Tom Chavez is a serial tech entrepreneur and co-founder of super{set}, a venture studio that founds, funds, and forms technology companies.
For the past 20+ years, Tom’s professional focus has centered on using data, decision science, and AI to solve hard, interesting problems.
Prior to forming super{set}, Tom was the CEO and co-founder of Krux, acquired by Salesforce in 2016. Before Krux, Tom was the CEO and co-founder of Rapt, acquired by Microsoft in 2008. To date, the companies led by Tom have generated a 17.5x return for investors and substantial wealth for employees. He is also an investor in his friends’ ventures, which include companies like SafeGraph, Datavant, Flexe, Survata, MintExchange, CocoTerra, VOIQ, and tvScientific.
Alongside former Salesforce colleagues Vivek Vaidya and Chris O’Hara, Tom co-authored Data Driven: Harnessing Data and AI to Reinvent Customer Engagement, published in 2018 and winner of the 2019 Axiom Business Book Award Silver Medalist in Business Technology. The book aims to explain and “de-geekify” the latest data-driven techniques that marketers use to drive stronger engagement and smarter experiences for consumers.
Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tom currently lives and works in San Francisco. He holds a B.A. in Computer Science and Philosophy from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Engineering-Economic Systems and Operations Research from Stanford University, where he was a NASA Doctoral Fellow. He supports and serves on the boards of non-profits in the areas of education, immigration, and entrepreneurship.
Together with his sister, Elena Chavez Quezada and his wife Rosalyn Chen, Tom co-founded the Chavez Family Foundation. The philanthropy invests in non-profit projects at the intersection of education, immigration, and entrepreneurship. It is Tom’s way of honoring his amazing parents and carrying forward the values they instilled. Tom sits on the non-profit boards of KQED (public media for the Bay Area) and MTV’s Save the Music.