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April 2024 Tech Moves: Ex-Meta Infrastructure VP Joins Microsoft; DoorDash Adds Amazon Veteran to Board

GeekWire’s April 22, 2024 roundup covered Jason Taylor’s move from Meta to Microsoft and Jeff Blackburn’s appointment to DoorDash’s board, plus three additional executive changes.
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In a April 22, 2024 personnel roundup, GeekWire reported two notable moves in Pacific Northwest technology: Jason Taylor left Meta to become Microsoft’s corporate vice president and deputy CTO for AI supercomputing, while longtime Amazon executive Jeff Blackburn joined DoorDash’s board of directors. These are historical appointments reported in 2024, not new 2026 announcements.

Jason Taylor moved from Meta infrastructure to Microsoft AI supercomputing

Taylor was Meta’s vice president of infrastructure for more than 13 years. GeekWire reported that Microsoft hired him as corporate vice president and deputy CTO focused on AI supercomputing. That title is narrower than Microsoft’s overall CTO role and does not establish that Taylor ran the company’s entire AI infrastructure organization.

At Meta, Taylor led multiple infrastructure projects. Before joining Meta, he was CTO at ink2 and founded the gift-certificate company Lucidity in 1999. He also chaired the Open Compute Project Foundation from 2015 through 2017, connecting his background to the open hardware and data-center engineering community.

AI systems depend on far more than model software. They require large data-center capacity, high-speed networking, specialized accelerators, storage and systems software. Taylor’s hyperscale-infrastructure experience therefore made the appointment strategically relevant as Microsoft expanded Azure’s AI capabilities and specialized supercomputing systems.

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Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott publicly welcomed Taylor and described him as someone who had spent much of his career tackling difficult computing problems. That characterization is Scott’s assessment, rather than an independently measured performance finding. Microsoft’s corporate disclosures also described continuing investment in high-performance computing, AI-optimized infrastructure and specialized supercomputers; those disclosures provide context but do not identify Taylor as responsible for a particular project or for all of Microsoft’s AI buildout.

The available 2024 reporting confirms the appointment and title. It does not verify Taylor’s exact responsibilities or employment status as of 2026.

Source: GeekWire’s April 22, 2024 report and Microsoft corporate disclosure.

Jeff Blackburn joined DoorDash’s board

Blackburn was a longtime Amazon executive who retired from Amazon in 2022. In April 2024, he joined DoorDash’s board of directors. DoorDash’s April 19, 2024 Form 8-K provides the formal regulatory record of the appointment; GeekWire also reported that Blackburn had joined Roku’s board the previous year.

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This was a board appointment, not an operating position at DoorDash. A former Amazon operator could bring experience relevant to digital commerce, marketplaces, logistics, consumer technology, advertising, subscriptions and platform economics—areas that overlap with DoorDash’s business. Those are potential areas of board-level relevance, not a disclosed mandate from DoorDash.

Neither the 2024 report nor the cited filing establishes that Blackburn was recruited for a specific acquisition, logistics initiative, international expansion plan or other operating priority.

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Sources: DoorDash’s April 19, 2024 SEC filing, DoorDash investor-relations filing page and GeekWire.

Other moves in the April 2024 roundup

  • John Aisien joined Microsoft to lead its Unified Security Intelligence business. He was previously CEO of Blue Cedar and held executive roles at Mocana and Oracle.
  • Eric Benson, formerly an AWS and VMware executive, became Matillion’s chief revenue officer after most recently leading VMware’s cloud sales for the Americas.
  • Sam Lee became head of legal at Esper. He previously served as director of legal at Outreach and had worked at J.P. Morgan and Kriss & Feuerstein.
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What these appointments indicate

Taylor’s move illustrates competition for leaders who understand hyperscale computing as AI workloads expand. Blackburn’s appointment illustrates how a board can add experience from a neighboring large-scale commerce and logistics business without placing that executive in day-to-day management. Together, the moves show major technology companies and startups recruiting senior talent in infrastructure, cloud, security and scaled marketplaces.

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That broader interpretation should not be confused with a formal Microsoft–Meta talent exchange or proof of a shared corporate strategy. The confirmed facts are the April 2024 appointments and the roles reported in the company and regulatory sources.

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