# Mike Olson

> Mike Olson co-founded Cloudera and served as its founding CEO from 2008 to 2013. An early contributor to Postgres and Berkeley DB, he previously led Sleepycat Software before Oracle acquired it in 2006. Based in Berkeley, California, he now chairs Cityside Journalism Initiative’s board, advises technical CEOs, participates in climate-focused investment funds, and builds open-source clock projects.

- **Role:** Board Chairman at Cityside Journalism Initiative
- **Organizations:** Cloudera, Sleepycat Software, Oracle, Illustra Information Technologies, Informix, Britton Lee, University of California, Berkeley, Cityside Journalism Initiative, OpenCorporates Trust (former trustee), DataKind (former board chair), Cloudera Foundation (former board member), AIMATX (documented advisory work)
- **From:** Kansas City, United States
- **Education:** B.A., Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, M.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Doctoral study in database systems; degree not completed, University of California, Berkeley
- **Known for:** Co-founded Cloudera and served as founding CEO from 2008 to 2013., Led Sleepycat before Oracle acquired it in 2006., Contributed storage and access-method code to University POSTGRES and B-tree code to Berkeley DB.

## Career timeline

- **1979** — Began studying at UC Berkeley.
- **1982** — Left for a European summer trip that became an extended stay abroad, including work as a line cook in Amsterdam.
- **1986–1988** — Worked at database company Britton Lee.
- **1991** — Completed his Berkeley computer science bachelor’s degree.
- **1992** — Completed his Berkeley master’s degree.
- **1993** — Left doctoral studies to join Illustra, which commercialized Postgres.
- **1998** — Joined Sleepycat Software as vice president of sales and marketing.
- **2000–2006** — Served as Sleepycat CEO, according to Cloudera’s SEC filing.
- **2006–2008** — Served as Oracle vice president of embedded technologies following its acquisition of Sleepycat.
- **2008** — Co-founded Cloudera with Christophe Bisciglia, Amr Awadallah and Jeff Hammerbacher; became founding CEO.
- **2013** — Tom Reilly succeeded him as Cloudera CEO; Olson became chief strategy officer and continued as chairman.
- **2019** — Retired from Cloudera.
- **2023** — Released MultiClock for iOS and spoke at Monktoberfest about boards of directors.
- **2026** — Published an account of building and revising the UQBAR Café metric clock in West Berkeley.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Cloudera and served as founding CEO from 2008 to 2013.
- Led Sleepycat before Oracle acquired it in 2006.
- Contributed storage and access-method code to University POSTGRES and B-tree code to Berkeley DB.
- Chairs Cityside Journalism Initiative’s board.
- Created MultiClock, an open-source iOS app displaying civil and solar time.

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Published “Building the UQBAR Clock” on March 26, explaining a revised metric clock installed in West Berkeley.
- **2025-02** — Described himself as an AIMATX advisor in a public hiring post shared by Brandon Freeman.
- **2024-12** — Appealed for support for Cityside Journalism Initiative, identifying himself as board chairman.

## Links

- Website: https://www.olsons.net/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeolson2/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/mikeolson
- GitHub: https://github.com/maolson0
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mikeolson.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/mike-olson
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-22