{"id":"john-tu","type":"person","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/john-tu","language":"en","name":"John Tu","name_en":"John Tu","name_ne":null,"description":"American billionaire","headline":"American billionaire","also_known_as":[],"summary":"John Tu (Chinese: 杜紀川; pinyin: Dù Jìchuān; born August 12, 1941) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire business executive and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the digital storage corporation  Kingston Technology, which he established with David Sun in 1987.","summary_more":["Born in Chongqing, China, Tu was raised in Taiwan, studied electrical engineering in West Germany, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1971. He co-founded the computer memory company Camintonn with Sun in 1982, selling it to AST Research for $6 million in 1986. Following substantial financial losses in the 1987 stock market crash, the two founded Kingston Technology, which became a major manufacturer of computer memory products.","In 1996, they sold an 80 percent stake in Kingston to the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank for $1.5 billion, before repurchasing it for $450 million in 1999. The two attracted national attention for distributing $100 million from the sale proceeds to Kingston employees as bonuses. As of October 2026, Forbes estimates Tu's net worth at $33.7 billion, making him the 70th richest person in the world."],"facts":[{"key":"born","label":"Born","values":[{"text":"1940","date":"1940"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6261339#P569"}},{"key":"birthplace","label":"Place of birth","values":[{"text":"Chongqing","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11725"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6261339#P19"}},{"key":"citizenship","label":"Citizenship","values":[{"text":"United States","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6261339#P27"}},{"key":"occupation","label":"Occupation","values":[{"text":"engineer","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q81096"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6261339#P106"}},{"key":"education","label":"Education","values":[{"text":"Technical University of Darmstadt","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q310695"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6261339#P69"}}],"office":null,"sections":[],"cited":[],"cited_from":null,"videos":[],"last_reviewed":null,"organizations":[],"same_as":["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tu","https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6261339"],"faq":[{"q":"When was John Tu born?","a":"John Tu was born on 1940 in Chongqing."},{"q":"Where did John Tu study?","a":"John Tu was educated at Technical University of Darmstadt."}],"related":[{"name":"Jan Koum","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/jan-koum"},{"name":"Joe Gebbia","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/joe-gebbia"},{"name":"Luke Nosek","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/luke-nosek"},{"name":"Miriam Adelson","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/miriam-adelson"},{"name":"Adam Riess","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/adam-riess"},{"name":"Alan J. Heeger","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/alan-j-heeger"},{"name":"Alfred G. Gilman","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/alfred-g-gilman"},{"name":"Alfred Hershey","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/alfred-hershey"},{"name":"Allan MacLeod Cormack","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/allan-macleod-cormack"},{"name":"Andrea M. Ghez","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/andrea-m-ghez"},{"name":"Andrew Fire","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/andrew-fire"},{"name":"Andrew Schally","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/andrew-schally"}],"places_in":[],"nearby":[],"image":null,"sources":[{"label":"Wikipedia (English): John Tu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tu","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"},{"label":"Wikidata item Q6261339","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6261339","license":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"}],"license":{"text":"CC BY-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/","facts":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"},"attribution":"Text from the Wikipedia article John Tu, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page's text is shared under the same licence. Facts from Wikidata (CC0).","cite":"\"John Tu\". DigiNepal. Last updated 31 October 2026. https://diginpl.com/people/john-tu. Retrieved 12 November 2026.","date_modified":"2026-10-31T11:28:20Z","facts_checked":"2026-11-11","alternates":{"html":"https://diginpl.com/people/john-tu","en":"https://diginpl.com/people/john-tu","ne":"https://diginpl.com/people/john-tu?lang=ne"}}