Sid Agarwal Silicon Valley Tech company CEO Killed By Fired Employee
Late Friday afternoon, 47-year old Jing Hua Wu, the recently fired lead product testing engineer of Siport (a semiconductor chip company), walked into the offices of his former employers, and shot to death the top management of the company. Among the victims was 56-year old Sid Agarwal, the CEO of Siport, an ex-IITian (IIT-Kanpur, 1974, electrical engineering).
Sid was a well-known executive in the Silicon Valley, and a respected member of the Indo-American community. Prior to SiPort, Sid held executive management positions at Alliance Semiconductor, Layer Five Networks (acquired by Juniper) and Synaptics. Earlier, Sid held leadership marketing, sales and engineering positions at Adobe, Intel and Bell Labs. Sid received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, an M.S. degree from Southern Illinois University and an M.B.A. degree from the University of Chicago.
Sid Agarwal had about 3 decades of experience in building startups and high technology companies. He previously held executive management positions at Alliance Semiconductor, Layer Five Networks and Synaptics and had also worked for Adobe, Intel and Bell Labs. After graduating from Kanpur IIT, Agarwal received an M.S. from Southern Illinois University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. A proud IITian, he was preparing to travel to Kanpur for a 35th reunion with fellow IITians from 1974 batch.
Jing Hua Wu, the worker who killed Sid Agarwal and his colleagues, had been fired from his job just the day before. By the time the police arrived at the crime scene, Wu had already escaped. The police looked for him throughout the night and had alerted authoritis in the neighboring states as well. But Wu was finally arrested early Saturday morning.
Only a few weeks ago, another Indian CEO, also an IIT Kanpur alumnus, was murdered in New Delhi. beaten by laid-off workers.
Siport, Sid Agarwal’s startup he founded 4 years ago, recently received an HD-radio-ready-certification for its single-chip HD radio receiver which is said to provide digital and analog FM performance for the mobile, tabletop and automotive aftermarket segments. The HD-radio uses digital radio signals over the same airwaves used by AM and FM airwaves. In a recent guest column, Agarwal talked of the opportunities in this growing segment and the need to hire good engineers. Ironically, a vengeful and a bad engineer did him in.
im extremely sorry in the loss of this intellectual man. he had a wife and two kids (both attending harvard)
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