William Wang () is a Taiwanese American
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...
entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of
Vizio.
Early life
Wang was born in
Taipei,
Taiwan, moved to
Hawaii,
United States at the age of 12, and then to
California at the age of 14. He attended the
University of Southern California and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1986.
VIZIO
In 2000, Wang survived the crash of
Singapore Airlines Flight 006
Singapore Airlines Flight 006 (SQ006/SIA006) was a scheduled Singapore Airlines passenger flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Los Angeles International Airport via Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (now Taiwan Taoyuan International Airp ...
, suffering only
carbon monoxide poisoning. The tragedy provided an opportunity for Wang to reorganize his thoughts and his life. Within two years, Wang had closed down all of his businesses before entering the television market.
In 2001,
Gateway, Inc. asked Wang to help put together a TV plan. Ted Waitt
ateway's then chairmanhad been one of Wang's customers at MAG, his former company and had become a mentor to Wang.
Wang's team helped Gateway put together its 42-inch plasma TV system, priced at $2999. Comparable systems at the time sold for upwards of $6000. Not long after that, Wang entered into television manufacture with his own firm.
He started "V Inc." in 2002 with Laynie Newsome, Ken Lowe and $600,000. His idea was to combine low prices with high quality and exceptional customer support, and to make this approach profitable through extremely lean operations.
When V Inc. was found to be hard to pronounce, he renamed the company VIZIO Inc.
– the name used for their plasma TV. The company is now one of the largest sellers of LCD HDTVs in North America with a multibillion-dollar revenue.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, William
American computer businesspeople
Living people
USC Viterbi School of Engineering alumni
Members of Committee of 100
Taiwanese emigrants to the United States
American chief executives
Year of birth missing (living people)
American billionaires