Technology and Innovation, Vol. 20, pp. 343-349, 2019 ISSN 1949-8241 • E-ISSN 1949-825X Printed in the USA. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.21300/20.1-2.2018.343 Copyright © 2019 National Academy of Inventors. www.technologyandinnovation.org THE NAI FELLOW PROFILE: AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. HENRY SAMUELI Henry Samueli1 and Kimberly A. Macuare2 1Broadcom, San Jose, CA, USA 2National Academy of Inventors, Tampa, FL, USA In a recent interview with T&I, renowned inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Dr. Henry Samueli discusses the origins of Broadcom, why he invests in science, technology, engineer- ing, and mathematics education for young people, and the importance of taking advantage of opportunities. This issue’s NAI Fellow Profile features Dr. Henry Samueli — renowned inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. After starting his career in industry at defense contractor TRW, Inc., Samueli accepted a position as a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he developed the technology that would lead him to found technol- ogy giant Broadcom. In addition to faculty positions at UCLA and University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), he currently serves as chairman of the board of Broadcom Inc. and chairman of the Broadcom Foundation. Samueli received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from UCLA in electrical engineering. He is the author of over 100 technical papers and inventor on 75 U.S. patents. His groundbreaking inventions and scholarship have led to a multitude of professional recognitions, including fellowship in the National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers as well as membership in the National Academy of Engineering. (Photo courtesy of Henry Samueli) _____________________ Accepted: November 1, 2018. Profiled Inventor: Profiled Inventor: Henry Samueli, Ph.D., Broadcom Inc., 15101 Alton Parkway, Irvine, CA 9261, USA. Corresponding Author: Kimberly A. Macuare, Ph.D., Associate Editor, Technology and Innovation, Journal of the National Academy of Inventors® at the USF Research Park, 3702 Spectrum Boulevard, Suite 165, Tampa, FL 33612, USA. Tel: +1 (813) 753-6522. E-mail: [email protected] 343 344 THE NAI PROFILE Samueli has worked in industry and academia, in which our products were so critical to our success. led major philanthropic efforts, and even recently So if I had to pick, I’d say that the patents related to entered the ranks of professional sports team own- our cable modem inventions were the most impact- ers. Through all of these efforts, he has navigated his ful and relevant in the early days of the company course with passion, following his interests — both and, therefore, I have a really soft spot in my heart intellectual and personal — and achieving tremen- for them. dous success. On the professional side, Samueli is a pioneer in the field of digital communications. T&I: That comment about heart speaks to your In the 1980s, when slow internet connections via passion for your work. You have said that you got telephone modems were the norm, Samueli envi- interested in engineering not because it was a great sioned a better solution and, based on his prior way to earn income but because you loved it so much. experiences at TRW, started a research program at Now that you’re working on the administrative side UCLA in broadband communications. The results of things, do you miss the science side? of this work led to his creation of broadband chips, Samueli: It’s interesting because you go through which revolutionized the way we communicated, and phases in life, and I very much obviously enjoyed came to be used in cable modems, set-top boxes, and the science side, the research side, the product devel- other networking equipment. Based on this technol- opment side, and the detailed design that I did in the ogy, he spun a start-up out of UCLA in 1991 with early part of my career as an engineer because it’s so his former Ph.D. student Henry Nicholas, and this exciting. I also enjoy the management and adminis- venture would turn out to be a tech success story, as tration side because you get a much broader overview Broadcom Corporation dominated the broadband of the industry, the business, and the technology chip market and in its new iteration as Broadcom from a business perspective that you don’t quite get Inc. is #11 on Forbes top digital companies list. On when you’re down in the lab designing chips and the personal side, Samueli took immediate advantage working on products. They’re complementary but of the financial success of Broadcom’s public offering different experiences, and I enjoy them both. I think to start the Samueli Foundation, where he supports a it’s a natural progression as you move through your wide range of philanthropic activities, most notably career that you move up and become more involved science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in management and administration and, therefore, (STEM) education efforts. In addition, he has made you get a broader overview of your industry. major gifts to UCLA and UC Irvine to support their engineering and medical programs, respectively. T&I: Do you think that because you had the oppor- In a recent interview with T&I, inventor, entrepre- tunity to move into the administrative side of things, neur, and philanthropist Dr. Henry Samueli discusses you developed a new set of skills, or do you think that the origins of Broadcom, why he invests in STEM the skills that you already had as a researcher and education for young people, and the importance of inventor were applicable in that new arena? taking advantage of opportunities. Samueli: No, it is definitely a new set of skills. Being a manager and administrator, building a business, INTERVIEW and understanding the markets, the sales process, T&I: You have 75 patents, and that really represents and the marketing process are a new set of skills that an amazing output of inventive activity. Do you have you typically don’t have when you are doing detailed any favorites? Were there some you think are more design engineering and research. I developed those important because either they’re personal to you in skills through osmosis by working alongside my col- some way or because of the impact they had? leagues who had a lot of the expertise in those areas, and I asked a lot of questions and slowly learned and Samueli: I think you can definitely pick some favor- gained a broader skill set, but it was not something ites, especially in terms of impact. It turns out, of I innately had. course, that the earlier patents were more impactful because that was in the earlier stages of the company THE NAI PROFILE 345 T&I: In reading about your early years, I loved your and now it’s virtually 100% CMOS for building radios quote about people who were very skeptical of your as opposed to using all those esoteric and expensive efforts. You said, “People in the industry said, ‘You technologies that have gone by the wayside. So, it’s guys are crazy, this will never work.’ We were trying quite interesting how we were right and vindicated, to build these high performance radios and commu- but it took over 10 years for that to happen. nication circuits out of very average technologies. T&I: That anecdote also speaks to the idea of But we saw that it could be done.” What made you vision — that you see something where other people so sure, despite the pushback that you were getting, don’t see it. Do you think that that vision is some- that you were right? thing that you had innately, or is it something that Samueli: Well, it goes back to my days as a faculty developed over time and experience? member at UCLA. I formed a research team made Samueli: It’s kind of a combination of things. It helps up of me and three other faculty members working to have the experience, and, in fact, in my case, the in the area of designing chips for radio communica- experience of working in industry at TRW, a defense tions using very low-cost semiconductor technology contractor for military broadband communication known as CMOS. CMOS stands for complementary systems, was invaluable. I did five years of work there metal-oxide-semiconductor. It’s the technology that’s after my Ph.D. The experience I gained there was used to build virtually all chips today. Back then, it critical for my research when I went back to become a was not used to build the radio frequency portion faculty member at UCLA. After those five years, I had of the system. CMOS was used to build the digital a much broader perspective and much better idea of circuits, the microprocessors, and so forth. It was a what’s practical, what’s not practical, what’s feasible, very low cost but lower performance technology and and what’s not feasible. Therefore, it is a combination typically wasn’t suitable for radio frequencies, so the of intuition and experience that gives you the insight industry was using much more expensive, esoteric into doing a lot of these projects. technologies to manufacture radios in those days. We came up with innovative ways of building T&I: From your perspective of having been in the radios using this very cheap CMOS technology and trenches with invention and now leading the efforts went out in the industry to try to get funding for our administratively with Broadcom, are there any qual- research projects at UCLA, and most companies did ities that you would add to being a great innovator laugh at us as you mentioned in the quote because besides vision and tenacity in the face of naysayers? they said, “Nah, that can’t be done.” I replied, “Well, Samueli: I think those are probably the most import- we did the research, and we did build some prototype ant.