Hock Tan

Hock Tan has served as CEO of Broadcom Inc. since 2006, executing one of the most extraordinary corporate building stories in technology history. Starting with Avago Technologies (a former HP semiconductor division), Tan has assembled Broadcom into a $750+ billion technology empire through a series of increasingly large and audacious acquisitions: LSI Logic (2013), Broadcom Corporation (2016, for $37 billion — Avago took the Broadcom name), CA Technologies (2018, entering enterprise software), Symantec's enterprise security business (2019), and VMware (2023, for $69 billion — the largest tech deal in history at the time). Broadcom's semiconductor business produces critical networking chips (Tomahawk and Jericho switches dominate data center networking), broadband and connectivity chips, storage controllers, and increasingly, custom AI accelerators (XPU) designed for hyperscale cloud customers like Google. The VMware acquisition added a massive enterprise software franchise in virtualization, cloud infrastructure, and networking. Tan's strategy is distinctive: acquire companies with market-leading technology products, ruthlessly cut costs and R&D on non-core products, focus investment on the highest-value product lines, and generate exceptional free cash flow. His key decisions now involve VMware integration and monetization, custom AI chip development, semiconductor R&D prioritization, and managing Broadcom's substantial acquisition debt.