Jul 20248 min
Interoperability in Space
Why interoperability is critical to the future of space networking and satellite systems.
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PORTFOLIO / 2025
Michael
Cheng
Cross-disciplinary leader building at the intersection of finance, product, open source and M&A. 200+ M&A transactions closed.
Open to board opportunities
San Francisco, CA
CURRENTLY
Chief Financial Officer
@ Stratum
2025 — Present
FOCUS
FinanceCorp DevM&ALawProduct
Board Experience
Linux Foundation
Board Director
mBition GmbH (Daimler)
Board Director
Zephyr Foundation
Board Director
Magma Foundation
Board Director
Open Infra Foundation
Board Director
GraphQL Foundation
Board Director
Presto Foundation
Board Director
Outernet Council
Board Director
Earth Space Sustainability Initiative
Director
Professional Career
1998 — 2025
2022
Chief Product Officer, VP Finance
Aalyria Technologies
Spun out of Google. Founder. Scaled to $2B+ valuation. Pioneered DoD contracting vehicles.
Space TechDefenseProduct
2019
Product Manager, Head of Open Source
Facebook/Meta
Led 20+ person team for React, GraphQL, Presto. Reduced dependency analysis from 3 weeks to 5 minutes.
ReactGraphQLOpen Source
2018
Associate General Counsel
Facebook/Meta
Led M&A product, IP and commercial functions. Closed billions in acquisitions. Early ASIC and RISC-V counsel.
M&ALegal TechRISC-V
2013
Associate
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Corporate and IP/IT transactions across London and Hong Kong markets.
Corporate LawIPLondon/HK
2020
Mentor-in-Residence
Major League Hacking (MLH)
Created Full-Stack Production Engineering Curriculum. Taught DevOps Tooling and CI/CD pipeline courses.
EducationCommunityMentorship
2005
Associate
Merrill Lynch
Technology investment banking across Asia. Executed M&A and capital markets transactions.
Investment BankingM&AAsia
1998
Network Engineer
Early Technical Career
Built enterprise network infrastructure. Microsoft MCP and Cisco CCENT certified. Foundation in hardware and software systems.
NetworkingInfrastructureCisco
Notable Transactions
200+ Transactions|$50B+ in Deal Value|25+ Jurisdictions
Recent Thoughts
Jan 202012 min
Open Source Under Attack
FOSDEM keynote on protecting and sustaining open source ecosystems.
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Jun 201910 min
The Value of Open Source
Kubecon Shanghai talk on how open source drives innovation at scale.
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Apr 20197 min
Facebook OSS License Policy
Software Engineering Daily discussion on open source licensing strategy.
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Let's Connect
Always interested in new opportunities, collaborations, and conversations about technology and design.