Thomas Yuen

Thomas C. K. Yuen (September 10, 1951 – February 13, 2022) was an American executive. A co-founder of AST Research, Yuen was one of the early proponents of the personal computer.

Thomas Yuen
Born	(1951-09-10) September 10, 1951 (age 72) Yangzhou, China
Died	13 February 2022

Early life

Yuen was born on September 10, 1951, in Yangzhou, China. His father was a housekeeper and chauffeur who took his family to Hong Kong to follow his employer.^[1]

In 1970, Yuen immigrated to the United States and attended community college before transferring to U.C. Irvine to study electrical engineering. In 1974,^[2] he received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UC Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering.^[3]

Career

In 1973, he was diagnosed with a kidney disease that would require costly treatment. At the time, Yuen was working as an engineer at Hughes Aircraft, earning a modest salary of $12,000 a year.^[4] He started to consider launching his own business.

In 1980, Yuen experienced kidney failure and learned that he would need dialysis treatment for the rest of his life.^[1]

The same year, he co-founded AST Research, a hardware technology maker, with two other immigrant engineers, Albert Wong and Safi Qureshey.^[5] The company, which initially produced expansion cards for IBM’s personal computers, became a leading maker of IBM-compatible personal computers^[6] and grew into a Fortune 500 company, with revenues of $1.14 billion in 1992.^[1]

In 1992, Yuen left AST^[5] and invested $2.7 million into SRS Lab, an audio technology licenser. As Chief executive of the company, Yuen pushed the company to specialize into three-dimensional audio technology. In 2012, the company was purchased by DTS Inc., another sound licenser, for $148 million.^[1]

Yuen spent the final decades of his life funding and promoting stem-cell therapy research, hoping that it would help address chronic diseases like the one from which he was suffering. He created his own company, R&D firm, PrimeGen Biotech, and donated to the University of California at Irvine’s stem research department.^[7]

References

1. Council, Stephen (2022-03-11). "Entrepreneur Drove Computing and Audio Forward Through Decades of Disease". WSJ. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
2. Gowen, Samantha (2022-03-04). "Tom Yuen, longtime Orange County tech mogul and philanthropist, dies at 70". Orange County Register. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
3. "Thomas Yuen '74 earns UCI Alumni Association's Extraordinarius award". The Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UC Irvine. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
4. Takahashi, Dean (2022-03-01). "PC manufacturing pioneer Tom Yuen passes away at 70". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
5. Takahashi, Dean; Lee, Cristina (1992-06-30). "Co-Founder of AST Computer Firm Resigns". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
6. "COMPANY NEWS; Clone Maker AST Research Shakes Up Its Management". The New York Times. 1992-06-30. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
7. "UCI gets $1 million for stem-cell work". Orange County Register. 2006-10-14. Retrieved 2022-04-02.