Founder Stories: John Tu and David Sun of Kingston Technology
From bankrupt to billionaires, these two Taiwanese American co-founders became memory kings
John Tu and David Sun are each worth $14 billion according to Bloomberg estimates. You may not know their names, but it is highly likely that you have used their products. Tu and Sun founded Kingston Technology, the world’s largest independent manufacturer or memory products including flash memory products like the solid-state drives (SSDs) used in laptops, servers and embedded memory on your smartphone devices. Their drives are also used in USB flash drives and memory cards (SD and microSD cards for cameras, phones, and drones among others. In fiscal year 2024, Kingston Technology generated $14 billion in revenue and was ranked #29 on Forbes’ list of Top Private Companies of the year. Not bad considering they were both nearly bankrupt the day they started the company.
John Tu was born in Chongqing, China in 1941 before moving to Taiwan when he was 6. He went to college in Germany where his uncle owned a Chinese restaurant and studied electrical engineering at Darmstadt University. In 1970, he moved to Arizona and opened a gift shop before going into real estate as a developer.
David Sun was born in Taiwan in 1951 and graduated from Tatung University. He immigrated to the US in 1977 and was working as an engineer at electronic component maker Alpha Micro in Los Angeles when he met John. Together they co-founded memory device maker Camintonn in 1984 out of David’s garage and sold the business for $6 million to AST Research two years later. The pair invested their proceeds in the stock market and lost all of their life savings in the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987. That was also the day they founded Kingston Technology in Fountain Valley, CA. John played drums in a rock band (JT and California Dreamin’) and the name was inspired by one of his favorite bands, The Kingston Trio.
In 1988, Kingston started selling DRAM memory products with an unheard-of lifetime warranty. In 1993, they expand into networking and storage product lines. By 1995, Kingston company sales crack the $1 billion mark for the first time and bought an ad in the Wall Street Journal, Orange County Register and LA Times with a listing of all Kingston employees’ names.
In 1996, Softbank bought 80% of the company for $1.5 billion and John and David distributed $100 million of the proceeds to employees. Three years later, amid declining demand, John and David buy back Softbank’s stake for $450 million. That same year, Kingston launches flash memory cards used in cameras and electronic devices. In 2011, Kingston reports record revenue of $6.5 billion and more than doubles that in less than ten years at $15 billion sales in 2020.
John Tu and David Sun never raised a penny of venture capital for the business and they each own 50% of the company to this day. David Sun says that they started the company out of pure luck, but it’s clear that they saw a need and opportunity in the memory space with DRAM in 1987 and they filled it. They continued to evolve their strategy to become the memory kings and made shrewd and risky decisions like buying back the company from SoftBank for $450 million of their own money. That couldn’t have been an easy decision after losing their life savings once before.
Today, John and David continue to run the company, but they are also giving back generously to their community. David and his wife Diana have donated $100 million to the Hoag Hospital in Irvine, CA to build the Sun Family Campus, which when completed will be home to several buildings housing cancer and digestive-care practices, women’s health care, and an advanced surgical center. John and his wife Mary have a foundation that supports disaster relief, arts, and education. Together they donated millions to support COVID-19 patient care during the pandemic as well as to the Bowers Museum in Orange County.