The Ledger ResearchPrivate

The Front Office

Scouting report · AVGO

Hock E. Tan

  • President & CEO; Director, AVGO since 2006-03src

President & CEO of Avago, now Broadcom, since March 2006

A−83 / 100

Ranked #5 of 23

Scouting sheet

as of 24 Sep 2026
Delivers guidance9316 beat · 8 met · 0 missed · 0 withdrawn
Answers the question852 dodges in 23 answers on 2 calls
Capital allocation100company five-year record: compounds
Pay design5596% performance-conditioned · tsr, revenue · 66.4% for · 0.89% of net income
Skin in the game55stake worth $331.2m, 2× last year's pay
Age
74src
In the role
21 yr
Promises scored
24
Hit rate
100%
Dodges / 100 answers
8.7
Airtime on calls
56%
Every promise, oldest firstMBMMBBMMBBBBBBBBMBMBBBMB

What to weigh

Watch 4

  • Say-on-pay passed with only 66.4% of votes cast at the 2026-04-20 meeting (2.43bn for, 1.23bn against), the vote on the year of the 2025 Tan PSU awardsrc
  • FY2025 SCT total of $205.3m is almost all the 2025 Tan PSU award at target ($202.4m; $607.1m at maximum); CEO pay ratio 543:1, or 93:1 on the company's supplemental annualised viewsrc
  • Key-person risk: the 10-K names him as the executive the company depends on; there is no written employment contract and no key-person life insurance; he is 74src
  • His $117bn hostile bid for Qualcomm was blocked by presidential order on CFIUS advice in March 2018, over 5G national-security concernssrc

In their favour 2

  • The 2025 award pays nothing unless AI revenue over any four quarters in FY2028-FY2030 exceeds $60bn (target $90bn, 300% at $120bn), and he agreed to hold the after-tax shares from the 2023 award through FY2030src
  • Has not pledged Broadcom shares; the proxy names Henry Samueli as the only director or officer with pledged sharessrc

Career

  1. 2024-02 – now
    Meta Platforms, Inc.src
    Director
  2. 2006-03 – now
    Broadcom Inc. (Avago Technologies until it acquired Broadcom Corp. in 2016)src
    President & CEO; Director
  3. 2005-09 – 2008-01
    Integrated Device Technology, Inc.src
    Chairman of the Board (after IDT acquired ICS)
  4. 1999-06 – 2005-09
    Integrated Circuit Systems, Inc.src
    President & CEO, through the sale to IDT
  5. 1996 – 1999
    Integrated Circuit Systems, Inc.src
    Chief Operating Officer
  6. 1995 – 1999
    Integrated Circuit Systems, Inc.src
    Senior Vice President & CFO
  7. 1992 – 1994
    Commodore International, Ltd.src
    Vice President of Finance
  8. 1988 – 1992
    Pacven Investment, Ltd. (venture capital fund, Singapore)src
    Managing Director
  9. 1983 – 1988
    Hume Industries Ltd. (Malaysia)src
    Managing Director

Not located: Senior management roles at General Motors and PepsiCo are named in the proxy, the 10-K and the 2009 Avago prospectus without dates (they fall between the 1979 MBA and other roles); 1994-1995 between Commodore and ICS is not accounted for in any source searched.

Achievements

  • Has run Avago/Broadcom as President & CEO since March 2006, more than twenty years in the rolesrc
  • Built the company by acquisition: LSI ($6.6bn, 2014), Broadcom Corp. ($37bn, whose name it took), Brocade ($5.9bn) and CA Technologies ($18.9bn, 2018)src
  • Closed the purchase of Symantec's enterprise security business on 2019-11-04 (about $10.7bn)src
  • Closed the VMware acquisition on 2023-11-22 (about $61bn), moving Broadcom's mix further into infrastructure softwaresrc
  • Ran Integrated Circuit Systems as CEO from 1999 until its 2005 sale to IDT, then chaired IDT until January 2008src

Education

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BS Mechanical engineering (1975)src
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MS Mechanical engineering (1975)src
  • Harvard Business School, MBA (1979)src

Background

  • Boards Director of Meta Platforms since February 2024; Meta cited his silicon expertise when electing himsrc
  • Service Member of the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee since 2020src
  • Personal Grew up in Penang, Malaysia, and went to MIT on a scholarship in 1971src
  • Family Married to K. Lisa Yang, a philanthropist; the two give jointly under both namessrc
  • Giving With Lisa Yang, funded the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research at MIT's McGovern Institute ($20m, 2017)src
  • Giving With Lisa Yang, gave $20m to establish a matching autism research center at Harvard Medical School (2019)src
  • Other The 2026 proxy's related-party section discloses no transaction with him, only ordinary-course dealings with entities tied to directors or managementsrc

The promise ledger

24 scored · 0 open
ResultWhat was promisedWhere it is scoredHow
M MetQ4 FY24AVGO row 1written outlook
B BeatQ1 FY25AVGO row 2written outlook
M MetQ2 FY25AVGO row 3written outlook
M MetQ3 FY25AVGO row 4written outlook
B BeatQ4 FY25AVGO row 5written outlook
B BeatQ1 FY26AVGO row 6written outlook
M MetQ2 FY26AVGO row 7written outlook
M MetQ3 FY26AVGO row 8written outlook
B BeatFY24AVGO row 9written outlook
B BeatQ4 FY24AVGO row 1written outlook
B BeatQ1 FY25AVGO row 2written outlook
B BeatQ2 FY25AVGO row 3written outlook
B BeatQ3 FY25AVGO row 4written outlook
B BeatQ4 FY25AVGO row 5written outlook
B BeatQ1 FY26AVGO row 6written outlook
B BeatQ2 FY26AVGO row 7written outlook
M MetQ3 FY26AVGO row 8written outlook
B BeatQ1 FY25AVGO row 1said it
M MetQ2 FY25AVGO row 2said it
B BeatQ3 FY25AVGO row 3written outlook
B BeatQ4 FY25AVGO row 4said it
B BeatQ1 FY26AVGO row 5written outlook
M MetQ2 FY26AVGO row 6written outlook
B BeatQ3 FY26AVGO row 7written outlook

Questions dodged

8.7 per 100 answers

  1. Q3 FY26 · gross margin in FY27 and FY28 · Vivek Arya (BofA). "I just wanted to clarify any impact on gross margins in '27 and '28". Thuener: "We guide one quarter at a time."; Tan redirected to operating margin — "stop focusing on gross margin". Turns 27–30. On CALL-Q2FY26 Ross Seymore asked whether the mix-driven decline would continue and Spears answered in direction ("you are going to have a decline in ma…

    from AVGO · dossier-2026-09-24.md

  2. Q3 FY26 · how much of the FY28 Anthropic/OpenAI gigawatts XPV will finance · Joshua Buchalter (TD Cowen). Tan pointed to Anthropic's IPO changing its credit; Thuener: case by case. No share given. Turns 39–41.

    from AVGO · dossier-2026-09-24.md

Calls reviewed

  • FY2026-Q2.roic.json — 15 answers, 58% of the words
  • FY2026-Q3.roic.json — 8 answers, 54% of the words

Sources

13
  1. Filing Broadcom Inc. DEF 14A (2026 annual meeting) · 2026-03-02
  2. Filing Broadcom Inc. 10-K for fiscal 2025 (ended 2025-11-02) · 2025-12-18
  3. Filing Broadcom Inc. 8-K Item 5.07, 2026 annual meeting vote · 2026-04-21
  4. Filing Broadcom Inc. 8-K Item 5.02, 2025 Tan PSU Award · 2025-09-09
  5. Filing Avago Technologies IPO prospectus (424B4), management section · 2009-08-06
  6. Web search result WebSearch: Hock Tan (Wikipedia) - Penang, MIT BS/MS 1975, Harvard MBA 1979 · 2026-09-24
  7. Web search result WebSearch: MIT McGovern Institute - $20 million gift from Lisa Yang and MIT alum Hock Tan (2017) · 2026-09-24
  8. Web search result WebSearch: Harvard Gazette - Harvard to launch center for autism research with $20M gift (2019) · 2026-09-24
  9. Web search result WebSearch: Yahoo Finance - How Broadcom CEO Tan shaped a tech giant through acquisitions · 2026-09-24
  10. Web search result WebSearch: Broadcom 8-K exhibit 99.1 (2019) - completes acquisition of Symantec Enterprise Security business · 2026-09-24
  11. Web search result WebSearch: Broadcom Inc. (Wikipedia) - VMware acquisition closed 2023-11-22 · 2026-09-24
  12. Web search result WebSearch: CNBC - Trump blocks Broadcom-Qualcomm deal, citing national security concerns (2018-03-12) · 2026-09-24
  13. Web search result WebSearch: Meta newsroom - Hock E. Tan and John Arnold to join Meta board (2024-02-14) · 2026-09-24