Henry Samueli

Samueli's parents, Sala and Aron, were Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivors. They arrived in the United States with almost nothing. Samueli stocked shelves in his family's Los Angeles liquor store and graduated from Bancroft Junior High School and Fairfax High School. Samueli became interested in electronics while building an AM/FM radio during a shop class at Bancroft.

Samueli attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received his bachelor's degree (1975), master's degree (1976), and Ph.D (1980), all in the field of electrical engineering. His Ph.D. advisor was Alan N. Willson Jr. and his Ph.D. dissertation is titled "Nonperiodic forced overflow oscillations in digital filters."

Samueli resides with his wife Susan in Newport Beach, California. As of 2025, Forbes estimates Samueli's net worth at US$36.3 billion.

After Broadcom went public in 1998, the Samueli Foundation was created. The foundation focuses its giving in the areas of education, health, youth services, and Jewish culture and values. In 2012, the Samuelis joined the Giving Pledge, initiated by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, whose members pledge the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

In 1999, the Samuelis made major donations to the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science and the UC Irvine School of Engineering, both of which have since been named after him.

In 2009, Henry Samueli was the founding director and chair of the Broadcom Foundation, a 501c(3) corporate nonprofit, that advances science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Broadcom Foundation sponsors the Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars) and the Broadcom MASTERS International, programs of Society for Science and the Public that inspire middle school students to continue math and science courses into high school in order to create pathways to STEM careers. Samueli was inspired by his own seventh grade experience of building a short wave radio from Graymark for innovation that he funded the Marconi/Samueli Award for Innovation with his Marconi Award. The Samuelis also sponsor the $25,000 Samueli Foundation top prize in the Broadcom MASTERS.

In 2001, the Samuelis established the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at UC Irvine. They have also supported the research of the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California, in cancer prevention and treatment. In 2017, the Samuelis made a $200 million gift to UC Irvine to create the Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, a first-of-its-kind institute focused on interdisciplinary integrative health. As part of the gift, the existing Center was elevated to become the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute.

Some of the other major naming gifts of the Samueli Foundation include the Samueli Theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in 2000, the Samueli Jewish Campus in Irvine, CA in 2001, the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library at Chapman University in 2003, and the Samueli Academy, a public Charter High School in Santa Ana, CA for community, underserved, and foster teens in 2013.

In 2015, Samueli received a prize from the Israeli government for his global contribution to innovation and his contribution to innovation in Israel, at the "Innovex" conference for innovation in technology.

Samueli was named a 2017 Fellow by the National Academy of Inventors. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional accolade bestowed to academic inventors.

As of 2017, the Samuelis had committed over $500 million to philanthropic causes.

In June 2019, UCLA announced a $100-million gift from the Samuelis, which would be used to expand the engineering school.

During the technology boom in the 2000s, Samueli and Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III awarded millions of stock options to attract and reward employees. Prosecutors alleged Samueli and Nicholas granted options to others, including some other top executives, but not themselves, to avoid having to report $2.2 billion in compensation costs to shareholders. In 2006 both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice began investigating Broadcom Corporation for backdating of stock options.

On May 15, 2008, Samueli resigned as chairman of the board and took a leave of absence as Chief Technology Officer after being named in a civil complaint by the SEC.

On June 23, 2008, Samueli pleaded guilty for lying to SEC for $2.2 billion of backdating. Under the plea bargain, Samueli agreed to a sentence of five years probation, a $250,000 criminal fine, and a $12 million payment to the US Treasury.

Prosecutors focused on the fact that Samueli denied under oath any role in making options grants to high-ranking executives. As part of his plea agreement, Samueli admitted the statement was false, and admitted to being part of the options-granting process. However, an internal Broadcom probe laid the majority of blame on CEO Henry Nicholas and CFO William Ruehle.

On September 8, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney rejected the plea deal that called for Samueli to receive probation, writing: "The court cannot accept a plea agreement that gives the impression that justice is for sale".

Sixteen months later, on December 10, 2009, Judge Carney, after hearing the testimony of all the witnesses at the trial of CFO William Ruehle, dismissed the cases against Samueli, Ruehle, and Nicholas, citing prosecutorial misconduct (and in the case of Samueli, his testimony as well). In his ruling Judge Carney stated,The uncontroverted evidence at trial established that Dr. Samueli was a brilliant engineer and a man of incredible integrity. There was no evidence at trial to suggest that Dr. Samueli did anything wrong, let alone criminal. Yet, the government embarked on a campaign of intimidation and other misconduct to embarrass him and bring him down.In the ruling, Judge Carney went on, "Needless to say, the government's treatment of Dr. Samueli was shameful and contrary to American values of decency and justice." The judge ordered Samueli's plea agreement to be expunged from his record, further stating, "Dr. Samueli now has a clean slate."