynote speaker on Data and AI. Past CTO and Fellow for 900 engineer team. 70+ patents. 30+ papers. Author of 4 books. Still writing some code. From 2021-2024 I was Facebook's (Meta's) senior executive software engineer for operational data systems, helping to develop and operate one of the world's largest data fleets. I worked on large scale distributed systems, especially on improving scalability, simplicity, and operations. I also led Meta's research and university relations programs for data systems. From 2020-2021 I was CTO for AI at IBM, and an IBM Fellow leading IBM's company-wide technical strategy for AI. From 2017-2020 I was CTO for Data, and an IBM Fellow leading IBM's product development for big data, warehousing, and operational databases. I've led multiple large scale initiatives including projects related to: machine learning/deep learning, IoT distributed analytics, data virtualization, fast data, data warehousing, platform as a service, cloud data warehousing, cloud databases, big data + data lakes. Founder and leader of several successful, high revenue, large-scale software R&D projects related to data management simplicity, performance, and cloud computing. Expert at incubating disruptive technology, recruiting top talent, growing and leading engineering teams, and go-to-market activities. More than 70 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 and patents pending and several dozen publications including tier-1 scientific venues. Author of the critically acclaimed career book "𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲" and co-author of "𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻" Some additional notables: 𝗼 In 2020 I was Chair of the Technical Team for Data and AI, which includes all Technical Executives across the division of ~4000 ppl. 𝗼 In 2019 I led a 5x increase in invention generation across the Data and AI organization which includes several thousand engineers. 𝗼 In 2018/19 I chaired the Joint Program committee planning IBM's research strategy for Data and AI division of ~4000 ppl.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Data Infrastructure and AI expert with extensive leadership in large-scale systems.

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Experience: 31 yrs 8 mos