The Largest Tech Companies in Washington

Key Points

• Washington state is home to many large technology companies.
• The largest tech company in Washington by revenue is Amazon, at 470 billion.
• Microsoft also makes its home in Washington state, bringing revenue of 198 billion.

Washington state is home to many large tech companies, with some exciting names on the list and others you might not have expected.

With everything the state offers, it’s no wonder some of the wealthiest technology enthusiasts decided to call the “Evergreen State” home.

Let’s dive in and discover who the big tech players in Washington are.

Largest Tech Companies in Washington by Revenue

The Largest Tech Companies Founded in Washington

Amazon

Amazon is the number one native tech company in the “Evergreen State.” Amazon was founded in 1994 in Bellevue, just across Lake Washington from Seattle, and 66 miles northeast of the state capitol of Olympia. The company has a revenue of $469.82 billion.

Jeff Bezos didn’t waste any time putting his degree from Princeton University in engineering and computer science to work. After founding Amazon as an online bookstore in 1994, he quickly turned his gaze back to his roots in science. In 2000, Blue Origin was founded as a spaceflight startup and, in 2002, the company launched Amazon Web Services.

7 Interesting Facts About Amazon

• Initially, the company was going to be called “Cadabra.” The change to Amazon was done for two simple reasons. First, Jeff Bezos was a fan of his company’s revenue flowing like the South American river, and secondly, at the time, search engines used an alphabetical method. With the company name starting with “A” that would put them up front.
• In the very early stages, Bezos, his wife, and the one and only employee would hold their meetings at a Barnes and Noble.
• Amazon has 1.5 million employees worldwide as of 2022. This is certainly an impressive number but still leaves Amazon far behind giants, like Walmart, McDonald’s, and the U.S. Department of Defense, on the list of largest employers.
• Amazon’s Project Kuiper plans on bringing satellite internet from space to consumers worldwide. The projected time frame for actual use is between 2026 and 2029.
• It’s possible that in the future Amazon could take a chunk out of companies like UPS, FedEx, and even the USPS, by introducing their planned drone delivery technology.
• Although Amazon’s growth skyrocketed, the company did not really get in the black until 2003.
• The company headquarters is said to be the most dog-friendly in the world, with a reported 7,000 four-legged friends commuting with their owners to the facility.

SAP Concur (Concur Technologies)

Concur Technologies, now SAP Concur, was founded in Washington state in 1993 by Mike Hilton and brothers Rajeev and Steve Singh. As a SaaS provider for the business industry to track employee expenses and travel data, the company has continued to grow, acquiring Hipmunk in 2C016 and doing a deal with the U.S. Department of Defense in 2018 to track their employee expenses.

Concur was bought by SAP SE in 2014 for $8.3 billion, hence the new title of SAP Concur. The company has a revenue of $27.84 billion.

Highspot Software

As the first private company on our list, Highspot software has an interesting story.

When Oliver Sharp and David Wortendyke decided to change the world of tech, they did so from a small house in a Seattle neighborhood in 2012. Their mission of building a team that could accomplish this grand task was forefront in their mind. Today, Highspot has grown from that small house and team of two to 800 employees, a waterfront office headquarters in Seattle, and multiple interests that span the globe.

Because the company is private, its revenue is undisclosed, but estimated to be between $100 and $500 million.

Microsoft

Microsoft, on the other hand, is not a Washington native, because it was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1975 by childhood friends Paul Allen and Bill Gates. Now headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft is a legend in the microcomputer’s rise of the 70s and 80s.

In 1985, Microsoft released Windows 1.0 as an extension for MS-DOS. In 1986, the company headquarters were moved to Redmond, Washington, which is northeast of Seattle.

Microsoft was admittedly behind the curve when it came to the popularity of the world wide web. Because Windows 95 was released without a web browser due simply to the fact that Microsoft hadn’t developed one of its own yet. It didn’t take Gates and Microsoft long to catch up, and with their sights sharply focused on the internet by late 1995 with the introduction of MSN, Microsoft was in the game.

In the new millennium, Microsoft has added many new products to its lineup of services, including Windows XP, Xbox, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Stores, Outlook.com, Windows 10, and Microsoft Edge. The company has a revenue of $198 billion.

Esterline

Esterline has a story dating back over 100 years to 1906. Founder John Esterline of Purdue University created his company originally making recording devices. The company went through many changes in the early years, partnering with Donald Angus, merging with Boyar-Schultz, and acquiring medical supply companies in the late 1960s.

In 1968, Esterline moved to the aerospace and defense sector with the acquisition of Babcock electronics. The company also went public that same year.

Today, Esterline provides equipment to some of the largest aerospace companies in the world, including Airbus and Boeing, and has a revenue of over $2 billion.

Itron

Founded in 1977, Itron is all about the field of energy and water resources. Led by a group of enterprising engineers in Hauser Lake, Idaho, the company began to make the world of meter reading simpler and easier through automation. Now headquartered in Liberty Lake, Washington, Itron continues to be on the cutting edge of smart meters and analytics software for resource tracking.

The company has a revenue of $431.88 million.

Tableau Software, Inc.

A product of Stanford University and founders Christian Chabot, Pat Hanrahan, and Chris Stolte, this data visualization specialist formalized operations in 2003 in Mountain View, California. The company moved its headquarters to Seattle the next year.

Since its founding, Tableau has pioneered the art of querying relational databases, spreadsheets, and cloud data to produce usable visualizations for use in the information industry.

Cray, Inc

Cray, Inc. was originally founded as Cray Research in 1972 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin by Seymour Cray after he had become frustrated by managerial interruptions on his work with supercomputers. Cray is noted as “the father of supercomputers.”

The Cray company has gone through many changes, with acquisitions, financial difficulties, and Seymour Cray leaving the company. Cray, Inc. is now owned by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, having been acquired by the tech giant in 2019.

Forgotten Tech Companies in Washington

Lobotomy Software

Founded in 1993, in Redmond, Washington, this now-defunct video game developer had a very short life in the tech world. The company was acquired by Crave Entertainment in 1998 and the name was changed to Lobotomy Studios. The following year, after a failed attempt at a gambling game for Nintendo, the company was shut down permanently.

Advanced Digital Information Corp (ADIC)

ADIC was a hardware and software producer of robotic tape files and StorNext File System technologies. Founded in Redmond, Washington 1993, ADIC ceased to exist in its original form after a buyout by Quantum Corp in 2006.

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