D-Wave was founded by Haig Farris (former chair of board), Geordie Rose (former CEO/CTO), Bob Wiens (former CFO), and Alexandre Zagoskin[5] (former VP Research and Chief Scientist). Farris taught a business course at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where Rose obtained his PhD, and Zagoskin was a postdoctoral fellow. The company name refers to their first qubit designs, which used d-wave superconductors.