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An Wang: The Core of the Computer Era
The inventor of magnetic memory and founder of Wang Laboratories survived
war-torn Shanghai before becoming a U.S. tech legend
It's well known that many European scientists, displaced from a war-ravaged
continent, helped build post-World War II U.S. through their discoveries and
inventions. But it was a Chinese immigrant escaping the war's devastation in
Shanghai who achieved a breakthrough in computing and built a company that
became entrenched in the American workplace.
An Wang invented the computer memory core, founded Wang Laboratories, and
became known as one of Boston's greatest philanthropists. In the early
1980s, more than 80% of the 2,000 largest U.S. companies used Wang office
equipment, and in 1984 Wang Laboratories' profits reached $210 million on
sales of $2.2 billion.
Wang was born in Shanghai on Feb. 7, 1920. He and his four siblings enjoyed
the luxury of learning English from their father, who taught the language at
a local private elementary school. But languages weren't what the young Wang
truly excelled at as much as math and science.
PURSUING PULSES. At age 16 he was admitted to the "MIT" of China, Shanghai's
Chiao Tung University, to study electrical engineering. Just one year later,
however, Japan invaded China. Wang lost both parents and a sister in the
fighting as the Japanese firebombed Shanghai day after day. Almost
completely leveled, the city fell in November, 1937.
While many of his fellow students and colleagues fled for Hong Kong (later
to become the driving force behind the emergence of that city's economic
vitality), Wang pursued his studies in an occupied Shanghai. When the war
ended, he left China to pursue a PhD in applied physics from Harvard.
At Harvard, free to fully concentrate, Wang not only earned his doctorate in
three years but started experimenting with different ways to regulate
magnetic pulses, which the scientific community suspected was the key to
building machines that could "remember" data from one millisecond to the
next.
CONFUCIAN VALUES. In 1948, Wang announced the invention of the memory core,
and he invited the university to further sponsor his work by joining him in
the patent application. As was its policy at the time, Harvard declined to
participate, so in 1954 Wang received the patent solely in his name. In the
meantime, he had started his one-man company in a rented room above a garage
in Boston's South End. Wang Laboratories earned $15,000 that first year, and
it grew an average of 40% a year for the next 33 years.
As the company expanded, Wang scoffed at commonly held stereotypes of
Chinese in business, once saying he was so driven because he wanted to prove
that "Chinese could succeed at more than operating laundries." Yet, in his
1986 autobiography Lessons, he tells how he achieved success partly by
relying on the Confucian values of balance, moderation, and simplicity.
Wang also approached ownership of the company in a decidedly traditionally
Chinese fashion, ensuring that his family held more than 75% of the stock
through the 1980s.
MISSED THE PC BOAT. In 1964, Wang Laboratories introduced a desktop
calculator and began developing word-processing systems for business. By the
mid-1970s, it seemed that every office used the ubiquitous Wang word
processor.
Toward the end of that decade, however, Wang made two decisions that would
later prove to be the company's undoing: He decided to concentrate on
hardware, not software. And the pieces of hardware he chose to concentrate
on were word processors and minicomputers (these not-so-aptly named machines
were designed to link computers networks), not personal computers.
When the PC revolution hit, Wang Laboratories' profits tumbled. Then in late
1986, as Wang readied for partial retirement, Wang Laboratories' board
announced that Wang's 36-year-old son, Frederick, would become company
president. That turned out to be another big mistake.
GENEROUS TO THE END. Wang Laboratories lost millions of dollars over the
next two years as it was slow to introduce new products, went into default
on several loans, and -- when it finally introduced a desktop computer --
failed to make it compatible with the IBM PC. The Wang desktop flopped, and
An Wang made the difficult decision of forcing his son out.
Despite the company's declining fortunes and the onset of the esophagus
cancer that would eventually lead to his death on Mar. 24, 1990, An Wang
continued to give back to the university and city that he felt he owed so
much, donating millions of dollars to Harvard and various Boston civic and
cultural organizations.
While Wang Laboratories struggled for years before reemerging in the early
1990s as a software consultancy, An Wang's legacy remains secure. Like so
many other immigrants, he escaped the horrors of war and used his gifts to
help build a better America.
As part of its 75th anniversary celebration, BusinessWeek is presenting a
series of weekly profiles for the greatest innovators of the past 75 years,
from science to government. BusinessWeek Online is joining in by adding more
online-only profiles of The Great Innovators. In late September, 2004,
BusinessWeek will publish a special commemorative issue on Innovation
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Tang family gives $4.7M to MIT
Carla Lane, UESA Communications
January 27, 1993
MIT has recently announced a gift of $4.7 from the Tang family of California
and Hong Kong. The Tangs, who have been represented at MIT for three
generations, have designated the funds for two purposes: $3.5 million will
go toward the construction of the Jack C. Tang Center for Management
Education, and $1.2 million will be added to the Tang Scholarship Fund at
MIT. This addition will bring the total of the Tang scholarship endowment to
$2.7 million, making it one of the largest scholarship funds at MIT.
The new Jack C. Tang Center, a planned four-story addition to Building E51
at the corner of Amherst and Wadsworth Streets, will be used primarily by
the Sloan School of Management and the School of Humanities and Social
Sciences. It will house a 300-seat auditorium, three case-method classrooms
of 90-100 seats each, a student-faculty lounge and a number of smaller rooms
that will serve as student study and meeting spaces and interview rooms for
students and recruiters.
"The Tangs have once again made a most generous gift to MIT and to
education. They have been wonderful friends for many years," said MIT
President Charles M. Vest in announcing the gift. "It is heartening to know
that the family shares so deeply our commitment to scholarship and teaching,
and we are very grateful."
Lester Thurow, dean of the Sloan School, says of the proposed center, "Team
teaching and student collaboration have become very important to management
education over the past decade. Until now, however, our students lacked the
facilities to meet and work together easily. I think we are going to look
back on the Tang gift as one of the best investments for our students."
Ping Yuan Tang, the first in the family to attend MIT, received an SB degree
in management in 1923. He returned to his native Shanghai and built up a
conglomerate in textiles, cement and flour. Forced to flee China in 1948, he
went to Hong Kong and established the South Sea Textile Manufacturing
Company.
His son, Jack C. Tang, graduated from MIT in 1949 with an SB in chemical
engineering. A prominent business leader in Hong Kong, he succeeded to the
chairmanship of South Sea Textile at his father's death in 1971. He has been
chairman of the MIT Club of Hong Kong and a member of the MIT Corporation
Development Committee and has been active in fundraising for MIT in Asia.
His son, Martin Y. Tang, who earned an SM degree in management from MIT in
1972, represents the third Tang generation at MIT. After serving as a second
lieutenant in the US Army, Martin Tang worked in San Francisco and in Taipei
before returning to Hong Kong. He is now managing director of executive
search consultants Spencer Stuart in Hong Kong. He has been president of the
MIT Club of Hong Kong and secretary of the MIT Club of Taiwan and has served
as an Educational Counselor.
In the early 1970s, Jack Tang, with his mother and siblings, donated in Ping
Yuan Tang's memory the Tang Residence Hall, the 24-story graduate dormitory
on MIT's West Campus. In 1986, he established the Tang Scholarship Fund for
needy students of Chinese descent with a gift of $1.5 million. The recent
$1.2 million addition to the Tang Fund is designated for the support of any
undergraduates in need.
Jack Tang's daughters, Leslie Tang Schilling, who graduated from the
University of California at Berkeley, and Nadine Tang, who graduated from
Boston University and also attended UC Berkeley, have also been instrumental
in the family's decision to support MIT. Ms. Schilling is a real estate
developer in San Francisco and Ms. Tang is a social worker in the counseling
center at Mills College. Both are active in community cultural, educational
and business groups in the San Francisco area. In appreciation for their
education at the University of California, the Tang family has also pledged
a $4 million gift to Berkeley.
"Our family has always believed in giving back to the community," says
Leslie Tang Schilling. "It is our hope that our gift to MIT will encourage
others to be generous to MIT in their turn."
A version of this article appeared in the January 27, 1993 issue of MIT Tech
Talk (Volume 37, Number 20).
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