Tyson McDowell

Tyson is cofounder and managing partner of Greatscale Ventures, and a thought leader on the subject of positively merging humans with AI-driven technologies.

After nearly 20 years of experience in building and running companies as CEO, CTO or President, and watching the world change dramatically as a result of high-scale technologies permeating everyday life, he realized the need to scale up his own efforts to impact humanity with tech.

While technology and business are his focus, Aviation is a core passion.  Tyson is a certified private pilot with instrument, multi-engine, helicopter and various type ratings. He resides in San Diego, CA with his daughter Amelia, is a member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO), and is Vice Chairman of the San Diego Air and Space Museum.

See his TEDx Talk on Human-AI convergence here.

Aaron Contorer

Aaron is cofounder and managing partner of Greatscale Ventures, and founder and chairman of IT engineering services firm FP Complete.

Aaron has served as chairman or CxO at 5 tech startups, and as chairman or board member at 6 nonprofit corporations. He is cofounder of Equinox Project, part of the School of Leadership at the University of San Diego, and in 2009 he was named San Diego’s Environmental Leader of the Year for his work bringing together the business, research, and environmental communities. He is a supporter of MCE Social Capital, providing micro-credit to entrepreneurs in Peru and other developing countries.

Formerly Aaron served as technology adviser to CEO Bill Gates at Microsoft, and as general manager of Microsoft’s in-house engineering tools team and of the software engineering tool Visual C++. He was a technology architect and manager on the creation of MSN and parts of Windows, Exchange, and Active Directory. 

In the 1980s he cofounded the shareware business model at Contorer Computing, and was one of the original Internet software engineers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, contributing to what became Microsoft Internet Explorer. He is an inventor on 18 computer technology patents. An early student of artificial intelligence, Aaron holds degrees in computer science and in cognitive psychology. 

A native of Chicago and former long-time resident of Seattle, he is a certified scuba diver and sailboat pilot who lives by the beach in La Jolla, California, with his wife, fellow technology executive, investment manager, and leadership consultant Lori Contorer. He can often be spotted in his wetsuit swimming with the abundant local sea life.