14 May 2008

Patrick Lo, Chinese-Born Founder of Netgear

Immigrant entrepreneur profile

“It was America’s culture that encouraged me to be ambitious,” says Netgear founder Patrick Lo. (Courtesy Media Relations for Netgear)

Sometimes one must take chances to secure a better life for one’s family. That is a lesson Patrick Lo learned when his parents decided to escape China and Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Separating to increase their odds of success, Patrick made it out with an aunt to Macao. However, his parents were captured and sent to a re-education camp until Mao died in 1975.

Living with his grandparents in Hong Kong, Patrick managed to win a full scholarship, reserved for students from developing nations, to attend Brown University in Rhode Island. To secure the $400 needed for the plane ticket to the United States, he held a fundraiser, which he describes as his first experience in raising capital. After paying for the cab ride, he had only $170 to his name upon arriving in America.

Patrick received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Brown, but later returned to Hong Kong to seek employment. Hewlett-Packard hired him in its Asia office and eventually transferred him to Silicon Valley. He later started working for Bay Networks, which allowed him to establish Netgear as an “independent company-within-a-company, with separate budgets and personnel.” Netgear’s focus was computer networking for homes and small and medium-sized businesses. When Nortel purchased Bay Networks, it expressed little interest in Netgear. Patrick raised sufficient funds to purchase Netgear.

By 2003, Netgear had shown a sufficient track record of profitability that Patrick could take the company public. Today, the company, based in Santa Clara, California, employs more than 300 people. One of Netgear’s home networking devices, which can be plugged into any home wall socket, has been favorably reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and other publications.

“If I stayed in Hong Kong, I would have ended up fixing radios,” said Patrick Lo. “It was America’s culture that encouraged me to be ambitious.”

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.

Note: This profile originally appeared in the study American Made: The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Professionals on U.S. Competitiveness, which was commissioned by the National Venture Capital Association and conducted by Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy and Michaela Platzer of Content First LLC.