#744

Ali Ghodsi

Sweden 47 years old Self-Made

Overview

Source of Wealth
Data analytics
Industry
Technology
Residence
San Francisco, California
Education
KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Ph.D)
Mid Sweden University (Master of Business Administration)
Mid Sweden University (Master of Science in Engineering)
Marital Status
Married

Biography

Ali Ghodsi is cofounder and CEO of software startup Databricks, which private investors valued at $134 billion in February.

After a career in academia, Ghodsi cofounded Databricks with six UC Berkeley academics who built the popular analytics engine Apache Spark.

Databricks is built on top of Spark and uses AI to power, in Ghodsi's words, a "data lakehouse" that helps companies store and utilize their data.

Ghodsi was tapped to lead Databricks in 2016 amid company struggles to generate revenue; initially, he had joined in 2013 as a part-time engineer.

The first-time CEO orchestrated a turnaround after revamping Databricks' leadership and product offerings.

About

Ghodsi is a Swedish citizen, who arrived in the country as a child after his family was forced to flee Iran during the 1979 Revolution.