On December 1, 2020, Tanium announced that it would move its North American headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to Kirkland, Washington. The decision was made by co-founder and then-CEO Orion Hindawi during the pandemic’s rapid shift to remote work. It was a real headquarters relocation, but not a complete withdrawal from California.
The announcement concerned a cybersecurity company valued at more than $9 billion after a 2020 funding round. Tanium said it would keep a substantial Bay Area presence while establishing a new office at Kirkland’s Carillon Point.
What Tanium announced on December 1, 2020
Tanium’s official announcement said its North American headquarters would move to 3550 Carillon Point in Kirkland, Washington. The planned office measured approximately 6,798 square feet and was expected to open in mid-2021 for employees based in the Puget Sound region.
The company described the move as a way to broaden its geographic footprint and improve access to Washington’s technology ecosystem. The announcement came about six months after Tanium adopted a remote-first workplace model. Read the company’s original announcement at Tanium’s press release.
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That wording matters. Tanium moved its North American headquarters; the announcement did not say that every global operation or employee was moving to Washington.
It was not a total departure from the Bay Area
Tanium said it would retain a significant San Francisco-area presence and continue supporting employees who worked remotely. GeekWire reported that the company initially kept its large Emeryville office while considering whether it still needed all of the space.
Employees also did not simply move from California to Seattle. GeekWire reported that 99 Bay Area employees relocated elsewhere, leaving approximately 167 in the region at the time. Some workers moved to cities including Denver, St. Louis and Austin.
The most accurate description is therefore: Tanium shifted its North American headquarters from the Bay Area to Kirkland while maintaining a major California operation and a distributed workforce. Calling it an abandonment of San Francisco or a global headquarters move overstates what was announced.
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Hindawi’s explanation combined personal circumstances with business considerations. He had moved with his family to the Seattle area, and several Tanium executives were already there. He said the company’s “center of gravity” had begun shifting toward Seattle before the formal headquarters decision.
Talent and business relationships
Hindawi cited Seattle’s enterprise-software and engineering talent. Tanium also had relationships with companies that maintain substantial Seattle-area engineering operations, including Google Cloud and Salesforce. A Kirkland base offered access to the broader Eastside and Seattle labor market without requiring the company to recreate its Bay Area concentration.
Costs and the regional business climate
Lower perceived operating costs and what Hindawi called a favorable business climate were part of the case for Washington. He also spoke favorably about the region’s economic base and governance. These were his assessments, not independent rankings or measurements established by the announcement.
Washington’s lack of a state individual income tax was relevant background, but Hindawi told GeekWire that personal taxes were not the direct reason for his move. Tanium also said it received no public relocation incentives and that Hindawi had not requested them.
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Quality of life
Hindawi pointed to the Seattle area’s natural surroundings and what he viewed as a better balance of work, family and daily life. Those considerations influenced his personal relocation and helped make the region a plausible headquarters location once remote work reduced the need for a single employment center.
What Hindawi meant by saying San Francisco was “not the city it was”
In his interview with GeekWire, Hindawi said San Francisco was “not the city it was” 20 years earlier. He connected that view to rising costs, governance, business conditions and social problems in the Bay Area.
That statement should be read as Hindawi’s opinion and explanation for a corporate decision, not as a settled finding about San Francisco. The move reflected several factors at once: his dissatisfaction, the company’s cost and talent calculations, and employees’ changing location choices during the pandemic.
How remote work changed the decision
Tanium’s remote-first policy allowed employees to work from different locations while retaining their pay. That removed one of the strongest reasons to preserve a single Bay Area employment hub.
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- Remote work reduced the need for every employee to live near Emeryville.
- Employees moved for housing, family and lifestyle reasons, including to cities outside Washington.
- Tanium followed the workforce rather than requiring everyone to return to its former headquarters.
- The Kirkland designation formalized a shift management believed had already occurred.
Hindawi characterized the Bay Area employee movement as a “mass exodus.” That is his description of the company’s experience, not a neutral statistical category, and the 2020 pattern was unusually shaped by COVID-19.
How large was Tanium at the time?
The figures below describe Tanium around the 2020 announcement and are not current operating metrics.
| Measure | 2020 figure | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Private-company valuation | More than $9 billion | Valuation associated with a 2020 funding round, not a public-market capitalization |
| Prior-year revenue | More than $430 million | Historical revenue reported by GeekWire |
| Worldwide employees | About 1,500 | Historical workforce estimate |
| Bay Area employees who relocated | 99 | Company-reported figure as presented by GeekWire |
| Bay Area employees remaining | About 167 | Historical figure after those relocations |
| New Kirkland office | 6,798 square feet | Planned 3550 Carillon Point location, expected mid-2021 opening |
Hindawi also said Tanium might eventually expand its Seattle-area footprint to as much as 50,000 square feet. That was a forecast, not a confirmed later outcome.
The trade-offs of a hybrid headquarters strategy
Potential advantages
- Access to a large enterprise-software and engineering labor market.
- A presence in a growing technology region alongside existing executives and partners.
- Lower perceived operating costs than the Bay Area.
- More flexibility for employees who did not want to relocate to Washington.
- A smaller initial office compatible with remote-first work.
Risks and complications
- Maintaining Emeryville and Kirkland could create duplicated real-estate costs.
- A distributed workforce can reduce informal collaboration and cultural cohesion.
- A headquarters label does not move every employee or eliminate other offices.
- Seattle-area hiring also puts Tanium in competition with Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Salesforce and other major employers.
- Political and quality-of-life judgments are subjective and should not be treated as universal facts.
The wider 2020 technology exodus
Tanium’s move was part of a broader pandemic-era reconsideration of Bay Area offices. GeekWire linked it to executive and employee relocations involving companies such as Dropbox and Splunk, as well as contemporaneous changes in office vacancies, rents and housing demand.
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The timing is important. COVID-19 temporarily changed where people worked and lived, so a 2020 headquarters decision cannot automatically be treated as proof that the same office model or relocation trend continued unchanged. Tanium’s decision also had pre-pandemic foundations: an existing Seattle executive network, dissatisfaction with Bay Area conditions and a desire to recruit in the region.
What is known about Tanium afterward?
Tanium’s LinkedIn company page currently lists Kirkland, Washington, as its headquarters and identifies the Carillon Point address as its primary location: Tanium on LinkedIn. This is a company-profile listing, not a statement that every California operation ended.
Tanium’s 2025 fact sheet identifies Dan Streetman as CEO and Orion Hindawi as a co-founder. It reports a $9 billion valuation, more than $700 million in annual recurring revenue, more than 1,900 employees and 17 offices in 15 countries. Those are dated, company-reported 2025 figures rather than independently verified live metrics for 2026. The fact sheet is available at Tanium’s 2025 fact sheet.
The accurate bottom line on the relocation
Tanium’s 2020 decision was a formal headquarters shift to Kirkland, enabled by remote work and supported by Seattle-area talent, executive relationships, cost considerations and Hindawi’s personal preference. It was not a clean break with California. The company retained a substantial Bay Area presence, employees dispersed to several other cities, and the “$9 billion” description referred to a historical private valuation.
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