2019 Texas Business
Hall of Fame Inductee

About

Graham Weston

I am the former Founder, CEO & Chairman of Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE: RAX).

Back in 1998, I provided seed capital to start Rackspace. The three original founders (Richard Yoo, Dirk Elmendorf and Pat Condon) had an idea to make it much easier to host complex websites. That idea evolved into what is known today as Managed Hosting.  Six months after investing in Rackspace, I put my real estate business on hold to act as CEO until 2006. While CEO, Rackspace grew from 12 to 1200 Rackers (employees) and from $1m to $200m in annualized revenue. Lanham Napier (president since 2000) became CEO in 2006.  I enjoyed my tenure as Chairman from that point through to 2016 when we sold Rackspace to Apollo Global for $4.3 billion. 

My personal mission is to create constructive environments for start-ups and entrepreneurs to flourish in the San Antonio area. I focus on collaboration with a number of businesses, individuals and organizations in the city to make the investments today that will make a better city for everyone – tomorrow.

I’m drawn to big, transformative ideas. It’s the reason I helped found Rackspace, Geekdom, and the 80/20 Foundation. I’m passionate about issues of entrepreneurship; specifically, how cities can build and maintain fertile environments for young entrepreneurs to learn the skills they need to create the next wave of innovation.

It’s often hard for me to meet with everyone who shares my commitments – due to my schedule.  I have the right people in place to help with your requests and bring the most promising opportunities to my direct attention. Please contact me using the meeting request form and a member of my team will be in touch with you shortly.  In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look around my website and learn about some of the projects I’m currently involved with. I am proud of the growth in San Antonio and encourage you to come spend some time getting to explore our city on the rise.