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Around 2010 the hottest phrase in enterprise software was big data. The technology behind much of it was Hadoop, an open source system for storing and crunching huge data sets across many cheap computers. Cloudera was the first company built to sell Hadoop to businesses. It was founded in Burlingame but spent its fast growth years in Palo Alto, first at 1001 Page Mill Road and then in one of the most storied office campuses in town.
This profile covers Cloudera's Palo Alto addresses, its run from startup to public company and its later sale. It also explains the history of 395 Page Mill Road, the campus it leased in 2016. For the company that first built there, see our Agilent Technologies profile.
Engineers from Google, Yahoo and Facebook
Cloudera was formed on June 27, 2008, in Burlingame on the Peninsula. Its four founders came from the companies that had pushed large scale data processing furthest:
- Christophe Bisciglia, an engineer at Google
- Amr Awadallah, an engineer at Yahoo
- Jeff Hammerbacher, an engineer at Facebook
- Mike Olson, the chief executive, who had sold his database company Sleepycat to Oracle in 2006
Doug Cutting, a co-creator of Hadoop, joined them in 2009. Hammerbacher's former employer was then a Palo Alto company. Our Facebook profile covers its years downtown and in the research park.
Selling Hadoop
Hadoop grew out of ideas Google had published about its own systems. Yahoo did much of the early open source work. Cloudera's business was to package Hadoop, support it and add tools that made it usable inside large organizations. At first it gave away its product and earned money from support and consulting. In March 2009 it began offering a commercial distribution.
Investors moved quickly. A $5 million round in 2009 was led by Accel, which keeps its Bay Area office at 500 University Avenue in Palo Alto. Our Accel profile covers the firm. Cloudera raised $25 million in October 2010 and $40 million in November 2011. In June 2013 Tom Reilly, the former head of ArcSight, became chief executive. Olson moved to chairman and chief strategy officer.
Then came the big money. In March 2014 Cloudera raised $160 million from T. Rowe Price and others. Intel followed with $740 million for an 18 percent stake, which valued Cloudera at about $4.1 billion.
1001 Page Mill Road
As the company grew, its Palo Alto base was about 90,000 square feet at 1001 Page Mill Road, according to a September 2016 report on its next lease. The address is farther up Page Mill Road from the California Avenue area, toward the research park. We could not confirm the year Cloudera first moved in, so we do not give one. Our Stanford Research Park guide explains how the university's land leases work.
395 Page Mill Road
In September 2016 Cloudera signed a lease for nearly 230,000 square feet at 395 Page Mill Road and said it planned to move in by late summer 2017. The 10 acre campus came with a full build out and sits within walking distance of the California Avenue Caltrain station. The landlord was Jay Paul Co.
The address has a long history. In 1942 Hewlett-Packard built its first company-owned building there, a small office, lab and factory known as the Redwood Building. In 2000 HP built the current campus for its spinoff Agilent Technologies, which used it as headquarters until 2006. Jay Paul Co. bought it that year. Google leased the building in 2007. Our Hewlett-Packard profile covers the 1942 building.
| Year | 395 Page Mill Road |
|---|---|
| 1942 | HP's Redwood Building, its first company-owned building |
| 2000 | New campus built for Agilent Technologies |
| 2006 | Agilent sells to Jay Paul Co. and moves to Santa Clara |
| 2007 | Google leases the building |
| 2016 | Cloudera signs a headquarters lease |
| 2021 | Snap subleases about 45,000 square feet of Cloudera's space; Pinterest also has space |
Going public and merging
Cloudera became a public company on April 28, 2017, a few months before its planned move to 395 Page Mill Road. Life as a public company was hard. Over the next four years its share price fell as sales disappointed and cloud services from Amazon Web Services and others competed for the same customers.
In October 2018 Cloudera and its main Hadoop rival, Hortonworks, announced a merger. It closed in January 2019. Five months later Reilly and Olson left the company. Former Hortonworks chief Rob Bearden became CEO in January 2020.
Going private
In June 2021 the Mercury News reported that Snap, the camera and social media company, had subleased about 45,000 square feet of Cloudera's space at 395 Page Mill Road. The building's owner confirmed the deal. In October 2021 the investment firms KKR and Clayton, Dubilier and Rice took Cloudera private in an all cash transaction valued at about $5.3 billion.
Wikipedia now lists Cloudera's headquarters in Santa Clara. We could not confirm the date of that move or whether Cloudera keeps any space in Palo Alto in 2026, so we do not say. Its product line has shifted from Hadoop toward what it calls a data platform and data lakehouse, sold for both public and private clouds.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| June 27, 2008 | Cloudera formed in Burlingame. |
| 2009 | Accel leads a $5 million round; Doug Cutting joins. |
| March 2014 | $160 million round, then $740 million from Intel. |
| September 2016 | Lease signed at 395 Page Mill Road. |
| April 28, 2017 | IPO. |
| January 2019 | Merger with Hortonworks completed. |
| June 2021 | Snap subleases part of the Page Mill Road space. |
| October 2021 | Taken private by KKR and CD&R. |
The Page Mill Road corridor
Cloudera's two addresses put it on one of the most important roads in Palo Alto business history. Page Mill Road runs from the Caltrain tracks and Oregon Expressway up through Stanford Research Park toward Interstate 280. A short stretch holds several landmark sites:
| Address | History |
|---|---|
| 395 Page Mill Road | HP's 1942 Redwood Building; Agilent headquarters; Google; Cloudera |
| 1001 Page Mill Road | Cloudera's earlier Palo Alto office |
| 1501 Page Mill Road | HP headquarters since 1960, now HP Inc. and HP Labs |
| Coyote Hill Road, off Page Mill Road | Xerox PARC from the 1970s, now part of SRI International |
Our HP Labs profile covers the research group at 1501 Page Mill Road.
Seeing the sites
Both Page Mill Road addresses are private offices. The easiest way to see 395 Page Mill Road is on foot from the California Avenue station, near the California Avenue shops. The campus sits beside Oregon Expressway. From there a bike ride up Page Mill Road takes you into the research park and past HP Inc.'s headquarters at 1501 Page Mill Road. For more company histories, see our companies guide and the famous tech addresses tour.
Frequently asked questions
Where was Cloudera's Palo Alto office?
Cloudera worked from about 90,000 square feet at 1001 Page Mill Road before signing a lease in September 2016 for nearly 230,000 square feet at 395 Page Mill Road. It planned to move into the larger campus by late summer 2017. Both sites are on Page Mill Road near the California Avenue area.
What is 395 Page Mill Road?
It is a 10 acre office campus that Hewlett-Packard built in 2000 for its spinoff Agilent Technologies. HP had put up its first company-owned building on the same land in 1942. Jay Paul Co. bought the campus in 2006. Tenants since then have included Google, Cloudera, Snap and Pinterest.
Where was Cloudera founded?
Cloudera was formed on June 27, 2008, in Burlingame, California. Its founders were Christophe Bisciglia from Google, Amr Awadallah from Yahoo, Jeff Hammerbacher from Facebook and chief executive Mike Olson from Oracle. Hadoop co-creator Doug Cutting joined in 2009.
Is Cloudera still in Palo Alto?
Wikipedia now lists Cloudera's headquarters in Santa Clara. In 2021 the Mercury News reported that Snap had subleased about 45,000 square feet of Cloudera's space at 395 Page Mill Road. We could not confirm whether Cloudera keeps any Palo Alto office in 2026.
Who owns Cloudera now?
In October 2021 the investment firms KKR and Clayton, Dubilier and Rice took Cloudera private in an all cash deal valued at about $5.3 billion. Cloudera had gone public on April 28, 2017 and merged with its rival Hortonworks in January 2019.