Acorn Computers and ARM Holdings
Herman Hauser
I was born in Vienna, but I grew up in Tyrol in the Alps, in a village of 200 people. When I was 15 years old, my father decided that I should go to the UK to learn English because, in his opinion, English was the most important language in the world. I came to Cambridge to study at an English language school and returned to do my PhD there before starting my technology career.
My father was an entrepreneur; he was in the wine business, conversation around the dinner table revolved around business and I suppose that rubbed off on me. I met Chris Curry after finishing my PhD at Cambridge and he said we ought to start a company. It only cost about £50 to incorporate, and it was one of the great advantages that Britain had at that time. If it had cost £1000, we might not have started the company!
Microprocessors were all the rage at the time, a bit like AI now. It was one of those subjects that inspired a generation and we got swept away by the idea that everybody could have a computer with this chip. That was the start of Acorn Computers.
In addition to Acorn, I’m proud of creating ARM. On average every smartphone has 15 to 20 ARM microprocessors. Pretty much any electronic device has ARMs. We’ve sold 160 billion ARMs and so, on average, every single person in the world has 20 ARMs. It’s very exciting to have created something that’s now used by the majority of people around the world every day.
Image: Acorn 8-bit microcomputers (Simon Inns/Flickr)
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