Broadcom vs Marvell: Founders, CEOs and History
Broadcom was founded in 1991 by Henry Samueli, Henry Nicholas III and is led by Hock Tan. Marvell was founded in 1995 by Sehat Sutardja, Weili Dai, Pantas Sutardja and is led by Matthew J. Murphy.
Company facts
Founders
Broadcom
Henry Samueli
Henry Samueli co-founded Broadcom Corporation in Los Angeles in 1991 with Henry Nicholas III, his former doctoral student, and served as its chief technical officer while the company built chips for cable modems, set-top boxes, Ethernet and Wi-Fi.
Henry Nicholas III
Henry Nicholas III co-founded Broadcom Corporation with Samueli in 1991 and was its president and CEO through the cable modem boom, the April 1998 IPO and a string of stock-funded acquisitions in 1999 and 2000. He resigned in January 2003.
Marvell
Sehat Sutardja
Sehat Sutardja (1961-2024) was born in Indonesia and earned his master's and PhD in electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley.
Weili Dai
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.
Pantas Sutardja
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.
CEOs and their tenures
Broadcom
- Henry Samueli1991–present
Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board
Henry Samueli co-founded Broadcom Corporation in 1991 and, as chief technical officer, led the engineering behind its cable modem, Ethernet and Wi-Fi chips. He joined the board after Avago bought Broadcom Corporation in 2016 and is chairman of Broadcom Inc.
Source - Henry Nicholas III1991–2003
Co-Founder; President and CEO of Broadcom Corporation
Henry Nicholas III ran Broadcom Corporation from its founding through its April 1998 IPO and the dot-com boom, then resigned in January 2003. Backdating and drug charges brought against him in 2008 were dismissed in December 2009 and January 2010.
Source - Scott McGregor2005–2016
President and CEO of Broadcom Corporation
Scott McGregor led Broadcom Corporation from 2005 until Avago completed its $37 billion acquisition in February 2016, a period when the company expanded in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, set-top box and data center switch chips.
Source - Hock Tan2006–present
President and Chief Executive Officer
Hock E. Tan became CEO of Avago Technologies in March 2006 and has run the company through its acquisitions of LSI (2014), Broadcom Corporation (2016), Brocade (2017), CA Technologies (2018), Symantec's enterprise business (2019) and VMware (2023).
Source - Kirsten Spears2020–2026
Chief Financial Officer
Kirsten Spears was CFO for about six years of her 12 years at Broadcom, covering the VMware financing and the AI-driven growth of 2024 and 2025. She retired on 12 June 2026 and agreed to advise the company for nine months.
Source - Amie Thuener2026–present
Chief Financial Officer
Amie Thuener joined Broadcom as CFO on 12 June 2026 from Alphabet, where she had been vice president, corporate controller and chief accounting officer since 2018, after an earlier career at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Source
Marvell
- Sehat Sutardja1995–2016
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
Co-founded Marvell and led it as CEO for 21 years, from hard-drive chips to a broad storage and networking company.
Source - Matthew J. Murphy2016–present
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Became CEO in 2016 after 22 years at Maxim Integrated. Exited mobile and consumer chips, bought Cavium, Inphi and Innovium, sold automotive Ethernet and refocused Marvell on data infrastructure and AI.
Source - Dan Durn2026–present
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Joined June 15, 2026 from Adobe, where he was CFO from 2021; earlier CFO roles include Applied Materials and GlobalFoundries.
Source
Timeline: Broadcom and Marvell side by side
1991Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation founded
UCLA professor Henry Samueli and his former doctoral student Henry Nicholas III found Broadcom Corporation in Los Angeles to build broadband communications chips in CMOS, starting with chips for cable modems and digital set-top boxes.
1995Marvell
Marvell founded
Sehat Sutardja, Weili Dai and Pantas Sutardja found Marvell to build CMOS read-channel chips for hard disk drives.
1998Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation IPO
Broadcom Corporation lists on Nasdaq in April 1998 at $24 a share, as cable operators roll out DOCSIS cable modems built on its chips.
2000Marvell
Nasdaq IPO
Marvell lists on Nasdaq under the ticker MRVL.
2001Marvell
Galileo Technology acquired
Marvell buys Israeli networking chipmaker Galileo Technology in a stock deal of about $2.7 billion, building its Ethernet switch business.
2005Broadcom
Avago Technologies formed
KKR and Silver Lake buy Agilent Technologies' semiconductor products group, whose roots go back to Hewlett-Packard's chip operations, for about $2.66 billion and name it Avago Technologies.
2006Broadcom
Hock Tan becomes CEO of Avago
Hock Tan becomes president and CEO of Avago in March 2006 and begins pruning its portfolio to the businesses with defensible technology.
2006Marvell
Intel XScale business acquired
Marvell buys Intel's communications and application processor (XScale) business for about $600 million, expanding into mobile chips it later exited.
2009Broadcom
Avago lists on Nasdaq
Avago Technologies goes public on Nasdaq in August 2009 at $15 a share, giving it stock to use in later acquisitions.
2014Broadcom
LSI Corporation acquired
Avago completes its $6.6 billion purchase of LSI in May 2014, adding storage controllers and custom ASIC design teams.
2016Broadcom
Avago buys Broadcom Corporation
Avago completes its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom Corporation in February 2016, takes the Broadcom name and trades as AVGO.
2016Marvell
Matt Murphy becomes CEO
After an audit committee investigation and a settlement with Starboard Value, the founders leave and former Maxim executive Matt Murphy becomes CEO.
2017Broadcom
Brocade acquired
Broadcom completes its $5.9 billion purchase of Brocade Communications in November 2017, adding Fibre Channel storage networking switches.
2018Broadcom
Qualcomm bid blocked and move to the U.S.
President Trump blocks Broadcom's unsolicited bid for Qualcomm on national security grounds in March 2018. Broadcom completes its redomicile from Singapore to the United States that April.
2018Broadcom
CA Technologies acquired
Broadcom completes its $18.9 billion purchase of CA Technologies in November 2018, its first large software deal, creating the infrastructure software segment.
2018Marvell
Cavium acquired
Marvell acquires Cavium for about $6 billion, adding OCTEON processors and networking products.
2019Broadcom
Symantec enterprise security acquired
Broadcom buys Symantec's enterprise security business for $10.7 billion in November 2019, adding endpoint, web and data loss prevention software.
2019Marvell
Aquantia and Avera Semi acquired
Marvell buys Aquantia for about $452 million and GlobalFoundries' Avera Semi custom ASIC unit for $650 million.
2021Marvell
Inphi acquired and move to Delaware
Marvell closes its roughly $10 billion Inphi acquisition, adding optical DSPs, and redomiciles from Bermuda to Delaware as Marvell Technology, Inc.
2021Marvell
Innovium acquired
Marvell acquires Ethernet switch startup Innovium for about $1.1 billion in stock, adding the Teralynx switch family.
2022Broadcom
VMware deal announced
Broadcom agrees in May 2022 to buy VMware in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $61 billion at announcement.
2023Broadcom
VMware acquisition closes
Broadcom completes the VMware acquisition on 22 November 2023 after clearances in the U.S., EU, UK and China, a deal valued at about $69 billion including assumed debt.
2024Broadcom
Stock split and $1 trillion market value
Broadcom splits its stock 10-for-1 in July 2024, sells VMware's end-user computing unit to KKR for about $4 billion, reports fiscal 2024 revenue of $51.6 billion and passes $1 trillion in market value in December 2024.
2025Broadcom
OpenAI partnership and record fiscal 2025
OpenAI and Broadcom agree in October 2025 to deploy 10 gigawatts of OpenAI-designed accelerators. Fiscal 2025 revenue rises 24% to $63.9 billion, with about $20 billion from AI chips.
2025Marvell
Automotive Ethernet sold to Infineon
Marvell completes the $2.5 billion sale of its automotive Ethernet business to Infineon, recognizing a pre-tax gain of about $1.8 billion.
2026Broadcom
AI chips pass half of revenue
Amie Thuener becomes CFO in June 2026. Third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue rises 86% to $29.6 billion, and AI semiconductor revenue of $16.7 billion is 56% of the total.
2026Marvell
Celestial AI acquisition closes
On February 2, 2026, Marvell completes its acquisition of photonic interconnect startup Celestial AI, valued at about $3.25 billion upfront in cash and stock.
2026Marvell
Fiscal 2026 revenue of $8.195 billion
Marvell reports fiscal 2026 net revenue of $8.195 billion, up 42%, with Data Center at 74%.
2026Marvell
Nvidia invests $2 billion
On March 31, 2026, Nvidia invests $2 billion in Marvell and the companies partner to connect Marvell silicon to Nvidia systems through NVLink Fusion.
2026Marvell
Dan Durn named CFO
Former Adobe CFO Dan Durn becomes Marvell CFO on June 15, 2026, succeeding Willem Meintjes.
2026Marvell
Record Q2 fiscal 2027 revenue
Marvell reports record quarterly revenue of $2.739 billion, up 37% year over year, and raises its fiscal 2027 and 2028 outlook.
Acquisitions
Broadcom
- VMware2023$69B
- Symantec Enterprise Security business2019$10.7B
- CA Technologies2018$18.9B
- Brocade Communications Systems2017$5.9B
- Broadcom Corporation2016$37B
- LSI Corporation2014$6.6B
Marvell
- Celestial AI2026$3.3B
- Inphi Corporation2021$10B
- Innovium2021$1.1B
- Cavium2018$6B
Questions about Broadcom vs Marvell
Who is the CEO of Broadcom Inc. and Marvell Technology, Inc.?
Broadcom Inc. is led by Hock Tan and Marvell Technology, Inc. is led by Matthew J. Murphy. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was Broadcom Inc. founded vs Marvell Technology, Inc.?
Broadcom Inc. was founded in 1991 — 4 years before Marvell Technology, Inc., which was founded in 1995. Broadcom Inc.'s longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Marvell Technology, Inc..
How many employees does Broadcom Inc. have compared to Marvell Technology, Inc.?
Broadcom Inc. employs approximately 33,000 people, while Marvell Technology, Inc. employs approximately 7,400. Broadcom Inc. has the larger workforce at 33,000 employees, compared to Marvell Technology, Inc.'s 7,400. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are Broadcom Inc. and Marvell Technology, Inc. headquartered?
Both Broadcom Inc. and Marvell Technology, Inc. are headquartered in United States, meaning they operate under the same primary regulatory and tax environment.
Who founded Broadcom Inc. and Marvell Technology, Inc.?
Broadcom Inc. was founded by Henry Samueli, Henry Nicholas III. Marvell Technology, Inc. was founded by Sehat Sutardja, Weili Dai, Pantas Sutardja.
Which company has a longer operating history — Broadcom Inc. or Marvell Technology, Inc.?
Broadcom Inc. has been operating for approximately 35 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Marvell Technology, Inc. has been in operation for around 31 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Broadcom vs Marvell overview