Taleo started as a French-language job board in Quebec City. In 1996 Martin Ouellet launched Viasite to match candidates and employers in Quebec. The company became Recruitsoft, moved its base to California and sold software that let large companies run their whole hiring process on the web. It filed to go public in 2004 under its new name, Taleo, and listed the following year, a slow road to the market.

From Quebec Job Board

Louis Têtu co-founded the business and led it as CEO from 1999. The idea was to rent software over the internet instead of selling it to be installed. Big employers received thousands of applications for each opening. Taleo's system let recruiters post jobs, screen applicants and track every candidate. Customers paid a subscription, an early version of what later came to be called software as a service.

Oracle Comes Calling

Taleo priced its IPO at $14 a share in September 2005 and listed on Nasdaq as TLEO. It added tools to manage performance and pay, and bought rivals to grow. Its subscription model put it in the sights of the big software houses. In February 2012 Oracle agreed to buy Taleo for $1.9 billion, and Taleo became part of Oracle's cloud suite.

Cover: Harvest, Léon Augustin Lhermitte. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for workers in the field (talent at work).