Henry Samueli

Henry Samueli was born in 1952 in Buffalo, New York, and pursued a career in electrical engineering that took him to UCLA, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering. After his PhD, he joined the UCLA faculty, eventually becoming a full professor. His academic work focused on digital signal processing and integrated circuit design — the foundational technical disciplines underlying the cable modem chips that would make Broadcom Corporation successful. Samueli has remained a beloved figure in the UCLA community, donating approximately $100 million to the university's engineering school, which now bears his name as the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.

Henry Samueli co-founded Broadcom Corporation in 1991 with his former PhD student Henry Nicholas III, using $5,000 in seed capital to pursue the development of cable modem silicon. As the chief technical architect of the company, Samueli led the engineering organization through the development of Broadcom's DOCSIS cable modem chips, ethernet networking silicon, and eventually the broader semiconductor portfolio that made the company one of Silicon Valley's most valuable properties. He served as Chief Technology Officer through the company's growth years and its public offering in 1998. Following the 2016 merger with Avago Technologies that created the modern Broadcom Inc., Samueli continued as CTO and chairman, providing technical continuity to the combined organization. He was involved in the stock options backdating controversy of the mid-2000s but remained with the company through its restructuring and eventual comeback. His name adorns UCLA's engineering school following a $100 million donation, one of the largest gifts to a public university engineering program in California history.