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Amar Bose donates majority
of his company stock to MIT
29th April 2011
In what is thought to be the largest single philanthropic
donation by an Asian, Dr. Amar Bose, Founder of
high-end stereo loudspeaker manufacturer Bose Corporation,
has given his alma mater Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) the majority of the stock in
his company in the form of non-voting shares. Bose
Corporation has a turnover of $2 billion-a-year
and his net worth is estimated by Forbes Magazine
to be $1.0 billion in 2011. Amar Gopal Bose was
born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to
a Bengali father and a white American mother. His
father, Noni Gopal Bose, was a Bengali freedom revolutionary,
who having been imprisoned for his political activities,
fled Calcutta in the 1920s in order to avoid further
prosecution by the British colonial police.
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Dr. Bose received his bachelor’s
degree, master’s degree and PhD from MIT,
all in electrical engineering. He was asked to
join the faculty in 1956, and accepted with the
intention of teaching for no more than two years.
He continued as a member of the MIT faculty until
2001, making important contributions to the Institute’s
teaching of undergraduate electrical engineering.
In 1964, Dr. Bose founded Bose Corporation. From
its inception, the company has remained privately
owned, with a focus on long-term research.
MIT will receive annual cash
dividends on those shares when dividends are paid
by Bose Corporation; those cash dividends will
be used by MIT to sustain and advance MIT’s
education and research mission. Under the terms
of the gift, MIT cannot sell its Bose shares and
will not participate in the management or governance
of the company. Bose Corporation will remain a
private and independent company, and operate as
it always has, with no change in strategy or leadership.
Dr. Bose will remain Bose Corporation’s Chairman
and Technical Director.
In expressing gratitude for
this gift, MIT President Susan Hockfield remarked
not only on Dr. Bose’s generosity, but also
on his humility. “Amar Bose gives us a great
gift today, but he also serves as a superb example
for MIT graduates who yearn to cut their own path.
Dr. Bose set the highest teaching standards, for
which he is still admired and loved by his faculty
colleagues and the many students he taught. His
insatiable curiosity propelled remarkable research,
both at MIT and within the company he founded.
Dr. Bose has always been more concerned about
the next two decades than about the next two quarters.”
“Dr. Bose,” Hockfield
continued, “has asked us not to shine too
bright a spotlight on him today. So to honor that
wish, let us simply celebrate Dr. Bose’s
profound belief in the transformative power of
an MIT education.”
In a letter to Bose Corporation
employees, Dr. Bose paid tribute to his mentors
at MIT: Professors Y. W. Lee, Norbert Wiener and
Jerome Wiesner. He explained that the gift represents
his long-held desire to support MIT education,
and reaffirmed the company’s mission to play
for the long run. “We will continue,”
Dr. Bose wrote to his employees, “to remain
true to the principles upon which our company
was founded.”
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