[4] His published research as a graduate student included the study of addiction, in addition to experiments on decision mechanisms of laboratory animals.
[5] Tanz worked as a Senior Associate at Mercer Management Consulting (now named Oliver Wyman).
[8] He served four years as CEO and president of the company, which was founded by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Sean Bailey, and Chris Moore.
[8][11] Tanz also executive produced other television series including the reality show American Start-Up.
[12] While there, Tanz described many of his digital projects as allowing audience members to determine the degree of involvement they want in the stories being told, describing the method as providing a "treasure hunt for waders, swimmers, and divers"—indicating the varying level of interaction an audience member could have with the story.
[7] During his tenure as CEO, Tanz expanded Vuguru's investment in long form scripted web series.
[17] Tanz further expanded business into long form television series, hiring the former president of programming at Comedy Central Lauren Corrao.
[22][23] Tanz co-founded a charity in 2006 with partners Matt Damon, Keith Quinn, and Marc Joubert which later became known as H2O Africa Foundation and then water.org.