# Databricks AI and data platform company that sits at a critical intersection of Silicon Valley venture capital, CIA investment, federal government adoption, and the DOGE-to-Pentagon pipeline. [[Gavin Kliger]] left a senior engineer role at Databricks to join [[DOGE Ecosystem]], and 14 months later became Chief Data Officer of the Department of Defense. Databricks is backed by [[Marc Andreessen]]'s a16z — the same VC firm that has placed multiple executives into the Trump administration. ## Company Overview Founded in 2013 by Ali Ghodsi, Ion Stoica, Matei Zaharia, and others. Headquartered in San Francisco. Commercializes Apache Spark for enterprise AI and data applications. | Metric | Value | |--------|-------| | **Valuation** | $134 billion (Series L, December 2025) | | **Revenue run-rate** | $5.4 billion (Q4 2025), growing 65% YoY | | **AI revenue** | $1.4 billion run-rate | | **Latest funding** | $5B+ equity + $2B debt (February 2026) | ## a16z Investment & the Trump Administration Pipeline [[Andreessen Horowitz]] has been the dominant investor since Series A (2013). [[Ben Horowitz]] personally invested $14 million in the first round and has participated in every subsequent round. a16z led the Series D ($140M, 2017) and Series F ($400M at $6.2B valuation, 2019), and co-led the most recent Series L. Three a16z figures now hold Trump administration positions — creating a direct investor-to-government pipeline: | Person | a16z Role | Government Role | |--------|-----------|----------------| | **[[Sriram Krishnan]]** | Former partner | Senior White House AI Policy Advisor; National Economic Council (2026); co-authored American [[AI Action Plan]] | | **Scott Kupor** | COO since 2009 | Director of Office of Personnel Management (confirmed July 2025); oversees potential elimination of 300,000 federal jobs | | **Brian Quintenz** | Crypto policy head | Nominated for CFTC Chair (February 2025); former Republican CFTC commissioner | Marc Andreessen is reportedly "quietly helping with government staff recruitment," suggesting the pipeline extends beyond these three positions. ## CIA / [[In-Q-Tel]] Investment In-Q-Tel — the CIA's venture capital arm — invested in Databricks in June 2016 to deliver cloud-based Apache Spark for the U.S. [[Intelligence Community Hub]]. In-Q-Tel's 2024 investment valued Databricks at ~$43B. The investment enabled Spark to meet mission-critical requirements for real-time data integration, advanced analytics, and secure collaboration across intelligence networks. Databricks is now one of In-Q-Tel's most successful investments. ## Government & Defense Contracts | Metric | Detail | |--------|--------| | **Federal adoption** | 400+ public sector organizations; **80% of U.S. federal executive departments** | | **DoD authorization** | IL5 on AWS GovCloud (Controlled Unclassified Information and National Security Information) | | **FedRAMP** | High authorization | | **DoD contracts** | CDAO awarded $17M prototype contract (OTA) for rapid AI delivery | | **Partners** | Booz Allen Hamilton (Joint AI Center, Army Futures Command, Veterans Benefits Administration); Deloitte Consulting | ## The DOGE–Pentagon Pipeline [[Gavin Kliger]] spent five years as a Senior Software Engineer at Databricks before leaving (with substantial unvested stock) to join [[DOGE Ecosystem]] in January 2025. After deployment across six federal agencies (IRS, USDA, CFPB, USAID, FTC, USAGM), he was named Chief Data Officer of the Department of Defense in March 2026 — where he now oversees GenAI.mil and the Drone Dominance Program. This trajectory — from a16z-backed company → DOGE → Pentagon leadership — illustrates the [[PayPal Mafia to Pentagon Pipeline]] in miniature. Databricks' existing IL5 authorization and 80% federal department adoption means Kliger already understood the data infrastructure he would later oversee as DoD CDO. ## See Also - [[Gavin Kliger]] - [[DOGE Ecosystem]] - [[Marc Andreessen]] - [[Defense Tech Conflicts of Interest]] - [[PayPal Mafia to Pentagon Pipeline]] - [[Palantir]]