Hi, I’m Tom Chavez
I’m an entrepreneur and computer scientist who has dedicated my career to founding and leading innovative data companies. I’m the co-founder of super{set}, a startup studio managing a $180 million fund to found, fund, and build data and AI startups. As the founder of the Ethical Tech Project, I advocate for the ethical use of data on the Internet, ensuring that technology benefits society as a whole.
Born the middle of five children in Albuquerque, I was raised in a Mexican-American family that emphasized the importance of education and hard work. My mother, Rose Chavez, was the last of eleven children and grew up in a house without electricity or running water. Rose's parents, an Aztec Indian who worked for the railroad and a Basque girl from northern Spain, moved the family to a better home, only to have a sewer plant built in their backyard. This adversity fueled Rose's determination to change the odds for her children. She became the first in her family to graduate from high school and took a desk job at Kirtland Air Force Base, where she met my father, Ray. Rose prayed for ten children, but the good Lord only gave her five, all of whom went on to graduate from Harvard.
My subsequent entrepreneurial journey includes the founding of many successful ventures, including Krux Digital, acquired by Salesforce for $1.1B in 2016; Rapt, acquired by Microsoft in 2008 for $180M; and Habu, acquired for $200 million in 2023.
I hold a B.A. in Computer Science and Philosophy from Harvard, where I was a Rockefeller Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Economic Systems and Operations Research from Stanford, where I was a NASA Doctoral Fellow.
Beyond the professional gobbledygook, I’m a classically trained pianist and have served on the boards of KQED, Save the Music, NextGen America, and Meritus. I co-founded the Chavez Family Foundation, which has given over $10 million in grants to programs at the intersections of immigration, education, and entrepreneurship.
I’ve been published in The Information, TechCrunch, Forbes, HuffPost, Fast Company, and Fortune, and my work has been featured in prominent publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, TechCrunch, The Harvard Gazette, Business Insider, DigiDay, AdWeek, AdExchanger, FastCo, and Forbes. I’m also the author of Data Driven: Harnessing Data and AI to Reinvent Customer Engagement, winner of the Axiom Business Book Award
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