David Tennenhouse

Research and Innovation, VMware
David Tennenhouse is VMware’s Chief Research Officer. He leads the research & innovation activities that are accelerating and extending VMware’s technology leadership. These include: formation of a new VMware research group focused on networks and distributed systems; a portfolio of advanced development and incubation activities that are hosted in the product teams; in-house hackathons; experimental prototypes that are released to customers; joint research projects with VMware’s technology partners, customers and relevant startups; and the VMware academic program of engagements with university researchers.

David has a strong track record of driving innovation, both in academia and industry. He joined VMware from Microsoft, where he was a Corporate Vice President and led their Technology Policy group. David was previously a Partner at New Venture Partners, where he focused on the creation of spin-outs from corporate R&D teams. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Platform Strategy at Amazon and CEO of its A9.com subsidiary. Before Amazon/A9, David was Vice President and Director of Research at Intel Corporation where he pioneered an "open collaborative" approach to corporate research. This was, in part, based on his earlier work as DARPA's Chief Scientist and Director of its Information Technology Office.

At both DARPA and Intel, Dr. Tennenhouse was involved in the strategic planning and execution of programs related to a wide range of technologies, including distributed/cloud computing, networking, computer architecture, wireless communications, machine learning, search/data mining, image processing, robotics, MEMs, healthcare, and nano/bio-technology. As a faculty member at MIT, he led research on high-speed networking, active networks, software radio and telecommunications policy.

David holds a B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. He is a member of the ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the FCC’s Technology Advisory Board.

Lev Mass is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at XSeed Capital, bringing extensive expertise in cloud computing, mobile, and business development.

Prior to joining XSeed, Lev ran operations and business development for the Cloud Group at Yahoo!. While at Yahoo!, Lev helped to facilitate the spin-off of the Hadoop Group into what is now Hortonworks, a leading big data company. In addition, he held a number of executive roles at Yahoo! helping to define strategy for mobile, social, cloud and big data. Previous to Yahoo!, Lev was an investment banker with Thomas Weisel Partners focused on TMT (technology, media, telecommunications) and health technology.


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