How John built the fortune
John Tu's fortune comes from Kingston Technology, the memory products company he started with his business partner David Sun in Southern California in 1987. At the time, a shortage of surface mount memory chips made it hard for computer owners to upgrade older machines. Tu and Sun designed memory modules that used the older, more readily available chips, and the product found a ready market among PC users and resellers.
Kingston grew quickly by focusing on reliability and fast delivery and by building close relationships with distributors and chip suppliers. Over time it moved from memory upgrades into a broad range of products: DRAM modules for desktops, laptops and servers, USB flash drives, memory cards and solid state drives. The company also sells gaming hardware and serves computer makers that brand its products as their own.
Kingston has remained privately owned by its founders, which means its profits have stayed with Tu and Sun. It is widely regarded as one of the largest independent makers of memory modules in the world, with factories and offices in the United States, Asia and Europe.
Tu has often credited the company's success to its people and to keeping commitments with suppliers and customers through difficult times, such as periods of chip shortages or price collapses that have hit the memory industry repeatedly. Kingston's ability to source chips from several manufacturers and assemble modules quickly has helped it weather those cycles.
Companies and holdings
Tu and Sun's main asset is Kingston Technology, headquartered in Fountain Valley, California. A notable episode in its history came in 1996, when Japan's SoftBank bought a majority stake in Kingston. The founders stayed on to run the company, and in 1999 they bought the stake back for a fraction of what SoftBank had paid, after the investment did not work out as SoftBank intended.
The company's product lines include:
- Memory modules for consumer and enterprise computers
- Solid state drives and USB flash storage
- Memory cards for cameras and phones
- Gaming accessories sold under the HyperX brand until its sale to HP in 2021, and later under Kingston FURY
The HyperX peripherals business was sold to HP in 2021 in a deal valued at about 425 million dollars, while Kingston kept its memory products for gamers.
Early life and career
Tu was born in Chongqing, China, in the early 1940s and grew up in Taiwan. He studied electrical engineering in Germany before moving to the United States in the 1970s. In California he worked in the electronics industry and met David Sun, a fellow engineer from Taiwan.
The two first started a memory company called Camintonn in 1982, which they sold to AST Research in 1986. After losing much of the proceeds in stock market declines, they set up Kingston a year later, applying what they had learned about memory and the PC market. Tu has served as Kingston's president and chief executive while Sun has held the role of chief operating officer, a partnership that has lasted more than four decades.
Their working style became a frequently cited example of an informal, trust based partnership: the two founders have described making decisions together without elaborate contracts between them, and sharing offices and responsibilities for decades.
Philanthropy and public life
Tu and Sun became widely known in 1996, when they set aside a very large sum from the SoftBank deal as bonuses for Kingston's employees, an unusual gesture that drew national press coverage. Tu has said that the company's culture of trust and loyalty is its main competitive advantage.
Tu has given to education and to causes in Southern California and Asia, and he has spoken about the importance of treating staff as partners. His personal giving is not widely publicised, and he rarely appears in the press outside of industry events.
Kingston has also been recognised in the United States as a good place to work, with long employee tenure and a family like culture that Tu has deliberately cultivated. He has served as an example in business writing about loyalty and generous treatment of staff.