Databricks vs Snowflake: Founders, CEOs and History
Databricks was founded in 2013 by Ali Ghodsi, Matei Zaharia, Reynold Xin and is led by Ali Ghodsi. Snowflake was founded in 2012 by Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, Marcin Żukowski and is led by Sridhar Ramaswamy.
Company facts
Databricks
- Founded
- 2013
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Current CEO
- Ali Ghodsi
- Employees
- 14,000
Snowflake
- Founded
- 2012
- Headquarters
- Bozeman, Montana
- Current CEO
- Sridhar Ramaswamy
- Employees
- 9,060
Founders
Databricks
Ali Ghodsi
Ali Ghodsi is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Databricks, Inc. A effective distributed systems researcher and entrepreneur, Ghodsi co-created Apache Spark alongside Matei Zaharia at UC Berkeley, anticipating the large explosion of big data and di…
Matei Zaharia
Matei Zaharia is a brilliant Romanian-Canadian computer scientist and the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Databricks. While pursuing his Ph.D.
Reynold Xin
Reynold Xin is a highly prominent computer scientist, entrepreneur, and the co-founder and Chief Architect of Databricks.
Patrick Wendell
Patrick Wendell is a co-founder and former Vice President of Engineering at Databricks, playing an absolutely critical role in the technical commercialization of Apache Spark.
Andy Konwinski
Andy Konwinski is a co-founder of Databricks and a highly influential, foundational figure in modern cloud infrastructure architecture.
Scott Shenker
Scott Shenker is a legendary computer science professor at UC Berkeley and a highly influential co-founder of Databricks.
Ion Stoica
Ion Stoica is a brilliant Romanian-American computer scientist, a professor at UC Berkeley, and the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Databricks.
Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji
Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji is a Databricks co-founder who focused on the commercial side of the business, including field engineering and customer-facing roles that helped large enterprises adopt the platform in its early years.
Snowflake
Benoit Dageville
Benoit Dageville co-founded Snowflake in 2012 and served as CTO and later President of Products. He co-designed the multi-cluster, shared-data architecture that separates storage from compute.
Thierry Cruanes
Thierry Cruanes co-founded Snowflake in 2012 and served as its chief technology officer, leading development of the core engine that runs SQL queries on cloud object storage.
Marcin Żukowski
Marcin Żukowski co-founded Snowflake in 2012 and brought his vectorized query processing research from Vectorwise into the Snowflake engine.
CEOs and their tenures
Databricks
- Matei Zaharia2013–present
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Matei Zaharia co-founded Databricks in 2013 and serves as Chief Technology Officer.
Source - Ali Ghodsi2016–present
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Has led Databricks from an early-stage startup to a $7B+ revenue run-rate and $190 billion valuation (August 2026).
Source
Snowflake
- Bob Muglia2014–2019
Former CEO
Former Microsoft executive who led Snowflake from its 2014 public launch through its early commercial growth before Frank Slootman replaced him in 2019.
Source - Frank Slootman2019–2024
Former Chairman and CEO
Slootman joined as CEO in April 2019, led the September 2020 IPO and scaled the enterprise sales organization. He stepped down as CEO in February 2024 and later left the board.
Source - Sridhar Ramaswamy2024–present
Chief Executive Officer
Ramaswamy became CEO in February 2024, initiating a new era of aggressive product innovation and artificial intelligence integration, overseeing the strategic expansion of Snowpark and the Snowflake Marketplace to capture the next wave of enterprise data workl…
Source
Timeline: Databricks and Snowflake side by side
2009Databricks
Apache Spark Invented at UC Berkeley AMPLab
Matei Zaharia and AMPLab researchers created Apache Spark to overcome MapReduce memory-latency limitations.
2012Snowflake
Founding of Snowflake
Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, and Marcin Żukowski founded Snowflake in 2012, working in stealth until October 2014 to build a new database engine from scratch in C++ that would separate compute and storage.
2013Databricks
Databricks Founded by UC Berkeley Researchers
Ali Ghodsi, Matei Zaharia, Ion Stoica, and team incorporated Databricks in San Francisco with Series A from Andreessen Horowitz.
2014Snowflake
Emergence from Stealth and Product Launch
Snowflake emerged from stealth in 2014, launching its multi-cloud data warehouse at the Strata + Hadoop World conference, immediately disrupting the market by offering a service that was easier to use, more scalable, and more cost-effective than any existing a…
2016Databricks
Ali Ghodsi Becomes CEO
Ali Ghodsi succeeded Ion Stoica as CEO, shifting corporate focus toward enterprise cloud software and customer monetization.
2017Databricks
Microsoft Partnership & Azure Databricks Launch
Partnered with Microsoft to launch Azure Databricks as a first-party native cloud analytics service.
2019Databricks
Invention of Delta Lake & The Lakehouse Architecture
Open-sourced Delta Lake, adding ACID transactions to cloud object storage and formalizing the Lakehouse paradigm.
2020Snowflake
Historic Initial Public Offering
Snowflake listed on the NYSE under ticker SNOW on September 16, 2020, pricing shares at $120 and raising about $3.4 billion, then the largest software IPO on record.
2021Databricks
$1.6B Series H Funding at $38B Valuation
Raised $1.6 billion led by Morgan Stanley's Counterpoint Global, establishing a $38 billion enterprise valuation.
2021Snowflake
Introduction of Snowpark
Snowflake introduced Snowpark in 2021, a developer framework that allows data engineers and scientists to write code in Python, Java, and Scala, marking the company's strategic expansion beyond traditional SQL-based business intelligence into complex data engi…
2022Databricks
Debut of Photon Vectorized Engine & Databricks SQL
Released Photon C++ engine and Serverless SQL, directly competing against proprietary cloud data warehouses.
2023Databricks
Acquisition of MosaicML for $1.3 Billion
Acquired MosaicML to establish generative AI training dominance, subsequently launching the DBRX open foundation model.
2024Databricks
Acquisition of Tabular for $1B+ & Unity Catalog Open-Source
Acquired the creators of Apache Iceberg and open-sourced Unity Catalog under the Linux Foundation to unify data storage.
2024Snowflake
Transition of CEO Leadership
Sridhar Ramaswamy became CEO in February 2024, succeeding Frank Slootman, initiating a new era of aggressive product innovation and artificial intelligence integration to capture the next wave of enterprise data workloads.
2025Databricks
Neon Acquisition and $100B+ Valuation
Bought serverless Postgres startup Neon (reported at about $1 billion) to create Lakebase and raised capital at a valuation above $100 billion.
2025Snowflake
FY2025 Revenue Reaches $3.626 Billion
Snowflake reported $3.626 billion in consolidated FY2025 revenue, generating $834 million in free cash flow and achieving a non-GAAP operating margin of 24%, demonstrating the extreme operating leverage of its consumption-based model and its successful navigat…
2026Databricks
Passes $7B Run-Rate at $190B Valuation
Reported a revenue run-rate above $7 billion (up more than 80%) and closed a $5 billion round at a $190 billion valuation; also agreed to buy Panther and acquired Electric and Row Zero.
2026Snowflake
Snowflake passes $4.6B in FY2026 revenue
Snowflake reported FY2026 revenue of $4.684B and Q1 FY2027 revenue of $1.391B as it expanded its data and AI platform.
2026Snowflake
Observe acquisition closes and growth accelerates
Snowflake closed its Observe acquisition in May 2026 and on September 2, 2026 reported Q2 fiscal 2027 revenue of $1.55B (+35%), raising FY2027 product revenue guidance to $6.07B.
Acquisitions
Databricks
- Panther2026Undisclosed
- Electric2026Undisclosed
- Row Zero2026Undisclosed
- Neon2025$1B
- Tabular2024$1B
- Lilac AI2024Undisclosed
Snowflake
- Observe2026Undisclosed
- Natoma2026Undisclosed
- TensorStax2026Undisclosed
- Neeva2023Undisclosed
- Streamlit2022$800M
Questions about Databricks vs Snowflake
Who is the CEO of Databricks, Inc. and Snowflake Inc.?
Databricks, Inc. is led by Ali Ghodsi and Snowflake Inc. is led by Sridhar Ramaswamy. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was Databricks, Inc. founded vs Snowflake Inc.?
Snowflake Inc. was founded in 2012 — 1 year before Databricks, Inc., which was founded in 2013. Snowflake Inc.'s longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Databricks, Inc..
How many employees does Databricks, Inc. have compared to Snowflake Inc.?
Databricks, Inc. employs approximately 14,000 people, while Snowflake Inc. employs approximately 9,060. Databricks, Inc. has the larger workforce at 14,000 employees, compared to Snowflake Inc.'s 9,060. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are Databricks, Inc. and Snowflake Inc. headquartered?
Both Databricks, Inc. and Snowflake Inc. are headquartered in United States, meaning they operate under the same primary regulatory and tax environment.
Who founded Databricks, Inc. and Snowflake Inc.?
Databricks, Inc. was founded by Ali Ghodsi, Matei Zaharia, Reynold Xin, Patrick Wendell, Andy Konwinski, Scott Shenker, Ion Stoica, Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji. Snowflake Inc. was founded by Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, Marcin Żukowski.
Which company has a longer operating history — Databricks, Inc. or Snowflake Inc.?
Snowflake Inc. has been operating for approximately 14 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Databricks, Inc. has been in operation for around 13 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Databricks vs Snowflake overview