Customers

Customer Support, Services and Education

We have built a company culture that focuses on consistently delivering value for our customers and ensuring their success and satisfaction. We deliver exceptional support, professional services and training to ensure our

In addition, our services organization provides expertise for adoption and optimization of our solutions. Our experienced solution architects, business value consultants and training professionals enhance the customer experience with personalized assistance, from implementation and best practices to education and online training. These services help our customers accelerate time to value, modernize their data architecture, and maximize insight from their data.

We believe that we can further advance the clients’ goals through education. In addition to offering online training, we have trained thousands of individuals through January 31, 2019.2020. Through the Cloudera Academic Program, we provide access to curriculum, software and training to colleges and universities to accelerate the adoption of theour platform.

Sales and Marketing

We primarily sell through our direct sales force, which comprises field and inside sales personnel and was organized by enterprise size and geography in fiscal 2018. Based on our experience and analysis of customer buying behavior, beginning in fiscal 2019, we have refined ourpersonnel. Our sales methodology to includeincludes field personnel dedicated primarily to acquiring new customers and field personnel dedicated primarily to expanding our relationships with existing customers.

Our sales force is supported by sales engineers with deep technical expertise and responsibility for pre‑salespre-sales technical support, solutions engineering for our end‑customers,end-customers, and technical training for our channel and strategic partners.

We generate customer leads, accelerate sales opportunities, and build brand awareness through our marketing programs and through our strategic partner relationships. Our marketing programs target both the C‑suiteC-suite and the line of business owners, technology professionals and risk professionals, as well as software developers and data scientists.

Our principal marketing programs include:

Partners and Strategic Alliances

We believe that strong engagement with our partner ecosystem affords us increased reach and greater distribution of our software, enhancing our field organization’s efforts. We have developed a large partner network in order to facilitate the establishment of industry standards, ensure an open ecosystem for our customers, accelerate the adoption of our platform and extend our sales capabilities and coverage. Over 3,000 vendors – a variety of systems integrators, resellers, software and OEM partners, managed service providers, data systems vendors and cloud and platform vendors comprising have registered under our Cloudera Connect partner program to gain access to marketing, sales, training and support resources.

Our partners and strategic alliances include:

Research and Development 

Our research and development organization is responsible for the design and development of our solutions. We focus on developing new services and technologies and further enhancing the functionality, reliability and performance of our existing solutions.

Competition

Our main sources of current and potential competition fall into five categories:

As the market for data management analytics and machine learninganalytics platforms continues to grow and offerings based on the open source data management ecosystem continue to gain traction, we expect more highly specialized vendors will enter the market or larger competitors will bundle solutions with their products more effectively.

The principal competitive factors in our market include:

We believe that we compete favorably on the basis of these factors. Our ability to remain competitive will largely depend on our ongoing performance in the areas of public cloud, hybrid cloud, multi-cloud and private cloud as well as industry adoption of enterprise data cloud technologies.

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is an important aspect of our business, and we actively seek protection for our intellectual property as appropriate. To establish and protect our proprietary rights, we rely upon a combination of patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark laws and contractual restrictions such as confidentiality agreements, licenses and intellectual property assignment agreements. We maintain a policy requiring our employees, contractors, consultants and other third parties to enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements to control access to our proprietary information. These laws, procedures and restrictions provide only limited protection, and any of our intellectual property rights may be challenged, invalidated, circumvented, infringed or misappropriated. Furthermore, the laws of certain countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and we therefore may be unable to protect our proprietary technology in certain jurisdictions. Moreover, our platform incorporates software components licensed to the general public under open source software licenses such as the Apache 2.0 Software License. We obtain many components from software developed and released by contributors to independent open source components of our platform. Open source licenses grant licensees broad permissions to use, copy, modify and redistribute our platform. As a result, open source development and licensing practices can limit the value of our software copyright assets.

Employees

As of January 31, 2019,2020, we had 2,947 full‑time2,723 full-time employees. Of these employees, 1,6971,429 are in the United States and 1,2501,294 are in our international locations. None of our employees is represented by a labor union or covered by collective bargaining agreements. We have not experienced any work stoppages. We consider our relationship with our employees to be good.

Corporate Information

We were incorporated in the state of Delaware in June 2008. In January 2019, we completed a merger with Hortonworks, Inc, pursuant to which Hortonworks, Inc. became a subsidiary of Cloudera. Our principal executive offices are located at 395 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, California 94306 and our telephone number is (650) 362‑0488.362-0488. Our website address is www.cloudera.com. TheWebsite references are intended to be inactive textual references only, and the information on, or that can be accessed through, our website is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CLDR.”

Unless the context indicates otherwise, the terms “Cloudera,” “the Company,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Cloudera, Inc., a Delaware corporation, together with its consolidated subsidiaries, unless otherwise noted.

Cloudera, the Cloudera logo, and other registered or common law trade names, trademarks, or service marks of Cloudera appearing in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are the property of Cloudera. This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains additional trade names, trademarks and service marks of other companies that are the property of their respective owners. We do not intend our use or display of other companies’ trade names, trademarks or service marks to imply a relationship with us, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by these other companies. Solely for convenience, our trademarks and tradenames referred to in this Annual Report on Form 10-K appear without the ® and ™ symbols, but those references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that we will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our rights, or the right of the applicable licensor, to these trademarks and tradenames.

Available Information

We file annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a), 14 and 15(d) of the Securities and Exchange Act.Act of 1934, as amended. The SEC maintains a website at http://www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

Risks Related to our Business

We have incurred net losses since our founding in 2008, including net losses of $336.6 million, $192.6 million and $369.7 million and $158.4 million and for the years ended January 31, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 20172018, respectively, and expect to continue to incur net losses for the foreseeable future. As a result, we had an accumulated deficit of $1.1$1.5 billion atas of January 31, 2019.2020. These losses and accumulated deficit reflect the substantial investments we made to acquire new customers, commercialize our platform, participate in the open source development community and develop our proprietary software components, and continue to develop our platform. In addition, as a result of our merger with Hortonworks, we have incurred substantial transaction costs and expect to incur further increases in our cost of revenue and operating expenses in connection with the integration of the Hortonworks’ platform.purchased intangible amortization costs. Furthermore, to the extent we are successful in increasing our customer base, we may also incur increased losses because customer acquisition costs and upfront costs associated with new customers are higher in the first year than the aggregate revenue we recognize from those new customers in the first year.

We expect to continue to make significant future expenditures related to the development and expansion of our business, including:

As a result of these increased expenses, we will have to generate and sustain increased revenue to be profitable in future periods. Further, in future periods, our revenue growth rate could decline, and we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to offset higher costs and achieve or sustain profitability. If we fail to achieve, sustain or increase profitability, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

The market for a data management, machine learning and analytics platform is relatively new, rapidly evolving and unproven. Our future success will depend in large part on our ability to penetrate the existing market for data management, machine learning and analytics platforms, as well as the continued growth and expansion of that market. It is difficult to predict customer adoption and renewals of our subscriptions, customer demand for our platform, the size, growth rate and expansion of this market, the entry of competitive products or the success of existing competitive products. Our ability to penetrate the existing market for data management, machine learning and analytics platforms and any expansion of that market depends on a number of factors, including the cost, performance and perceived value associated with our platform, as well as potential customers’ willingness to adopt an alternative approach to data collection, storage and processing. If we or other data management providers experience security incidents, loss of customer data, disruptions in delivery or other problems, the market for data management, machine learning and analytics platforms as a whole, including our solutions, may be negatively affected. Furthermore, many potential customers have made significant investments in legacy data collection,

The market for data management, machine learning and analytics platforms is intensely competitive and characterized by rapid changes in technology, customer requirements, industry standards and frequent new product introductions and improvements. We anticipate continued challenges from current competitors, which in many cases are more established and enjoy greater resources than us, as well as by new entrants into the industry. If we are unable to anticipate or effectively react to these competitive challenges, our competitive position could weaken, and we could experience a decline in our growth rate or revenue that could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our main sources of current and potential competition fall into five categories:

Many of our existing competitors have, and some of our potential competitors could have, substantial competitive advantages such as:

In addition, some of our larger competitors have substantially broader and more diverse product and service offerings and may be able to leverage their relationships with distribution partners and customers based on other

In addition, new innovative start‑upstart-up companies, including emerging cloud-only data management companies, and larger companies that are making significant investments in research and development, may introduce products that have greater performance or functionality, are easier to implement or use, or incorporate technological advances that we have not yet developed or implemented or may invent similar or superior products and technologies that compete with our platform. Our current and potential competitors may also establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties that may further enhance their resources.

Some of our competitors have made or could make acquisitions of businesses or enter into partnerships that allow them to offer more competitive and comprehensive solutions. As a result of such arrangements, our current or potential competitors may be able to accelerate the adoption of new technologies that better address customer needs, devote greater resources to bring these products and services to market, initiate or withstand substantial price competition, or develop and expand their product and service offerings more quickly than we do. These competitive pressures in our market or our failure to compete effectively may result in fewer orders, reduced revenue and gross margins and loss of market share. In addition, it is possible that industry consolidation may impact customers’ perceptions of the viability of smaller or even mid‑sizemid-size software firms and consequently customers’ willingness to purchase from such firms.

We may not compete successfully against our current or potential competitors. If we are unable to compete successfully, or if competing successfully requires us to take costly actions in response to the actions of our competitors, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected. In addition, companies competing with us may have an entirely different pricing or distribution model. Increased competition could result in fewer customer orders, price reductions, reduced revenue and gross margins and loss of market share. Further, we may be required to make substantial additional investments in research, development, marketing and sales in order to respond to such competitive threats, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to compete successfully in the future.

As part of our business strategy, we have acquired companies in the past and may evaluate and consider potential strategic transactions, including acquisitions of, or investments in, businesses, technologies, services, products and other assets in the future. For example, on January 3, 2019, we completed our merger with Hortonworks. We also may enter into relationships with other businesses to expand our solutions or our ability to provide services. An acquisition, investment or business relationship may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. In particular, we may encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel or operations of the acquired companies, particularly if the key personnel of the acquired company choose not to work for us, their technology is not easily adapted to work with ours, or we have difficulty retaining the customers of any acquired business due to changes in ownership, management or otherwise. Negotiating these transactions can be time‑consuming,time-consuming, difficult and expensive, and our ability to close these transactions may often be subject to conditions or approvals that are beyond our control. Consequently, these transactions, even if undertaken and announced, may not close.

Even if we are able to complete acquisitions or enter into alliances and joint ventures that we believe will be successful, such transactions are inherently risky. Acquisitions, including the recently completed merger with Hortonworks, involve many risks, including the following:

If we are unable to address these difficulties and challenges or other problems encountered in connection with any future acquisition or investment, we might not realize the anticipated benefits of that acquisition or investment, we might incur unanticipated liabilities or we might otherwise suffer harm to our business generally.

To the extent we pay the consideration for any future acquisitions or investments in cash, the payment would reduce the amount of cash available to us for other purposes. The merger with Hortonworks resulted in, and future acquisitions or investments could also result in, dilutive issuances of our equity securities or the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities, amortization expenses, or impairment charges against goodwill on our balance sheet, any of which could harm our financial condition and negatively impact our stockholders.

We introduced CDP Public Cloud in September 2019, and Data Center in November 2019. We have less experience with marketing, determining pricing for and selling CDP, and we are continuing to refine our approach to selling, marketing, pricing and supporting adoption of this offering. We have directed, and intend to continue to direct, a significant portion of our financial and Hortonworks’ platforms, each of which has operated independently prioroperating resources to develop and may continuegrow CDP, including offering trials to operate independently for some time after the closing of the merger, presents significant challengesexisting and we may not be successful at integrating the independent platforms or realizing the anticipated synergies and other expected benefits of the merger.

One of the characteristics of open source software is that the governing license terms generally allow liberal modifications of the code and distribution thereof to a wide group of companies and/or individuals. As a result, others could easily develop new software products or services based upon those open source programs that compete with existing open source software that we support and incorporate into our platform. Our recently announced licensing model changes might be ineffective to slow or alter these competitive dynamics. Such competition with use of the open source projects that we utilize can materialize without the same degree of overhead and lead time required by us, particularly if the customers do not value the differentiation of our proprietary components. It is possible for new and existing competitors, including those with greater resources than ours, to develop their own open source software or hybrid proprietary and open source software offerings, potentially reducing the demand for, and putting price pressure on, our platform. In addition, some competitors make open source software available for free download or use or may position competing open source software as a loss leader. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors or that competitive pressure and/or the availability of open source software will not result in price reductions, reduced revenue and gross margins and loss of market share, any one of which could seriously harm our business.

Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to sell renewals of subscriptions and expand the deployment of our platform with existing customers. While we generally offer subscriptions of up to three years in length, our customers often purchase one-year subscriptions which generally do not provide for automatic renewal or a right to terminate the subscription early. Our customers may not renew or expand the use of their subscriptions after the expiration of their current subscription agreements. In addition, our customers may opt for a lower‑lower priced edition of our platform or decrease their usage of our platform. Our existing customers generally have no contractual obligation to expand or renew their subscriptions after the expiration of the committed subscription period and given our limited operating history, we may not be able to accurately predict customer renewal rates. Our customers’ renewal and/or expansion pricing rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of factors, including, but not limited to, their satisfaction with our platform including CDP, and our customer support, including the integrated platform we are developing combining Cloudera and Hortonworks technologies, the frequency and severity of software and implementation errors, our platform’s reliability, the pricing of our subscriptions and services or of competing solutions or services, the effects of global economic conditions and their ability to continue their operations and spending levels. If our customers renew their subscriptions, they may renew for shorter contract lengths, less usage or on other terms that are less economically beneficial to us. Our implementation of a "pay wall" for the distribution of some of our software solutions might prove ineffective at improving our renewal and/or expansion rates with existing customers or deal close rates with new customers. We have limited historical data with respect to rates of customer subscription renewals, so we may not accurately predict future renewal trends. We cannot assure you that our customers will renew or expand their subscriptions, and if our customers do not renew their agreements or renew on less favorable terms or for less usage, our revenue may grow more slowly than expected or decline and our business could suffer.

Achieving renewal or expansion of subscriptions may require us to increasingly engage in sophisticated and costly sales efforts that may not result in additional sales. In addition, the rate at which our customers expand the deployment of our platform depends on a number of factors, including general economic conditions, the functioning of our solutions, the ability of our field organization, together with our partner ecosystem, to assist our customers in identifying new use cases, modernizing their data architectures, and achieving success with data‑drivendata-driven initiatives and our customers’ satisfaction with our customer support. If our efforts to expand penetration within our customers are not successful, our business may suffer.

Our results of operations may fluctuate, in part, because of the resource‑intensiveresource-intensive nature of our sales efforts, the length and variability of the sales cycle for our platform and the difficulty in making short‑termshort-term adjustments to our operating expenses. The timing of our sales is difficult to predict. The length of our sales cycle, from initial evaluation to payment for our subscriptions is generally four to nine months, but can vary substantially from customer to customer. Our sales cycle can extend to more than 18 months for some customers. Our sales efforts involve educating our customers about the use, technical capabilities and benefits of our platform, solutions and open source model. Customers often undertake a prolonged evaluation process, which frequently involves not only our platform but also those of other companies. Some of our customers initially deploy our platform on a limited basis, with no guarantee that these customers will deploy our platform widely enough across their organization to justify our substantial pre‑salespre-sales investment. As a result, it is difficult to predict exactly when, or even if, we will make a sale to a potential customer or if we can increase sales to our existing customers. Large individual sales have, in some cases, occurred in quarters subsequent to those we anticipated, or have not occurred at all. If our sales cycle lengthens or our substantial upfront investments do not result in sufficient revenue to justify our investments, our operating results could be adversely affected.

We have seasonal and end-of-quarter concentration of our sales, which impacts our ability to plan and manage cash flows and margins. Our sales vary by season, with the fourth quarter typically being our largest. In addition, within each quarter, most sales occur in the last month of that quarter. Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether we are achieving our quarterly expectations until near the end of the quarter, with seasonality magnifying the difficulty for determining whether we will achieve annual expectations. Most of our expenses are relatively fixed or require time to adjust. Therefore, if expectations for our business are not accurate, we may not be able to adjust our cost structure on a timely basis and margins and cash flows may differ from expectations.

We have limited experience with respect to determining the optimal prices and pricing models for our solutions, especially as we integrate with Hortonworks and develop new offerings such as the Cloudera Data Platform. As the markets for our solutions mature, or as new competitors introduce new products or services that compete with ours, we may be unable to attract new

Our results of operations, including our revenue, net revenue expansion rate, gross margin, profitability and cash flows, may vary significantly in the future, and period‑to‑periodperiod-to-period comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful. Accordingly, our results for any particular period should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Our financial results may fluctuate from period to period as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. Fluctuation in periodic results may adversely impact the value of our common stock. Factors that may cause fluctuations in our periodic financial results include, without limitation, those listed elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section and those listed below:

Any one of the factors above or the cumulative effect of some of the factors above may result in significant fluctuations in our operating results. This variability and unpredictability could result in our failure to meet our revenue or other operating result expectations or those of investors for a particular period. The failure to meet or exceed such expectations could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition that could ultimately adversely affect our stock price.

We derive and expect to continue to derive substantially all of our revenue from our data management, machine learning and analytics platform. As such, the market acceptance of our platform is critical to our continued success. Demand for our platform is affected by a number of factors beyond our control, including continued market acceptance, the timing of development and release of new products by our competitors, technological change, any developments or disagreements with the open source community and growth or contraction in our market. We expect the growth and proliferation of data to lead to an increase in the data analysis demands of our customers, and our platform may not be able to scale and perform to meet those demands or may not be chosen by users for those needs. If we are unable to continue to meet customer demands or to achieve more widespread market acceptance of our platform and solutions, our business operations, financial results and growth prospects will be materially and adversely affected.

Companies in the software and technology industries, including some of our current and potential competitors, own large numbers of patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets and frequently enter into litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. In addition, many of these companies have the capability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce their intellectual property rights and to defend claims that may be brought against them. The litigation may involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners that have no relevant product revenue and against which our patents may therefore provide little or no deterrence. From time‑to‑time,time-to-time, third parties, including certain other companies, have asserted and may assert patent, copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights against us, our partners or our customers. We or our customers have received, and may in the future receive, notices that claim we have misappropriated, misused or infringed other parties’ intellectual property rights, and, to the extent we gain greater market visibility, we face a higher risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement claims, which is not uncommon with respect to the enterprise software market.

There may be third‑partythird-party intellectual property rights, including issued or pending patents, that cover significant aspects of our technologies, or the technologies in our platform or business methods. We may be exposed to increased risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement claims as a result of acquisitions, such as our merger with Hortonworks, and our incorporation of open source software into our platform, as, among other things, we have a lower level of visibility into the development process with respect to such technology or the care taken to safeguard against infringement risks. Any intellectual property claims, with or without merit, could be very time‑consuming,time-consuming, could be expensive to settle or litigate and could divert our management’s attention and other resources. These claims could also subject us to significant liability for damages, potentially including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed patents or copyrights. These claims could also result in our having to stop using, distributing or supporting technology found to be in violation of a third-party’s rights. We might be required to seek a license for the intellectual property, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all. Even if a license were available, we could be required to pay significant royalties, which would increase our operating expenses. As a result, we may be required to develop alternative non‑infringingnon-infringing technology, which could require significant effort and expense. If we cannot license or develop technology for any infringing aspect of our business, we could be forced to limit or stop sales of our offerings and may be unable to compete effectively. Any of these results could adversely affect our business operations and financial results.

Third parties may also assert such claims against our customers or partners whom we typically indemnify against claims that our solutions infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of third parties, including in the third‑partythird-party open source components included in our platform, as well as our own open source and proprietary components. As the numbers of products and competitors in our market increase and overlaps occur, claims of infringement, misappropriation and other violations of intellectual property rights may increase.

Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect proprietary methods and technologies that we develop under patent and other intellectual property laws of the United States and other jurisdictions outside of the United States so that we can prevent others from using our inventions and proprietary information. If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, our competitors may gain access to our technology, and our business may be harmed. In addition, defending our intellectual property rights may entail significant expense. Any of our patents, trademarks or other intellectual property rights may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation. While we have patents and patent applications pending, we may be unable to obtain patent

Moreover, despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of our platform or offerings or obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. We generally enter into confidentiality or license agreements with our employees, consultants, vendors and customers, and generally limit access to and distribution of our proprietary information. However, we cannot be certain that we have entered into such agreements with all parties who may have or have had access to our confidential information or that the agreements we have entered into will not be breached. We cannot guarantee that any of the measures we have taken will prevent misappropriation of our technology. Because we may be an attractive target for cybersecurity attacks, we may have a greater risk of unauthorized access to, and misappropriation of, our proprietary information.

Furthermore, legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights are uncertain, and we also may face proposals to change the scope of protection for some intellectual property right. Effective patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available to us in every country in which our products or services are available. The laws of some countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be inadequate. Also, our involvement in standard setting activity or the need to obtain licenses from others may require us to license our intellectual property. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third parties from using our intellectual property.

We may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect our intellectual property rights and we may conclude that in at least some instances the benefits of protecting our intellectual property rights may be outweighed by the expense. We may initiate claims or litigation against third parties for infringement of our proprietary rights or to establish the validity of our proprietary rights. Any litigation, whether or not it is resolved in our favor, could result in significant expense to us and divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel.

We do not control many aspects of the development of the open source technology in our platform. Different groups of open source software programmers collaborate with one another to develop the software projects in our platform. Given the disparate inputs from various developers, we cannot control entirely how an open source project develops and matures. Also, different open source projects may overlap or compete with the ones that we incorporate into our platform. The technology developed by one group for one project may become more widely used than that developed by others. If we acquire or adopt a new technology and incorporate it into our platform but a competing technology becomes more widely used or accepted, the market appeal of our platform may be reduced and that could harm our reputation, diminish our brand and result in decreased revenue.

We rely to a significant degree on a number of open source software programmers, or committers and contributors, to develop and enhance components of our platform. Additionally, members of the corresponding open source project management committees, many of whom are not employed by us, are primarily responsible for the oversight and evolution of the codebases of important components of the open source data management ecosystem. If the open source data management committers and contributors fail to adequately further develop and enhance open source technologies, or if the committees fail to oversee and guide the evolution of open source data management technologies in the manner that we believe is appropriate to maximize the market potential of our solutions, then we would have to rely on other parties, or we would need to expend additional resources, to develop and enhance our platform. We also must devote adequate resources to our own internal programmers to support their continued development and enhancement of open source technologies, and if we do not do so, we may have to turn

Important components of our platform have been provided under the Apache License, Version 2.0. This license states that any work of authorship licensed under it, and any derivative work thereof, may be reproduced and distributed provided that certain conditions are met. It is possible that a court would hold this license to be unenforceable or that someone could assert a claim for proprietary rights in a program developed and distributed under it. Any ruling by a court that this license is not enforceable, or that open source components of our platform may not be reproduced or distributed, may negatively impact our distribution or development of all or a portion of our solutions. In addition, at some time in the future it is possible that important components of the open source projects in our platform that may be distributed under a different license or the Apache License, Version 2.0, which governs Hadoop, Spark and other current elements of our platform, may be modified, which could, among other consequences, negatively impact our continuing development or distribution of the software code subject to the new or modified license.

Further, full utilization of our platform may depend on software, applications, hardware and services from various third parties, and these items may not be compatible with our platform and its development or available to us or our customers on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, which could harm our business.

Our solutions include software covered by open source licenses, which may include, by way of example, GNU General Public License and the Apache License. We do not own all of the open source technology in our platform and the ownership of the open source technology in our platform may not be easily determinable by us. Rather, we rely on the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) as well as certain other third-party open source contributors to ensure that the open source contributions to our platform are properly owned by the committers and contributors who contribute the open source technology and that such contributions do not infringe on other parties’ intellectual property rights. Moreover, the terms of certain of the open source licenses have not been interpreted by United States or other courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that is incompatible with our current business model, imposing unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to market our solutions. We, our customers and the ASF may have received, or may in the future receive, notices that claim we have misappropriated, misused or infringed other parties’ intellectual property rights, and, to the extent products based on the open source data management ecosystem gain greater market visibility, we, our customers, and the ASF, face a higher risk of being the subject of intellectual property infringement claims. In addition, we or our customers could

In addition to risks related to license requirements, usage of open source software can lead to greater risks than use of third‑partythird-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties, support, indemnity or assurance of title or controls on origin of the software. Further, some open source projects have known vulnerabilities and architectural instabilities and are provided on an “as‑is”“as-is” basis. Many of these risks associated with usage of open source software, such as the lack of warranties or assurances of title, cannot be eliminated, and could, if not properly addressed, negatively affect the performance of our platform and our business. In addition, we are often required to absorb these risks in our customer and partner relationships by agreeing to provide warranties, support and indemnification with respect to such third-party open source software. While we have established processes intended to alleviate these risks, we cannot assure that these measures will reduce these risks.

Our platform and solutions are very complex and have contained and may contain undetected defects or errors, especially when solutions are first introduced or enhanced, or as we combine our previously separate (and separately developed) Cloudera and Hortonworks technologies.develop new platform such as CDP. In addition, our platform employs open source software and to the extent that our solutions depend upon the successful operation of open source software in conjunction with our solutions, any undetected errors or defects in this open source software could prevent the deployment or impair the functionality of our solutions, delay new solutions’ introductions, result in a failure of our solutions, result in liability to our customers, and injure our reputation.

If our platform is not implemented or used correctly or as intended, inadequate performance and disruption in service may result. Moreover, as we acquire companies, such as through our merger with Hortonworks, and integrate new open source data management projects, we may encounter difficulty in incorporating the newly‑obtainednewly-obtained technologies into our platform and maintaining the quality standards that are consistent with our reputation.

Since our customers use our platform and solutions for important aspects of their business, any errors, defects, disruptions in service or other performance problems could hurt our reputation and may damage our customers’ businesses. Furthermore, defects in our platform and solutions may require us to implement design changes or software updates. Any defects or errors in our platform and solutions, or the perception of such defects or errors, could result in:

Although we have contractual protections, such as warranty disclaimers and limitation of liability provisions, in our standard terms and conditions of sale, they may not fully or effectively protect us from claims by customers, partners or other third parties. Any insurance coverage we may have may not adequately cover all claims asserted against us, or cover only a portion of such claims. In addition, even claims that ultimately are unsuccessful could result in our expenditure of funds in litigation and divert management’s time and other resources.

Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract, integrate and retain qualified and highly skilled personnel. In particular, we are substantially dependent on the continued service of our existing engineering personnel because of the complexity of our platform and are also highly dependent on the contributions of our executive team. The loss of any key personnel could make it more difficult to manage our operations and research and development activities, reduce our employee retention and revenue, disrupt our relationships with our employees, customers and vendors, and impair our ability to compete. Any significant leadership change or senior management transition involves inherent risk and any failure to ensure the timely and suitable replacement and a smooth transition could hinder our strategic planning, execution and future performance. Although we have entered into employment offer letters with our key personnel, these agreements have no specific duration and constitute at‑willat-will employment. We do not maintain key person life insurance policies on any of our employees. The loss of one or more of our key employees could seriously harm our business. If we are unable to attract, integrate, or retain the qualified and highly skilled personnel required to fulfill our current or future needs, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed.

Competition for highly skilled personnel is often intense, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area where we have a substantial presence and need for highly skilled personnel. We may not be successful in attracting, integrating or retaining qualified personnel to fulfill our current or future needs. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. In addition, job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived value of our common stock declines, it may adversely affect our ability to hire or retain highly skilled employees. In addition, we may periodically change our equity compensation practices, which may include reducing the number of employees eligible for equity awards or reducing the size of equity awards granted per employee. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be harmed.

We have experienced and may continue to experience rapid growth in our headcount and operations, which has placed and will continue to place significant demands on our managerial, administrative, operational, financial and other resources. For example, our employee headcount after our merger with Hortonworks increased from 1,648 employees as of January 31, 2018 to 2,9472,723 employees as of January 31, 2019, of which 1,377 employees are from our merger with Hortonworks.2020. This growth has placed, and any future growth will place, significant demands on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure. To manage this growth effectively, we must continue to improve our operational, financial and management systems and controls by, among other things:

If we fail to manage our growth, or if we fail to implement improvements or maintain effective internal controls, our costs and expenses may increase more than we plan and our ability to expand our customer base, enhance our platform, develop new solutions, expand penetration within existing customers, respond to competitive pressures or otherwise execute our business plan, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

We generally recognize subscription revenue ratably over the term of the subscription period. As a result, most of the revenue we report in each quarter is derived from the recognition of deferred revenue relating to subscriptions entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed subscriptions, or a reduction in expansion rates, in any single quarter could have only a small impact on our revenue results during that quarter or subsequent period. Such a decline or deceleration, however, will negatively affect our revenue or revenue growth rates in future quarters. Accordingly, the effect of these changes or events may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods. Given the ratable nature of our revenue recognition, our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenue through additional sales in any period. We may be unable to adjust our cost structure to reflect the changes in revenue. In addition, a significant majority of our costs are expensed as incurred, while revenue is generally recognized over the life of the customer agreement. As a result, increased growth in the number of our customers could result in our recognition of more costs than revenue in the earlier periods of the terms of our agreements.

We seek to grow our partner ecosystem as a way to grow our business. To grow our business, we anticipate that we will continue to establish and maintain relationships with third parties, such as resellers, OEMs, system integrators, independent software and hardware vendors and platform and cloud service providers. In addition, we work closely with select vendors (Partner Solutions) to design solutions to specifically address the needs of certain industry verticals or use cases within those verticals. As our agreements with strategic partners terminate or expire, we may be unable to renew or replace these agreements on comparable terms, or at all. Moreover, we cannot guarantee that the companies with which we have strategic relationships will continue to devote the resources necessary to expand our reach, increase our distribution and increase the number of Partner Solutions and associated use cases. In addition, customer satisfaction with Partner Solutions may be less than anticipated, negatively impacting anticipated revenue growth and results of operations. Further, some of our strategic partners offer competing products and services or also work with our competitors. As a result of these factors, many of the companies with which we have strategic alliances may choose to pursue alternative technologies and develop alternative products and services in addition to or in lieu of our platform, either on their own or in collaboration with others, including our competitors. If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining our relationships with third parties, our ability to compete in the marketplace or to grow our revenue could be impaired and our operating results may suffer. Even if we are successful in establishing and maintaining these relationships with third parties, we cannot assure you that these relationships will result in increased customer usage of our platform or increased revenue.

Investors or analysts sometimes look to the sum of ourthe revenue and changes in deferred revenuecontract liabilities or RPO as an indicatorindicators of business activity in a period for businesses such as ours, sometimes referredours. They may use this information to as “estimated billings.”estimate billings or bookings. However, these measures may significantly differ from underlying business activity for a number of reasons including:

Accordingly, we do not believe that estimated billings is an accurate indicator of future revenue for any given period of time. However, many companies that provide subscriptions report changes in estimated billings as a key operating or financial metric, and it is possible that analysts or investors may view this metric as important. Thus, any changes in our estimated billings could adversely affect the market price of our common stock. Moreover, estimating bookings from RPO is a newer analytical technique, and it may not be an accurate indicator of future revenue for our company for any given period of time.

We spend substantial amounts of time and money to research and develop new products, such as CDP. In addition, we spend time and money to research and develop new components and enhancements of our platforms to incorporate additional features, improve functionality or add other enhancements in order to meet our customers’ rapidly evolving demands. When we develop a new product, component or enhancement to our platform, whether open source or proprietary, we typically incur expenses and expend resources upfront to develop, market and promote the new component. Therefore, when we develop and introduce new products, components or enhancements to our platform, they must achieve high levels of market acceptance in order to justify the amount of our investment in developing and bringing them to market.

Our new products, components or enhancements to our platform and changes to our platform could fail to attain sufficient market acceptance for many reasons, including:

If our new products, such as CDP, or our new components or enhancements and changes do not achieve adequate acceptance in the market, our competitive position will be impaired, and our revenue will be diminished. The adverse effect on our financial results may be particularly acute because of the significant research, development, marketing, sales and other expenses we will have incurred in connection with the new solutions or enhancements.

We continue to be substantially dependent on our direct sales force to obtain new customers and increase sales with existing customers. There is significant competition for sales personnel with the skills and technical knowledge that we require. Our ability to achieve significant revenue growth will depend, in large part, on our success in recruiting, training and retaining sufficient numbers of sales personnel to support our growth, particularly in international markets. In addition, partly due to our merger with Hortonworks, a large percentage of our sales force is relatively new to our company. New hires require significant training and may take significant time before they achieve full productivity, especially as the legacy Hortonworks sales personnel and legacy Cloudera sales personnel learn to sell products previously offered by the other company, as well as new offerings developed by the combined company. Our recent hires and planned hires may not become productive as quickly as we expect, and we may be unable to hire or retain sufficient numbers of qualified individuals in the markets where we do business or plan to do business. In addition, growth of our direct sales force leads to increasing difficulty and complexity in its organization,

We have expanded internationally and intend to continue such international expansion. For example, we sell the various editions of our platform through our direct sales force, which is comprised of inside sales and field sales personnel, and is located in a variety of geographic regions, including the United States, Europe and Asia, and have customers located in over 90approximately 100 countries as of January 31, 2019.2020. We intend to continue to expand internationally.

Conducting international operations subjects us to risks that we have not generally faced in the United States. These risks include:

The occurrence of any one of these risks could harm our international business and, consequently, our results of operations. Additionally, operating in international markets requires significant management attention and financial

Some of our business partners also have international operations and are subject to the risks described above. Even if we are able to successfully manage the risks of international operations, our business may be adversely affected if our business partners are not able to successfully manage these risks.

As we operate and sell internationally, we are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the United Kingdom Bribery Act of 2010 or the(the UK Bribery Act,Act), and other laws that prohibit improper payments or offers of payments to foreign governments and their officials and political parties for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. We have operations, deal with and make sales to governmental customers in countries known to experience corruption, particularly certain emerging countries in Africa, East Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and the Middle East. Our activities in these countries create the risk of unauthorized payments or offers of payments by one of our employees, consultants, sales agents or channel partners that could be in violation of various anti‑corruptionanti-corruption laws, even though these parties may not be under our control. While we have implemented policies and controls intended to prevent these practices by our employees, consultants, sales agents and channel partners, our existing safeguards and any future improvements may prove to be less than effective, and our employees, consultants, sales agents or channel partners may engage in conduct for which we might be held responsible. Violations of the FCPA, the UK Bribery Act and other laws may result in severe criminal or civil sanctions, including suspension or debarment from U.S. government contracting, and we may be subject to other liabilities, which could negatively affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Because we incorporate encryption functionality into our platform (including any products comprising the platform), we are subject to certain U.S. export control laws that apply to encryption items. As such, our platform may be exported outside the United States through an export license exception; an export license is required to certain countries, end‑usersend-users and end‑uses.end-uses. If we were to fail to comply with such U.S. export controls laws, U.S. customs regulations, U.S. economic sanctions, or other similar laws, we could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties, including substantial fines, possible incarceration for employees and managers for willful violations, and the possible loss of our export or import privileges. Obtaining the necessary export license for a particular sale or offering may not be possible and may be time‑consumingtime-consuming and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. Furthermore, U.S. export control laws and economic sanctions prohibit the export of products to certain U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments and persons, as well as for prohibited end‑uses.end-uses. Monitoring and ensuring compliance with these complex U.S. export control laws is particularly challenging because our platform and related services are widely distributed throughout the world and are available for download without registration. Even though we take precautions to ensure that we and our reseller partners comply with all relevant export control laws and regulations, any failure by us or our reseller partners to comply with such laws and regulations could have negative consequences for us, including reputational harm, government investigations and penalties.

In addition, various countries regulate the import of certain encryption technology, including through import permit and license requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our platform or could limit our end‑customers’end-customers’ ability to implement our products in those countries. Changes in our products or changes in export and import regulations in such countries may create delays in the introduction of our platform into international markets, prevent our end‑customersend-customers with international operations from deploying our products globally or, in some cases, prevent or delay the export or import of our platform to certain countries, governments or persons altogether. Any change in export or import laws or regulations, economic sanctions or related legislation, shift in the enforcement or scope of existing export, import or sanctions laws or regulations, or change in the countries, governments, persons, or technologies targeted by such export, import or sanctions laws or regulations, could result in decreased use of our platform by, or in our decreased ability to export or sell our platform to, existing or potential

Our sales contracts are primarily denominated in U.S. dollars, and therefore substantially all of our revenue is not subject to foreign currency risk. However, a strengthening of the U.S. dollar could increase the real cost of our platform to our customers outside of the United States, which could adversely affect our operating results. In addition, an increasing portion of our operating expenses is incurred and an increasing portion of our assets is held outside the United States. These operating expenses and assets are denominated in foreign currencies and are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. If we are not able to successfully hedge against the risks associated with currency fluctuations, our operating results could be adversely affected.

We expect that our existing cash and cash equivalents will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for the foreseeable future. However, if we change our business strategy, we may need to raise additional funds in the future, and we may not be able to obtain additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, if at all. If we raise additional equity financing, our stockholders may experience significant dilution of their ownership interests and the per share value of our common stock could decline. Furthermore, if we engage in debt financing, the holders of debt would have priority over the holders of common stock, and we may be required to accept terms that restrict our ability to incur additional indebtedness. We may also be required to take other actions that would otherwise be in the interests of the debt holders and force us to maintain specified liquidity or other ratios, any of which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

Most of our sales are on an unsecured basis. Although we seek to mitigate these risks, we cannot be certain that these efforts will be effective in reducing our credit risks, especially as we expand our business internationally. If we are unable to adequately control these risks, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.

We collect and utilize demographic and other information, including personally identifiable information, from and about our employees and our existing and potential customers and partners. Such information may be collected from our customers and partners when they visit our website or through their use of our products and interactions with our company and employees such as when signing up for certain services, registering for training seminars, participating in a survey, participating in polls or signing up to receive e‑maile-mail newsletters.

A wide variety of domestic and international laws and regulations (e.g.,(including, for example, the General Data Protection Regulation)Regulation that became effective in May 2018, and the California Consumer Privacy Act that became effective on January 1, 2020) apply to the collection, use, retention, protection, disclosure, transfer and other processing of personal data. These data protection and privacy‑relatedprivacy-related laws and regulations are evolving and may result in regulatory and public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement and sanctions. Our failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations, or to protect such data, could result in enforcement action against us, including fines, claims for damages by customers and other affected individuals, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill (both in relation to existing customers and prospective customers), any of which could have a material adverse effect on our operations, financial performance and business. Evolving and changing definitions of personal data and personal information within the European Union, the United States, and elsewhere may limit or inhibit our ability to operate or expand our business. Even the perception of privacy concerns, whether or not valid, may harm our reputation, inhibit adoption of our products by current and future customers or adversely impact our ability to attract and retain workforce talent.

Loss, retention or misuse of certain information and alleged violations of laws and regulations relating to privacy and data security, and any relevant claims, may expose us to potential liability and may require us to expend significant resources on data security and in responding to and defending such allegations and claims. In addition, future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations, and changes in the interpretation of existing laws, regulations, standards and other obligations could impair our customers’ ability to collect, use or disclose data relating to individuals, which could decrease demand for our platform, increase our costs and impair our ability to maintain and grow our customer base and increase our revenue.

A portion of our sales are to governmental entities. Additionally, many of our current and prospective customers, such as those in the financial services and health care industries, are highly regulated and may be required to comply with more stringent regulations in connection with subscribing to and deploying our platform. Selling to these entities can be highly competitive, expensive and time consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that these efforts will result in a sale. Government and highly regulated entities often require contract terms that differ from our standard arrangements and impose compliance requirements that are complicated, require preferential pricing or “most favored nation” terms and conditions, or are otherwise time consuming and expensive to satisfy. If we undertake to meet special standards or requirements and do not meet them, we could be subject to increased liability from our customers or regulators. Even if we do meet them, the additional costs associated with providing our services to government and highly regulated customers could harm our margins. Moreover, changes in the underlying regulatory conditions that affect these types of customers could harm our ability to efficiently provide our services to them and to grow or maintain our customer base.

Additionally, government certification requirements for platforms like ours may change and in doing so restrict our ability to sell into certain government sectors until we have attained the revised certification. Government demand and payment for our solutions may be impacted by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our solutions. Additionally, government entities routinely investigate and audit government contractors’ administrative processes, and any unfavorable audit could result in the government entity refusing to continue buying our solutions, a reduction of revenue, fines or civil or criminal liability if the audit uncovers improper or illegal activities, which could adversely impact our operating results. Furthermore, engaging in sales activities to foreign governments introduces additional compliance risks specific to the FCPA, the UK Bribery Act and other similar statutory requirements prohibiting bribery and corruption in the jurisdictions in which we operate.

As a public company, weWe are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, oras amended (the Exchange Act), the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes‑OxleySarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 or(the Sarbanes-Oxley Act), the Sarbanes‑Oxley Act, the Dodd‑FrankDodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, or the Dodd‑Frank Act, the rules and regulations of the listing standards of the New York Stock Exchange and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations increaseshave increased our legal and financial compliance costs, makesmade some activities more difficult, time‑consumingtime-consuming or costly and increasesincreased demand on our systems and resources, particularly since we are no longer an “emerging growth company.”

The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and operating results. The Sarbanes‑OxleySarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could adversely affect our business and operating results. Although we have already hired additional employees to comply with these requirements, we may need to hire more employees in the future or engage outside consultants, which will increase our costs and expenses.

In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management's time and attention from revenue‑generatingrevenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to their application and practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be adversely affected.

As of January 31, 2019, we are no longer an “emerging growth company” as defined in the Jumpstart our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act,The rules and are now required to comply with additional disclosure and reporting requirements, including an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2019 issued by our independent registered public accounting firm.

As a result of disclosure of information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and in filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition are more visible, which we believe may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business and operating results could be adversely affected, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and adversely affect our business and operating results.

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes‑OxleySarbanes-Oxley Act, and the rules and regulations of the listing standards of the New York Stock Exchange. We expect that the requirements of these rules and regulations will continue to increase our legal, accounting, and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time‑consuming,time-consuming, and costly, and place significant strain on our personnel, systems, and resources.

The Sarbanes‑OxleySarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. We are continuing to develop and refine our disclosure controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in the

Our current controls and any new controls that we develop may become inadequate because of changes in conditions in our business. Further, weaknesses in our disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting may be discovered in the future. Any failure to develop or maintain effective controls or any difficulties encountered in their implementation or improvement could harm our operating results or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our financial statements for prior periods. Any failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting also could adversely affect the results of periodic management evaluations and annual independent registered public accounting firm attestation reports regarding the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting that we will beare required to include in our periodic reports that will beare filed with the SEC now that we are no longer an “emerging growth company.”SEC.

Our independent registered public accounting firm is required to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting foras of the year ended January 31, 2019.end of our fiscal year. Our independent registered public accounting firm has to issue a report that is adverse in the event it is not satisfied with the level at which our internal control over financial reporting is documented, designed, or operating. Any failure to maintain effective disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting could have a material and adverse effect on our business and operating results and could cause a decline in the price of our common stock.

In connection with the implementation of the necessary procedures and practices related to internal control over financial reporting, we may identify deficiencies that we may not be able to remediate in time to meet the deadline imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for compliance with the requirements of Section 404. If we have material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we may also not detect errors on a timely basis and our financial statements may be materially misstated. FailureMoreover, failure to complydemonstrate continued compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could subject us to regulatory scrutiny and sanctions, impair our ability to raise revenue, cause investors to lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, subject us to stockholder or other third-party litigation as well as investigations and delisting, as applicable, by the stock exchange on which our securities are listed,New York Stock Exchange, the SEC, or other regulatory authorities, and negatively affect the trading price of our common stock.

We are subject to income taxation in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Determining our provision for income taxes requires significant management judgment. In addition, our provision for income taxes is subject to volatility and could be adversely affected by many factors, including, among other things, changes to our operating or holding structure, changes in the amounts of earnings in jurisdictions with differing statutory tax rates,

In addition, we may be subject to the examination of our income tax returns by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and other tax authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes. There can be no assurance that the outcomes from these continuous examinations will not have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

Recent changes to United States tax laws, including limitations on the ability of taxpayers to claim and utilize foreign tax credits and the deferral of certain tax deductions until earnings outside of the United States are repatriated to the United States, as well as changes to United States tax laws that may be enacted in the future, could impact the tax treatment of our foreign earnings. Due to expansion of our international business activities, any changes in the United States taxation of such activities may increase our worldwide effective tax rate and adversely affect our financial position and results of operations.

In general, under Section 382 of the United StatesU.S. Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended or the Code,(the Code), a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its pre‑changepre-change net operating losses (NOLs) to offset future taxable income. If our existing NOLs are subject to limitations arising from previous ownership changes, our ability to utilize NOLs could be limited by Section 382 of the Code. For example, we recently performed an analysis to determine whether an ownership change had occurred since our inception which identified two historical ownership changes. While these limitations did not result in a material restriction on the use of our NOLs, futureFuture changes in our stock ownership, some of which are outside of our control, could result in an ownership change under Section 382 of the Code. Furthermore, our ability to utilize NOLs of companies that we may acquire in the future may be subject to limitations. Additionally, with our recent merger with Hortonworks, our existing NOLs may be subject to limitations and our combined company may not be able to fully use these NOLs to offset future taxable income. In addition, if the combined company undergoes any subsequent ownership change, its ability to utilize NOLs could be further limited. There is also a risk that due to regulatory changes, such as suspensions on the use of NOLs, or other unforeseen reasons, our existing NOLs could expire or otherwise be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. For these reasons, we may not be able to utilize a portion of the NOLs reflected on our balance sheet, even if we attain profitability.

Some of our customers and other business partners are affiliated with certain of our directors or hold shares of our capital stock, or both. For example, we have entered into strategic relationships and/or customer relationships with Intel Corporation or Intel.(Intel). Our director, RoseRosemary Schooler, is an employee of Intel, and Intel is a stockholder. We believe that the transactions and agreements that we have entered into with related parties are on terms that are at least as favorable as could reasonably have been obtained at such time from third parties. However, these relationships could create, or appear to create, potential conflicts of interest when our board of directors is faced with decisions that could have different implications for us and these other parties or their affiliates. In addition, conflicts of interest may arise between us and these other parties and their affiliates. The appearance of conflicts, even if such conflicts do not materialize, might adversely affect the public’s perception of us, as well as our relationship with other companies and our ability to enter into new relationships in the future, including with competitors of such related parties, which could harm our business and results of operations.

Our business depends on the overall demand for information technology and on the economic health of our current and prospective customers. Any significant weakening of the economy in the United States or Europe and of the global economy, more limited availability of credit, a reduction in business confidence and activity, decreased government spending, economic uncertainty and other difficulties, such as the coronavirus pandemic, may affect one or more of the sectors or countries in which we sell our applications. GlobalIn addition, geopolitical developments, such as existing and potential trade wars and other events beyond our control, such as the coronavirus pandemic, can increase levels of political and economic unpredictability globally and increase the volatility of global financial markets. For example, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, we have shifted certain of our customer events to virtual-only experiences and we may deem it advisable to similarly alter, postpone or cancel entirely additional customer, employee or industry events in the future. Moreover, global economic and political uncertainty may cause some of our customers or potential customers to curtail spending, and may ultimately result in new regulatory and cost challenges to our international operations. In addition, a strong dollar could reduce demand for our products in countries with relatively weaker currencies. These adverse conditions could result in reductions in sales of our applications, longer sales cycles, reductions in subscription duration and value, slower adoption of new technologies and increased price competition. Any of these events could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial position.

A significant health crisis, epidemic or pandemic (including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic), or a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire or a flood, or a significant power outage could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Our corporate headquarters are located in Palo Alto, California, in a region known for seismic activity, and we have significant offices in San Francisco, Austin and New York City in the United States and internationally in Bangalore, Budapest, London, Ireland and Singapore. Further, if an epidemic or pandemic or a natural disaster or terrorist event occurs in a region from which we derive a significant portion of our revenue, customers in that region may delay or forego purchases of our products, which may materially and adversely impact our results of operations for a particular period. For example, the west coast of the United States contains active earthquake zones and the eastern seaboard is subject to seasonal hurricanes while New York and the United Kingdom have suffered significant terrorist attacks. Additionally, we rely on our network and third‑partythird-party infrastructure and enterprise applications, internal technology systems and our website for our development, marketing, finance, customer support, operational support, hosted services and sales activities. In the event of a major epidemic or pandemic, earthquake, hurricane or catastrophic event such as fire, power loss, floods, telecommunications failure, cyber‑attack,cyber-attack, war or terrorist attack, we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our development of solutions, lengthy interruptions in our services, breaches of data security and loss of critical data, all of which could have an adverse effect on our operating results. All of the aforementioned risks may be augmented if the business continuity plans for us and our service providers prove to be inadequate. To the extent that any of the above results in delays or cancellations of

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock

The market price for our common stock has been, and may continue to be, volatile. Since shares of our common stock were sold in our initial public offering in April 2017 at a price of $15.00 per share, our stock price has ranged from $10.07$4.89 to $23.35, through January 31, 2019.2020. The market price of our common stock may continue to fluctuate significantly in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control, including the factors included in this Risk Factors section as well as:

In addition, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. Stock prices of many companies have

The trading market for our common stock depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts initiate research with an unfavorable rating or downgrade our common stock, provide a more favorable recommendation about our competitors, publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business or cease coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our common stock could decrease, which might cause our common stock price and trading volume to decline.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We anticipate that we will retain all of our future earnings for use in the development of our business and for general corporate purposes. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change in control of our company. These provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to elect directors who are not nominated by the current members of our board of directors or take other corporate actions, including effecting changes in our management. These provisions include:

In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of the anti‑takeoveranti-takeover provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three years after the person becomes an interested stockholder, even if a change of control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. Although we believe these provisions collectively provide for an opportunity to obtain greater value for stockholders by requiring potential acquirers to negotiate with our board of directors, they would apply even if

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES

We currently lease approximately 225,000 square feet of space for our current corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, California under a lease agreement that expires in 2027 with an option to renew for an additional 84 months.seven years. In addition, we entered into a five-year sublease agreement with a third-party subtenant for approximately 105,000 square feet of this space. Upon the completion of merger with Hortonworks, we added approximately 92,000 square feet of space in Santa Clara, California under a lease agreement that expires in 2026.2026 and we anticipate that we will vacate our current corporate headquarters in Palo Alto and relocate our corporate headquarters to this space during fiscal 2021. We intend to sublease such vacated space in Palo Alto for the remainder of the lease term after our planned relocation.

We lease office spaces in various locations throughout the United States primarily for local sales and professional services personnel. Our foreign subsidiaries lease office space in a number of countries in Europe, North America, Asia, South America and Australia for our international operations, primarily for local sales and professional services personnel.

We believe that our facilities are adequate to meet our needs for the immediate future and that, should it be needed, suitable additional space will be available to accommodate expansion of our operations.

ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Further, from time to time, we are a party to or act as an indemnitor to our customers or partners on various litigation matters, and we or our customers or partners are subject to claims that arise in the ordinary course of business. In addition, we or our customers or partners have received, and may in the future receive, various types of claims including potential claims from third parties asserting, among other things, infringement of their intellectual property rights.

Future litigation may be necessary to defend ourselves, or our customers or partners on indemnity matters, by determining the scope, enforceability and validity of third‑partythird-party proprietary rights or to establishby establishing our proprietary rights. Further, the ultimate outcome of any litigation is uncertain and, regardless of outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense costs, potential negative publicity, diversion of management resources and other factors. While we are not aware of other pending legal matters or claims, individually or in the aggregate, that are expected to have a material adverse impact on our business, consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flows, our analysis of whether a claim may proceed to litigation cannot be predicted with certainty, nor can the results of litigation be predicted with certainty. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that existing or future legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business or otherwise will not have a material adverse effect on our business, consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not applicable.

ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Market Information for Common Stock

Our common stock has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CLDR” since April 28, 2017. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our common stock.

Holders

As of February 28, 2019,2020, we had 154128 holders of record of our common stock. The actual number of stockholders is greater than this number of record holders and includes stockholders who are beneficial owners but whose shares are held in street name by brokers and other nominees.

Dividend Policy

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock, and we do not currently intend to pay any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. We expect to retain future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business.

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

The information required by this item will be included in our Proxy Statement for the 20192020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed with the SEC within 120 days of the fiscal year ended January 31, 2019,2020, and is incorporated herein by reference.

Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers.

Stock Performance Graph

The graph below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our common stock with the cumulative total return on the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Information Technology Index. The graph assumes $100 was invested at the market close on April 28, 2017 which was the initial trading day of our common stock following the IPO. Data for the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Information Technology Index assume reinvestment of dividends. The offering price of our common stock in our IPO, which had a closing stock price of $18.10 on April 28, 2017, was $15.00 per share.

The comparisons in the graph below are based upon historical data and are not indicative of, nor intended to forecast, future performance of our common stock.