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Passion, Perseverance and Luck - Keys to Success
Global Leader Thomas C. K. Yuen
Mentors Young Entrepreneurs
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Thomas C.K. Yuen |
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"Passion, Perseverance and Luck," are the three elements to success," says
Thomas C. K. Yuen, CEO and COO of SRS Labs, the world leader in audio and voice technology. Yuen should
know, he is a legend in his own time. Still only in his 40's, he has built a number of successful global ventures and received numerous awards and accolades.
When
talking with Yuen, one gets the feeling that he is having the greatest time of his life. His enthusiasm is boundless. |
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In 1981, Yuen and two friends scraped together $2,000 in savings and founded AST Research in a garage shop,
building it into one of the largest and most profitable computer companies in the world. Tom was the "T" in AST. Leading AST as its Co-CEO and COO, Yuen built AST into a $1 Billion, Fortune 500 company prior
to his departure in 1992. |
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"You must have passion. You must make sacrifices, your family, your wife and kids must understand.
You must also be lucky, and have that educated instinct or "gut", and you must have perseverance, you have to stick with it." "We worked 7 days a week, and perseverance is so important," said
Yuen. |
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Yuen was the honored guest and speaker this year at the annual University of California at Irvine Graduate
School of Management's Asian Alumni Network banquet. He inspired and captivated his audience with his wit, wisdom and experience in building a successful business. |
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In addition to his business pursuits, Yuen has an equally compelling and lucky personal background.
"I was born in Shanghai. I had the luck of being born to a loving family on the 18th day of the 8th
month in the Year of the Dragon. Those of you who understand Chinese horoscopes will understand the significance." Unfortunately, my family was not wealthy, but we did have luck on our side.
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My Dad was a chauffeur for a successful textile manufacturer. We were put on a sampan bound for Hong Kong. The
ship before us sunk. Our family made the crossing successfully. "Years later, after I graduated from UC Irvine, I was working at Hughes, and unfortunately I got my
first pink slip and was laid off when there was a downturn in the company's contracts. That's when two of my friends and I got together to complain and moan about our situation, when we decided to form our
own company." Had Yuen never received that pink slip he might have stayed on as a company man for years. "Sometimes, when life is too normal, there's no pressure to change and take on new challenges."
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After reaching the pinnacle of the American dream, and staying on for twelve years to continue to
build AST into a global empire, Yuen retired in 1992 still in his 30's, armed with financial security beyond most people's wildest dreams. "I set out to enjoy my new found spare time and thought
of things to do like ski, fish, drive new cars, lay on the beach...but after two weeks I decided that retirement was a form of punishment," joked Yuen. |
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Wanting to enjoy every day of his life he yearned to go back to what he loved most and that is creating and
leading exciting enterprises. "Life is beautiful but I also need a life full of challenges," Tom said. "The Millennium is a change of a century. And there is cultural change in the power of the Internet." "I
think in my mind Info-tainment. Information and Entertainment." "Time zones, culture and commerce used to keep us apart, now there are no boundaries," said Yuen. Today, he is
the Chairman and CEO of global leader, SRS Labs, developers of the award winning SRS Sound technologies which are patented and licensed to more than 200 leading consumer audio, PC and multimedia
manufacturers. In August 1996, Mr. Yuen successfully took his new venture public (Nasdaq: SRSL). |
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"It's amazing technology. If you play music through two small typical speakers placed in front of
you, you can create sound all around you! It might be some kind of prophecy but on my way out the door for a haircut, I was given an audio demonstration of this technology. I heard music all
around me ?I thought there were hidden speakers but the sound came from two little speakers in front of me!" "It works from any speakers that you can typically buy from any store." Yuen
saw the future in front of him. |
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"Multimedia is the next step for personal computers. So I invested into the company, created
licensing alliances, and took the company public." It is now the world's leading provider of audio and voice technology solutions to the consumer electronics, computer, gaming and telecommunications
industries. "We now have number one world market share of what is now called 3-D Sound technology," said Yuen. Yuen has a number of exciting new sound, voice and multimedia
products being launched at SRS Labs. The latest is called WOWThing ™�it can instantly turn the audio coming from your computer into near CD quality. Yuen has given permission
to offer AsianConnections members free SRS downloadable audio technology. It's a software plugin for MP3's popular Winamp Media Player. It's awesome. Click here for your free download!
Also coming next week, buy your own Wow Thing Box! - a cool processor that revolutionizes audio on your PC, video games and
home audio system.Check it out here!
SRS Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq symbol: SRSL) srslabs.com and wowthing.com |
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