Lip-Bu Tan


Early life and education

Born in 1959 in Muar, Johor, Federation of Malaya to a Malaysian Chinese family, Tan grew up in Singapore and graduated from Nanyang University with a BSc in physics. Tan later completed an M.S. in nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S. Tan began Ph.D. studies in the subject at MIT, but because the 1979 Three Mile Island accident caused a sharp reduction in opportunities in the nuclear industry, Tan left MIT and transferred to the University of San Francisco, where he graduated with an MBA.

Business career

Tan was a manager at EDS Nuclear and ECHO Energy and partner at the Walden USA investment fund before founding venture capital firm Walden International in 1987. He named the firm after the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau because Tan's goal was to be like Thoreau: "contrarian, rather than just following the trend." Growing from $20 million upon its founding to $2 billion by 2001, Walden International has focused its investments on semiconductor, alternative energy, and digital media businesses and startups in the U.S. and Asia such as Ambarella Inc., Creative Technology, S3 Graphics, and Sina Corp. Tan became interim co-CEO in October 2008 following the resignation of Michael Fister in October 2008. The Cadence board formally named Tan president and CEO effective January 8, 2009. Under Tan's leadership, Cadence grew its net worth to $1.3 billion by 2012, including $440 million in that year alone. Cadence also expanded its Shanghai office in 2012. In 2013, Cadence purchased private chip design company Tensilica for $380 million.
In 2017, the analytics firm Relationship Science named him most connected executives in the technology industry garnering a perfect "power score" of 100.

Boards and memberships

From 2006 to 2011, Tan was a trustee of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Tan also served on the Regent College Board of Governors from 2006 to 2012. Additionally, Tan currently directs the boards of HP Enterprise, Schneider Electric, and Softbank and has served on the boards of Ambarella, Flextronics International, Inphi Corporation, Mindtree, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, UC Berkeley College of Engineering, and United Overseas Bank. He is also a member of the Committee of 100.
Tan has also been an elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley since the 1990s.

Philanthropy

In November 2019, Tan and Cadence Design Systems endowed two computer science professorships for $3 million each at Carnegie Mellon University.

Personal life

Tan lives in Piedmont, California with his wife Ysa Loo. They have two grown children.