About

Tom Hogan’s BIO

Archaeology: Undergraduate and graduate work in Biblical History and Archaeology led Tom to become a ceramic specialist on digs in Israel, dating strata (levels of civilization) by the type and quality of ceramic shards discovered there. That led to work at the Harvard Semitic Museum, where he worked with the team deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Holocaust: Funded by a grant from the National Conference for Community and Justice, Tom developed one of the first programs for introducing the Holocaust into high school and university curricula. He then became a lecturer in Holocaust Studies at Santa Clara University. In 2000 he took a five-year sabbatical from his work in tech marketing (below) to become an associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at UC Santa Cruz.

Technology Marketing: Tom joined Oracle in its early days as the company’s first Creative Director, developing the marketing programs (including ORACLE Magazine and Oracle Open World) that distinguished the company in its early days. He eventually migrated to the VC (Venture Capital) world as the founder of Crowded Ocean, a small agency that specialized in launching startups. Crowded Ocean has launched 51 startups, with 17 of them going public or being acquired, a remarkable 33% success rate in an industry where 10% is considered great.

Writing: While doing his graduate work in Biblical Archaeology at Harvard, his novel (which later became What the Hell) was selected by the Nieman Foundation for sponsorship, which included being coached by Ann Beattie. Over the years he wrote for a number of political and travel journals, including an article for Newsweek about pedophilia in the Catholic Church. In 2018 he retired from Silicon Valley and moved to Austin to write full-time.