Who Founded Marvell?

Sehat Sutardja (1961-2024) was born in Indonesia and earned his master's and PhD in electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley. He co-founded Marvell in 1995 with Weili Dai and Pantas Sutardja and served as chief executive for 21 years, taking the company public in 2000 and building a large storage and networking chip business. In 2016, after an audit committee investigation into sales practices and pressure from activist investor Starboard Value, he left the CEO role and later the board. He then co-founded chiplet-packaging company Silicon Box. He died on September 18, 2024, at age 63. He and Dai donated to UC Berkeley, where Sutardja Dai Hall bears their names.

Education: University of California, Berkeley; Iowa State University; Canisius College.

Weili Dai was born in Shanghai and studied computer science at UC Berkeley. She co-founded Marvell in 1995 with her husband Sehat Sutardja and his brother Pantas, and led sales, operations and partnerships, later serving as president. She left the company in 2016 along with Sehat after the audit committee review. She is one of the best-known women founders in the U.S. semiconductor industry and, with Sehat, a major donor to UC Berkeley.

Education: University of California, Berkeley.

Dai is described as the only female co-founder of a major semiconductor company. Forbes listed her among the richest women in the world in 2015.

Pantas Sutardja, Sehat's brother and also a UC Berkeley-trained electrical engineer, co-founded Marvell in 1995 and worked on its core mixed-signal and storage technology, later serving as chief technology officer. He left Marvell in 2016 during the leadership change that followed the audit committee review. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).