Charles Henry Ferguson (born March 24, 1955) is an American angel investor and strategic advisor to early stage technology startups and venture capital firms, especially in artificial intelligence. He is also the founder and president of Representational Pictures, Inc. and director and producer of four feature documentaries, including '' No End in Sight'' (2007), which won the Sundance Special Jury Prize and ''

Inside Job An inside job is a crime committed by a person in a position of trust, or with the help of someone either employed by the victim or entrusted with access to the victim's affairs or premises. Inside Job may also refer to: Books * ''Inside J ...

'' (2010), which won the

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

for Best Documentary Feature. Prior to making films, Ferguson was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Visiting Scholar at MIT and UC Berkeley, and a visiting lecturer in the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. Earlier in his career Ferguson was the founder (with Randy Forgaard) and CEO of Vermeer Technologies, developer of FrontPage, which was sold to Microsoft in 1996. Ferguson holds a BA in mathematics from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in political science from MIT. Ferguson is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on the board of directors of the French American Foundation.

Early life and education

A native of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, Ferguson was originally trained as a

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

. A graduate of Lowell High School in 1972, he earned a BA in mathematics from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1978 and a PhD in political science from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in 1989. Ferguson conducted postdoctoral research at MIT while consulting for the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

, and several U.S. and European high technology firms. From 1992 to 1994, Ferguson was an independent consultant, providing strategic advice to the top management of U.S. high technology firms, including

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

, and

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

. Ferguson is bicoastal, splitting his time between New York City and California.

Career

Early career

In 1994, Ferguson founded Vermeer Technologies, one of the earliest Internet software companies, with Randy Forgaard. Vermeer created the first visual website development tool, FrontPage. In early 1996, Ferguson sold Vermeer for $133 million to

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, which integrated FrontPage into Microsoft Office. After selling Vermeer, Ferguson returned to research and writing. He was a visiting scholar and lecturer for several years at MIT and Berkeley, and for three years was a Senior Fellow at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

in Washington DC. Ferguson is the author of four books and many articles dealing with various aspects of information technology and its relationships to economic, political, and social issues. Ferguson is a life member of the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank focused on Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi ...

, a director of the French-American Foundation, and supports several nonprofit organizations.

Film career

For more than 20 years, Ferguson had been intensely interested in film, and regularly attended film festivals such as the

Telluride Film Festival The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado, during Labor Day, Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 51st Telluride Film Festival, 51st edition took place on August 30–September ...

for over a decade. In mid-2005, he formed Representational Pictures and began production of ''No End in Sight'', which was one of the first feature-length documentaries on post-war Iraq. ''No End in Sight'' won a special jury prize for documentaries at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar in 2008 in the documentary feature film category. Ferguson also received a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay for the film. ''Inside Job'', a feature-length documentary about the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

, was screened at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

in May 2010 and the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...

and was released by Sony Pictures Classics in October 2010."At Cannes, the Economy Is On-Screen"
by Manohla Dargis, ''The New York Times'', May 16, 2010 (May 17, 2010 on p. C1 of NY ed.). Retrieved 2010-05-17. It received the 2010

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Academy Honorary Award, Special Awards to ''Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. The ...

. Ferguson credits narrator

Matt Damon Matthew Paige Damon ( ; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. He was ranked among ''Forbes'' most bankable stars in 2007, and in 2010 was one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He has received va ...

for contributing to the film, specifically the structure of the ending, in addition to his narration duties. On May 1, 2011, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reported that Ferguson had agreed to make a film about

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...

founder

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of News leak, leaks from Chels ...

for

HBO Films HBO Films (formerly called HBO Premiere Films and HBO Pictures) is an American production and distribution company, a division of the cable television network HBO that produces feature films and miniseries. The division produces fiction and non-f ...

. According to

IMDb IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

the film was scheduled for release in 2013 but the project was eventually mothballed. On September 30, 2013, Charles Ferguson wrote on the ''Huffington Post'' that he would be cancelling his CNN documentary on Hillary Clinton due, not just to pressure from the Clintons and their allies, but also from the Republican Party, to stop pursuing the project. In the article Ferguson lamented that "nobody, and I mean nobody, was interested in helping me make this film. Not Democrats, not Republicans – and certainly nobody who works with the Clintons, wants access to the Clintons or dreams of a position in a Hillary Clinton administration." In a June 2013 interview with former President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

, Clinton told Ferguson that he and Larry Summers couldn't change

Alan Greenspan Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He worked as a private adviser and provided consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates L ...

's mind about the

Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) is a United States federal law that ensures that Over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter (OTC) Derivative (finance), derivatives remained Financial regulation, unregulated. Commodity Ex ...

, which deregulated derivatives and helped fuel the

and the subsequent

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

. Congress then passed the Act with a veto-proof supermajority. Ferguson thought Clinton was "a really good actor" and that this was a lie. Actually, Ferguson wrote, the Clinton Administration and Larry Summers lobbied for the Act and, along with

Robert Rubin Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former Federal government of the United States, government official. He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. secretary o ...

privately attacked advocates of regulation. Ferguson directed the first major documentary about the

Watergate Scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the Presidency of Richard Nixon, administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Resignation of Richard Nixon, Nix ...

. Entitled ''Watergate'', the 260-minute film had its European premiere at the

2019 Berlin International Film Festival The 69th annual Berlin International Film Festival took place from 7 to 17 February 2019. French actress Juliette Binoche served as the Jury President. Lone Scherfig's drama film ''The Kindness of Strangers (film), The Kindness of Strangers'' o ...

and received the 2019 Cinema for Peace award for Most Political Film of the Year.

Technology

Starting in 2022, Ferguson has become an extremely active early stage technology investor and startup advisor. He is a limited partner in six early stage venture capital funds, and is an angel investor in early stage technology startups. Recent investments include placing the first money int
Aperture DataDicerAomniPallyParadigm
an
Cofactory

Works and publications

* * * * * This is a companion to the movie ''Inside Job'', providing citations for many of the claims in that movie.

Filmography

* '' No End in Sight'' (2007) * ''

'' (2010) * '' Time to Choose'' (2015) * ''

Watergate The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Nixon's resignation in 1974, in August of that year. It revol ...

'' (2018)

References

External links

*
Representational Pictures, his film production company

Dec. 2010 Interview with KGNU's Claudia Cragg on 'Inside Job'

Charles H. Ferguson on Charlie Rose

C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Ferguson about ''No End in Sight'', October 28, 2007

DemocracyNow interview about ''Predator Nation'', 2012

Official site for the movie ''Inside Job''

Official Website for Charles Ferguson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferguson, Charles H. 1955 births Living people Businesspeople in software UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Businesspeople from San Francisco Directors of Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners Directors Guild of America Award winners Producers of Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners American documentary film producers American animated film producers Film producers from California Lowell High School (San Francisco) alumni Writers Guild of America Award winners Angel investors American venture capitalists