Ever since he was a student at the University of Washington, Armon Dadgar (B.S., ‘11) has had his head in the cloud. And despite co-founding the high-flying company HashiCorp after graduation, he has kept his feet firmly on the ground by finding ways to parlay his success into support for future innovators and entrepreneurs.
That success grew out of an experience Dadgar and his friend and co-founder, Mitchell Hashimoto (B.S., ‘11), had as undergraduate researchers in the Allen School’s systems research group. It was there that the two gained their first hands-on exposure to cloud computing and the challenges it posed for practitioners. At the time, cloud computing was on the rise, and of today’s three big players — Amazon, Google and Microsoft — only Amazon had officially launched its platform. But Dadgar and Hashimoto had access to all three for the aptly named Seattle Project, which aimed to leverage these emerging platforms for large-scale, peer-to-peer scientific applications. As part of the project, the duo attempted to build a software solution that would span the “multi-cloud” environment they had to work with.
They were unsuccessful on that first attempt, but according to Dadgar, the experience sparked their entrepreneurial spirit. After graduation, they moved to San Francisco and eventually decided to revisit the old research problems that had since emerged on an enterprise scale. They started HashiCorp, which became a leading provider of software for companies and organizations seeking to automate their infrastructure and security management in multi-cloud and hybrid environments. As co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dadgar helped grow HashiCorp to over 2,500 employees. The company counted such household names as Expedia and Starbucks among its roughly 5,000 commercial customers prior to its acquisition by IBM for $6.4 billion earlier this year, after going public in 2021.
“Major revolutions in computing, such as the public cloud, have depended on crucial research innovation in computer systems. As an undergrad in the Allen School, I was fortunate to have been exposed to research in operating systems, virtualization, networking, and more which underpins the public cloud,” said Dadgar. “Those experiences ultimately led to me founding HashiCorp. By supporting systems research, I hope for the Allen School to continue to be at the forefront of innovation in AI and beyond to inspire the next generation of students, researchers and entrepreneurs.”
Dadgar may have traded the city by the sound for the city by the bay years ago, but his affection for the UW is evergreen. Now, he and his partner, Joshua Kalla, are living in Seattle and hoping to sow the seeds of the next HashiCorp through a $3 million gift to the Allen School to support research and student success — and drive the next wave of systems innovation for the artificial intelligence era. The couple’s commitment includes $1 million to establish the Armon Dadgar & Joshua Kalla Endowed Professorship in Computer Science & Engineering, with the intent to help propel Seattle and Dadgar’s alma mater from the epicenter of cloud computing to the leading edge at the intersection of systems and AI.
“We are incredibly grateful to Armon and Josh for their generosity,” said Magdalena Balazinska, director of the Allen School and Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering. “The Allen School is one of the top computer science programs in the country, and an academic leader in cloud computing, systems, and AI research. But to maintain that leadership and continue to make transformational advances while educating the next generation of innovators, we need support to attract and retain the most talented faculty and students. Armon’s and Josh’s gift will greatly help us with that.”
While Dadgar is eager to give next-generation systems research a lift, he is even more enthusiastic about elevating the next generation of students entering the field. To that end, he and Kalla have committed $2 million to the Allen School Student Success Fund to support a variety of initiatives aimed at prospective and current Allen School students, with a focus on first-generation college students and K-12 students in Washington with limited access to computing education resources.
“Education has always been an incredible driver of economic mobility,” said Dadgar. “Our goal is to broaden the pathways into computer science and technology, and particularly to focus on first-generation college students where we can have a multi-generational impact on both the individual and their families.”
Dadgar has repeatedly walked the talk, whether on campus or at company headquarters. At HashiCorp, he championed the creation of the Early Career Program in 2021 to enable college students of all majors and backgrounds to spend a summer at HashiCorp applying what they’ve learned in the classroom in a real-world corporate setting. More than 170 interns from across the country have benefited from the program’s mentorship and networking opportunities — over a third of whom accepted full-time positions with the company after graduation. In 2019, Dadgar and Kalla committed $3.6 million to the UW to provide scholarships to undergraduate students who participate in the university’s Educational Opportunity Program, which has supported 35 scholars to date.
As a professor at Yale University, Kalla is well aware of the impact such programs can have on students — and the institutions that provide them with that pathway to economic mobility.
“The University environment is a unique setting where students are exposed to new ideas, learn valuable skills, and through research advance the frontiers of knowledge,” said Kalla. “Creating opportunities for the next generation to participate and ultimately to lead us forward is incredibly important to us personally.”
Among the programs supported by the Student Success Fund are the Allen School Scholars Program, a one-year cohort-based program for incoming computer science and computer engineering majors focused on emerging leaders from first generation, low-income and underserved communities, and Changemakers in Computing, a summer program for rising juniors and seniors in high school to learn about computing and its societal impacts.
“We’re hugely appreciative of Armon and Josh’s extraordinary generosity, which will have a lasting impact on our program and our students,” said Ed Lazowska, professor and the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair Emeritus at the Allen School. “This gift is an opportunity to reflect on the inspirational story of HashiCorp: best friends pursuing a vision that began with some software that they built as part of an undergraduate project in the Allen School — and it will enable future generations of Allen School students to pursue their dreams.”
Read a related GeekWire story.