Ryan Kroonenburg May 2026

Unlike many founders who retire to a beach, Ryan has stayed deep in the tech education weeds. He currently serves in an advisory capacity and continues to create content. Notably, he has been focusing on and Prompt Engineering .

Ryan’s trademark catchphrases—like “Hello Cloud Gurus”—became a signal of quality. Students knew that if Ryan Kroonenburg was teaching the module, it would be accurate, up-to-date, and actually fun. What separates Ryan Kroonenburg from the thousands of other tech instructors on the internet? It isn't just his deep knowledge of AWS (which is substantial), but his pedagogy. 1. The "Why" Before the "How" Most tutorials start with "Click here, then type this." Ryan starts with a whiteboard. He spends the first fifteen minutes of a lecture drawing the architecture. He wants you to visualize the data flow. Only once the mental model is built does he open the AWS console. 2. Narrative Arc Ryan treats his courses like stories. An AWS Lambda lecture isn't a list of features; it's a story about a company that needs to resize images on the fly without buying a server. He creates a problem, builds tension, and then solves it with cloud technology. 3. Authenticity Ryan Kroonenburg doesn't act like a guru; he acts like a senior engineer explaining a complex concept to a junior teammate over coffee. He admits when a service has quirks. He warns students about "gotchas" that will appear on the exam. This authenticity builds deep trust. The Meteoric Rise and Pluralsight Acquisition Under Ryan Kroonenburg’s leadership as CEO, A Cloud Guru exploded in popularity. The company expanded from AWS into Azure, GCP, and DevOps tools (Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible). They acquired Linux Academy in 2019 for a reported "nine-figure sum," instantly making them the largest cloud training library in the world. ryan kroonenburg

As the co-founder and former CEO of A Cloud Guru (ACG), Ryan Kroonenburg didn't just build a training platform; he redefined how a generation of IT professionals learns. From a modest operation in a Melbourne bedroom to a $2 billion acquisition by Pluralsight, Ryan’s story is one of technical foresight, creative storytelling, and relentless execution. Unlike many founders who retire to a beach,