Yuen Could Have Last Laugh on AST : Computers: In first public address since June 29 ouster by Irvine firm he co-founded, the entrepreneur shows he didn’t lose his sense of humor with his job. He says he’s restless and has gotten several offers.
LA MIRADA — Thomas C.K. Yuen hasn’t shared many details about the terms of his abrupt departure from AST Research Inc. 10 weeks ago, but he has learned to joke about the experience.
“Many of you know that PC stands for personal computer,” he said in his first public speech since he was ousted June 29 from the Irvine-based Fortune 500 company he co-founded in 1981. “Maybe for me, it means personal crisis.”
Speaking to members of the Data Processing Management Assn. and to friends who followed his ascent as a computer entrepreneur, Yuen weaved his views on the industry’s course and jested about his own future.
He spoke about the PCs as if he were marketing a new computer to everyone in the banquet room. But some in the crowd really did want to sell him something: About 20 people pitched investments to Yuen during the event.
“Unfortunately, there isn’t much capital out there which people can get, and that’s a sign of the times,” Yuen said.
Yuen said he has grown restless and is anxious to become involved with another company to duplicate AST’s “financial miracle” in growing from a three-man operation in a garage to the county’s largest computer maker.
Since leaving AST, Yuen said, he has been offered positions on six company boards; he has been asked to serve as chairman of a company; two other companies have asked if he will acquire them. He has a net worth of about $60 million.
He acknowledged that the PC industry has become a hostile environment for profit-seeking companies, and he predicted a shakeout of weak players and a subsequent consolidation that could last a couple of years.
Yuen said Dell Computer Corp. in Austin, Texas, and Compaq Computer Corp. in Houston have made strides with new product introductions that will create severe competition for companies such as AST and IBM.
“I’d like to see more new products from AST,” he said.
He said he thinks that PCs are making inroads into corporate computer networks that were once the domain of minicomputers, centralized computers that crunch numbers for networks of terminals. He also said that increasingly powerful PCs would begin replacing mainframe computers, the mainstay of major corporate computing, within five to 10 years.
Yuen predicted that computer makers would be selling standard IBM-compatible computers for $595 by Christmas, a third less than current prices. And he said computer makers will soon face more competition from overseas consumer electronics manufacturers as the technologies of the two industries begin to merge.
Even so, Yuen said, he wanted to get involved in the computer industry again, or perhaps in the field of genetic engineering, where he hopes to find a cure for his debilitating kidney condition.
“I’ll take a couple of months to decide,” he said. “I feel there are so many opportunities.”
The speech at the conference in La Mirada drew 130 data processing professionals as well as would-be entrepreneurs. The group also included former colleagues from companies where Yuen has worked.
“He has a kind of hero status,” said Michael Kwok, an international trade consultant in Laguna Niguel. “I just wanted to hear what he had to say.”
Yuen said in an interview on Monday that he doesn’t talk with his former partner, Safi U. Qureshey, the chief executive of AST and sole remaining co-founder. But he had some kind words for the company in his speech.
“AST is under my (former) partner’s management,” he said. “He has good people in place, and they will do well, especially with the cushion of cash that they have.”
