“Tableau Software continued producing visually stunning stock charts during its second day of trading, shining a favorable light on both the Seattle tech industry, and on big data companies …
“As a reminder, Tableau’s DNA is Silicon Valley, and Stanford University, in particular. But 10 years ago, the company’s founders decided they needed a change of scenery and chose the ‘mountains and salmon and coffee and rain’ of Seattle, in what CEO Christian Chabot has called one of the best decisions the company has made.
“It’s an unequivocal endorsement of the Seattle area as a place to build technology companies in general, and of the region’s leadership in big data.
“‘Seattle is in the catbird seat—because of the ‘big guys’ (Amazon, Microsoft, and a significant Google presence) and also because of smaller companies like Tableau, Zillow, Inrix, Sage Bionetworks, and many others,’ says University of Washington computer science professor Ed Lazowska in an email. ‘We can ‘own’ this.’
“The UW, too, is a driver of regional leadership in big data—the broad effort to collect, manage, and make sense of fast-expanding quantities and types of data. High-profile hires over the last year have added to an already deep pool of expertise in machine learning and other disciplines underpinning big data technologies.”
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