Amar Gopal Bose (chairman and founder of Bose Corporation)

A Pioneer in the field of acoustics Amar Gopal Bose is the chairman and founder of Bose Corporation. Born on November 2, 1929, Bose was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His speaker system was one of the first to make use of sound reflecting off walls and the ceiling. In 1964 he founded Bose Corporation when he was teaching at MIT. In the initial years, sometimes Bose did not pay himself a salary and worked at night. Currently Bose Corporation employs around 6,000 people and is a pioneering name in audio speaker technology.   The word Bose has become a symbol for quality and technical innovations in the world of audio systems. Bose's 901(R) speakers remained an industry benchmark for 25 years. Amar Bose also captured the car stereo market, with systems that transformed the on-the-road listening experience. Amar Bose featured on the 2006 Forbes Billionaires list with a personal wealth of $1.2 billion. This year he has been awarded '2007 Distinguished Service Citation' an award for the individual who has significantly improved the industry or their respective organizations. Following graduation, Bose took a position at MIT as an Assistant Professor. He focused his research on acoustics, leading him to invent a stereo loudspeaker that would reproduce, in a domestic setting, the dominantly reflected sound field that characterizes the listening space of the audience in a concert hall. Bose was awarded significant patents in two fields which, to this day, are important to the Bose Corporation. These patents were in the area of loud speaker design and non-linear, two-state modulated, Class-D, power processing. To found his company in 1964, for initial capital, he turned to angel investors including his MIT thesis advisor and professor, Dr. Y. W. Lee. During his early years as a professor, Bose bought a high-end stereo speaker system in 1956 and was reportedly underwhelmed by the performance of his purchase. This would eventually pave the way for his extensive speaker technology research, concentrating on key weaknesses in the high-end speaker systems available during Bose's time, and focusing on psychoacoustics, which would become a hallmark of the company's audio products. Applying similar psychoacoustic principles to headphone technology, Bose created the "Tri-Port Earcup Drivers." Today, the Bose Corporation is a multifaceted entity with more than 12,000 employees, worldwide, that produces products for home, car, and professional audio, as well as conducts basic research in acoustics, automotive systems, and other fields. Bose Corporation, as a privately held company, does not publish its financial records, however a few hundred shareholders do receive audited annual financial statements. In addition to running his company, Bose remained a professor at MIT until 2000. Bose says that his best ideas usually come to him in a flash. "These innovations are not the result of rational thought; it's an intuitive idea."