HISTORY

in the making

Put together an Academy-Award winning professor, a brilliant computer scientist at the world's most prestigious university, and a savvy business leader with a passion for data. Add in one of the most challenging problems in software - making databases and spreadsheets understandable to ordinary people. You have just recreated the fundamental ingredients for Tableau.

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The catalyst?

A Department of Defense (DOD) project aimed at increasing people's ability to analyze information. Brought to the Stanford University Computer Science department, the project took flight with Chris Stolte. Stolte, a Ph.D. candidate, was researching visualization techniques for exploring and analyzing relational databases and data cubes. Hungering for a project to change the world, he knew this was it.

Chris Stolte

CDO & Co-Founder

The mind behind Pixar,

and Stolte's Ph.D. advisor, Professor Pat Hanrahan knew it too. A founding member of Pixar and later its chief architect for RenderMan, Pat invented the technology that changed the world of animated film. Pat's invention made it possible to bring some of the world's most beloved characters to the big screen. Buzz Lightyear and Woody, anyone?

Just down the hall from the Google folks, Chris, Pat and a team of Stanford Ph.D.s realized that computer graphics could deliver huge gains in people's ability to understand information. Rather than analyzing data in text form and then creating visualizations of those findings, Chris and Pat invented a technology called VizQL™ by which visualization is part of the journey and not just the destination. Fast analytics and visualization for everyone was born.

Pat Hanrahan

Chief Scientist & Co-Founder

"I see the future"

was Christian Chabot's reaction when he saw what they invented. Chabot had spent years analyzing data before studying entrepreneurship at Stanford Business School. Together, Christian, Chris and Pat formed a company and spun out of Stanford like so many before them (Google, Yahoo, VMWare). With Christian on board as CEO, Tableau rapidly hit one success after another: its first customer (now Tableau's CFO, Tom Walker), funding from New Enterprise Associates, a PC Magazine award for "Product of the Year" just one year after launch, and a stream of breakthrough new inventions.

Christian Chabot

CEO & Co-Founder

We're on a

MISSION

To help people see and understand data.
And we're redesigning an industry from the ground up.

  • Tableau

    Desktop

  • Tableau

    Server

  • Tableau

    Public

  • Tableau

    Data Engine

  • Tableau

    Mobile

  • Interactive

    Analytics

  • High Performance

    Graphics

  • Delightful

    User Experiences

  • Cutting Edge

    Mobile Experiences

  • Internet Scale

    Distributed Systems

  • Human

    Oriented Design

We're just

BEGINNING

the story and constantly adding new chapters.
We've got some amazing things in the works;
want to add some pages of your own?