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Passion, Perseverance
and Luck - Keys to Success
Global Leader Thomas C. K. Yuen
Mentors Young Entrepreneurs
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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."
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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Banquet Attendees
honoring 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're 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). "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.
"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!
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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