Razer Inc.

Min-Liang Tan and Robert Krakoff launched Razer in 1998 with a simple mission: fix the broken state of PC gaming peripherals. Early gamers struggled with cheap keyboards that broke after a few months and mice that lacked precision. The founders built their first products to solve these specific pain points, creating gear that felt as durable as it looked. This focus on quality set the stage for what would become a global empire.

The company faced a near-fatal crash in 2005 when its parent entity went under. Tan and Krakoff stepped in to restructure the business, stripping away non-core ventures to focus entirely on the gaming ecosystem. They pivoted from a struggling hardware distributor into a brand that defined a generation of high-performance gear. That decision cemented their place as leaders in an industry that was still finding its footing.

Tan has served as CEO since the beginning, guiding the company through its 2017 listing on NASDAQ and subsequent strategic shifts. Recent years have seen aggressive moves into artificial intelligence, including a $600 million investment plan announced in early 2026. This initiative introduced Project Ava, a holographic anime companion designed to interact with players, alongside tools for game developers. Even though Tan has publicly stated that gamers dislike low-quality generative AI, the company continues to push these boundaries while maintaining its core hardware lines. [edit]