When Weili Dai immigrated to America, she barely spoke a word of English.
Today, she is not only one of the most powerful people in the country, but as the only woman who has co-founded a successful semiconductor company in the USA, Dai has broken through more barriers than most people will ever face.
Dai grew up in a district of Shanghai as part of an affluent, successful family. Her mother was head nurse at a local hospital, while her father was an engineer, as well as a student of English and Russian. The family was especially close, and her parents always supportive of their daughter’s ambitions, a fact to which Dai attributes much of her success.
She played on a semi-professional basketball team from the ages of 9-14. The experience provided her with an understanding of what it means to be passionate about what you do, and inspired many values that Dai would represent in her career. “I believe that helped me to develop the confidence, the health, the discipline, the teamwork concept and then of course the family upbringing (was) truly the foundation.”
As China’s Cultural Revolution came to an end, Dai’s family looked to opportunities abroad. They moved to the USA in 1979, when she was 17.
At the time, she barely spoke a word of English, but was nevertheless accepted into high school in San Francisco. After graduating, she then went to UC Berkley to study computer science, having always considered herself a geek at heart. During her undergraduate years, she took a summer internship at research company Bell Labs, a move that affirmed her decision to enter the tech industry.
While studying, she met electrical engineering student Sehat Sutardja,who would later become her husband, and co-founder of their company. Before anything else, they were collaborators, keen to develop a business together. Not to get too ahead of themselves, Dai encouraged Sehat to undertake his PhD. “I said, down the road, when it’s the right time to start something I’ll be there to support him and do it together. I believe entrepreneurs need to have good experience and a technical foundation. Then you can start your own company. That’s when you can truly be creative and have the freedom to create whatever innovation or product you like,” she told FT in a 2015 interview. As he studied, Dai worked as a software developer for Xerox and the Canon Research Centre.
In 1995 they founded Marvell Technology. Their goal? It was all in the name. They wanted their company to be wonderful. Incredible. Marvelous. They shorted the name to Marvel, then added an extra l to differentiate themselves from other leaders in the tech industry whose names ended in -el.
With a small loan from their family, they charged into a highly competitive industry in an age of technological revolution. “Marvell is our passion. Because of our determination and hard work, we had the confidence and the belief in our capability to start from very humble beginnings and continue to scale to where we are today,” she explained to Forbes.
Marvell started by producing hard drive controllers, then branched out into a range of high volume storage solutions, and “Internet of Things”, including software and microprocessors. Dai commanded the business as COO, Executive Vice President, and General Manager, before becoming President in 2013. Meanwhile, Sehat focused on development.
After 20 years, the company was positioned as #1 in the industry under the direction of the only woman co-founder in America, providing product for companies including Apple and Google.
Beyond finding their passion, Dai has one piece of advice for those who want to follow in her footsteps:
“Everybody needs to have a good sense of pride as they think about how they impact people, the world, their industry. They have to take a deep breath and ask, ‘Is this something that makes me proud? Am I making a positive impact?’ Why do I say this? Because you have to think long term. It’s about doing business in a beautiful way.”
Collaboration is another major factor in Dai’s success. She is an ambassador of opportunity between the US and China, and in 2012 joined a roundtable with President Obama to discuss how the country could become more entrepreneurial. (After the meeting, she challenged him to a game of basketball, but is still waiting for a response.)
Dai doesn’t dwell on the disparity between men and women in tech, but is an advocate for exposing more women to the realms of technology and science at a young age. She has high hopes that more women will find a place in the industry in the near future.
“It is pure mythology that women cannot perform as well as men in science, engineering and mathematics. In my experience, the opposite is true: Women are often more adept and patient at untangling complex problems, multitasking, seeing the possibilities in new solutions and winning team support for collaborative action.”
As of 2015, Dai was nominated as the 95th most powerful woman in the world by Time magazine.
No matter her success, Weili Dai is always preparing for what’s to come next. Two decades in, she firmly believes that Marvell is still in its infancy, and has a lot more to offer the tech world. With her at the helm, and Sehat in the lab, we’ve no doubt that is the case.