Scott Shenker

Scott Shenker holds an incredibly prestigious academic background in theoretical physics and computer science. Beyond his professorship at UC Berkeley, his elite background as an early pioneer of Software-Defined Networking and a highly successful startup founder (Nicira) provided the exact strategic and financial blueprint required to transition the AMPLab's academic research into the massively successful Databricks enterprise.

Scott Shenker is a legendary computer science professor at UC Berkeley and a highly influential co-founder of Databricks. While he is primarily known for his massive, industry-defining contributions to Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and co-founding Nicira (which was acquired by VMware for $1.26 billion), Shenker also played a highly critical role as an advisor and founding member of the UC Berkeley AMPLab. Recognizing the incredible commercial potential of Matei Zaharia's Apache Spark project, Shenker lent his massive industry credibility, strategic foresight, and unparalleled academic network to help spin Databricks out of the lab, ensuring its early survival and massive venture backing from top-tier Silicon Valley investors.