At the end of June, William Wang stepped down as CEO of Irvine’s Vizio, the largest U.S.-based flat-panel TV maker in history, with over 100 million products sold since its founding in 2002.
Wang started Vizio two years after surviving the crash of Singapore Airlines Flight 006, which killed 83 people. He also had endured several failed business ventures before launching the company.
He funded Vizio with $600,000, after getting a second mortgage on his home.
Wang felt he had the right experience to start a maker of affordable TVs. “The reason I’m here,” he recently quipped, “is that I think I qualify to solve that problem. I watch a lot of TV.”
The rest is history. Walmart bought Vizio, where Wang was the largest individual shareholder, at the end of 2024 for $2.3 billion.
Wang’s now looking to help create the next generation of tech entrepreneurs at his alma mater of USC.
He and his wife Sakura this month announced a $10 million gift to the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Office of Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship, launching the William W. Wang Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub.
It is one of the largest gifts of its kind ever made to an engineering school’s entrepreneurship office, according to the university.
“I want the kids to be proud to be an engineer, and be comfortable that they can take some chances and be more daring,” Wang told USC in a recent feature.
Wang notes he wasn’t the school’s greatest electrical engineer, graduating in 1986 with a GPA “in the low 2s,” but believes that his story proves that others can find similar success.
“If you’re not a great engineer, you might be a great problem solver. You might be a great businessman,” he told USC. “And if you’re a great engineer, even better!”
The July 30- Aug. 2 period was a box office smash for Hollywood, with the latest Spider-Man movie bringing in a record $932 million in global sales. That Sony-backed movie, and continued crowds for The Odyssey, “delivered the biggest four day weekend globally” in the history for theater chain Regal Global Entertainment, which reported more than $160 million in revenue during that period.
Thirteen Regal locations ranked among the nation’s top 20 highest-grossing theaters for that four-day period, the company said. That tally includes the top-ranking theater in the country, Regal Irvine Spectrum.
The mega-theater has a host of IMAX, 3D and 4D equipped screens, along with standard screens.
Recent releases The Mandalorian and Grogu and the live-action Moana didn’t “meet our box office expectations,” Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro told analysts last week, during the Coto de Caza resident’s second earnings call since taking over the top spot at the $177 billion-valued company (NYSE: DIS).
There’s a new superhero movie on the way to save the day, he said.
The recent success of the new Spider-Man movie “bodes well for our upcoming and highly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday film,” D’Amaro said. That movie’s due to be released in December.
At Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, work continues for the expansion of the Avengers Campus, with the addition of two new rides.