Background

Charles Ferguson was born on March 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California, the United States.

Education

Ferguson attended Lowell High School and graduated in 1972. Ferguson was originally trained as a political scientist. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where his research focused on interactions between high technology, globalization, and government policy. While conducting postdoctoral research at MIT, Ferguson was a consultant to the White House, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Department of Defense, and several U.S. and European high technology firms.

Career

In 1994, Ferguson was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Vermeer Technologies. Its products were a Web site development tool, called FrontPage, and a Web server to complement developing in FrontPage, called Personal Web Server. They launched the initial version of FrontPage on October 2, 1995. The company was purchased by Microsoft for US$133 million in January 1996 ($212 million in present-day terms) in order to acquire FrontPage as a new weapon in the browser wars.

After selling Vermeer, Ferguson turned to research, writing, and filmmaking. He is the author of five books, including High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner’s Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars. Ferguson’s most recent book is Predator Nation, which focuses on the roots of the financial crisis and economic inequality, and was published by Random House/Crown in May 2012. He has written for The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times, and other publications.

Ferguson spent several years as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a director of the French-American Foundation.

Ferguson directed the first major documentary about the Watergate Scandal. Entitled Watergate, the 260-minute film had its European premiere at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival. He is the director and producer of Inside Job, winner of the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and of No End in Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, which was an Academy Award nominee as well.

Achievements

• 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, which integrated FrontPage into Microsoft Office.
  
  Later he became a successful writer and film director with an Academy Award (2010).

Works

More photos

• book

  • High Stakes, No Prisoners

    (High Stakes, No Prisoners is a sharp, brilliant insider's...)

    1999
  • No End in Sight

    (The first book of its kind to chronicle the reasons behin...)

    2006
  • The Broadband Problem

    (As the Internet revolution continues to unfold and transf...)

    2004
  • Computer Wars

    (A behind-the-scenes look at the dramatic fall of IBM.)

    1994
  • Predator Nation

    (Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his O...)

    2012
  • Inside Job: The Financiers Who Pulled off the Heist of the Century 2014

• movie

  • Time to Choose

    (Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Charles Fergu...)

    2015
  • Inside Job

    (The Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary, Inside Job...)

    2010
  • No End in Sight 2007

Membership

Ferguson is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

• life member

  Council on Foreign Relations

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 189
  2001
• Charles Ferguson