From poor village boy to billionaire: Meet Sim Wong Hoo, the 'grandfather of Singapore tech'

A new book about the late entrepreneur, "Sim Wong Hoo: The Light We Remember," has renewed attention on the unlikely path that turned a boy who made his own toys into one of Singapore's most influential technology pioneers.

Sim, who died in 2023 at age 67, was widely regarded as the "grandfather of Singapore tech" for building Creative into a global consumer electronics company and showing that a homegrown Singapore business could compete with the world's biggest technology firms.

His defining product was the Sound Blaster, launched in 1989. The sound card transformed the limited audio of early personal computers, allowing them to produce music, sound effects and human voice, and became a de facto standard for PC audio during the industry's rapid expansion.

James Chan, founder and CEO of Singapore tech startup Ion Mobility, said Sim's influence endured long after Creative's heyday. "Its world-record-setting products and business-run in its heyday, these remain firmly in tech history annals and continue to inspire future generations of entrepreneurs (within) our shores," he told Channel News Asia in 2023.

Christopher Quek, managing director of tech venture capital firm Trive, shared the view: "(Sim) was a pioneer to the tech startup industry, where a number of successful Singaporeans in the tech industry credit him as an inspiration."

Sim Wong Hoo, founder of Singapore's Creative Technology. Photo courtesy of the company

From kampung boy to tech billionaire

Born in Singapore in 1955, Sim grew up as one of 12 children in Yeshanwei, a village in the Bukit Panjang area.

His family had little money. According to his new biography, as cited by The Straits Times, several children sometimes shared beds made from wooden planks placed on bricks, while Sim later slept on two benches topped with a single plank. His father died when Sim was young, leaving his mother to support the large family through farming and selling produce. Outside school, Sim helped clear weeds, cut grass for rabbits, prepare coconuts and sell eggs.

The hardship also encouraged improvisation. In his 1999 book "Chaotic Thoughts From the Old Millennium," Sim described himself as a "weird" child who made his own toys and board games because he could not afford to buy them.

Around age 11, a sister gave him a harmonica, sparking an interest in music that would eventually influence his engineering career. He later joined a harmonica group while studying electrical and electronics engineering at Ngee Ann Technical College, now Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

"The environment of the village provided fertile ground for creativity, and the (Ngee Ann) Harmonica Club planted the first seed of Creative in me," he later wrote.

After graduating in 1975, Sim founded Creative Technology with childhood friend and schoolmate Ng Kai Wa in 1981. Starting with a small computer repair shop, they spent years trying to gain a foothold in the emerging PC market. Sim developed the Cubic 99 and Cubic CT computers, but neither became his breakthrough. His fortunes changed when he focused on audio.

In 1987, his team developed the Creative Music System, an early predecessor to Sound Blaster. Convinced of its potential, Sim moved to the U.S. the following year and vowed not to return until he had sold 20,000 units. He reached the target.

Creative unveiled Sound Blaster at the Comdex computer convention in Las Vegas in 1989. The card gave personal computers far richer audio capabilities, making it particularly popular among gamers. The company's booth became so crowded that Michael Jackson, who arrived unannounced, stopped to see the product and stayed for nearly half an hour, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"The Sound Blaster took the world by storm," Sim later wrote.

By the end of 1990, Sound Blaster had become the world's top-selling PC add-on product. Creative's revenue soared from US$5.4 million in 1989 to $658 million in 1994. In 1992, Creative became the first Singaporean company to list on Nasdaq. It added a Singapore listing two years later and surpassed $1.2 billion in annual revenue in 1995.

By 2000, Sim, then 45, had become Singapore's youngest billionaire.

Taking on global tech giants

Sim next sought to extend Creative's success into portable digital music. The company introduced its Nomad MP3 player in 1999, almost two years before Apple launched the iPod. About the size of a portable CD player, the Nomad allowed users to download, carry and play digital music without CDs. Creative later introduced other players, including the smaller and more versatile Zen.

But Apple proved the stronger competitor. The iPod, supported by Apple's design, software ecosystem and marketing, overtook Creative's products. Sim later acknowledged that Apple had executed its strategy better.

"They executed things better than us, and we were up against the world's best marketeer," he said in 2021.

The rivalry eventually moved from store shelves to the courts. In 2006, Creative sued Apple over technology used to navigate digital music libraries by categories such as artists, albums and songs. The companies settled later that year, with Apple agreeing to pay Creative $100 million.

Sim said in a 2020 CNBC interview that the confrontation had been unavoidable.

"It was something we had to do because Apple did not just, you know, infringe our patent. Actually, Steve came to our booth, saw our products and liked the product. He saw the future of Apple there."

In 2014, he again sued Samsung and Apple, alleging that several of their devices, including iPhones and tablets, infringed 10 of his patents, and prevailed in both cases.

Sim's willingness to challenge convention extended beyond his products.

In his 1999 book, "Chaotic Thoughts From the Old Millennium," he coined the phrase "No U-turn syndrome," or NUTS, to describe what he saw as a tendency among Singaporeans to wait for explicit permission before taking action.

He argued that this "no-rule, no-do" mentality discouraged initiative and creativity, the opposite of the risk-taking approach that had defined his career.

Creative eventually lost much of its dominance as sound technology became integrated into computer motherboards and smartphones transformed the consumer electronics industry.

Sim nevertheless continued pursuing new audio technology. One of his final major projects was Super X-Fi, a computational audio technology designed to recreate the experience of listening to multiple speakers through headphones. He called the technology his "gift to humanity," according to The Business Times.

Creative said the technology took about 20 years and more than $100 million in research and development. Products using it won 15 awards at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show.

He remained closely involved with Creative until his death on Jan. 4, 2023. The company said he had spent the previous night in a lengthy discussion with its engineering team and was expected to meet its online sales team the next day.

Former Singapore foreign affairs minister George Yeo remembered him as a constant source of ideas. "He was always bubbling with ideas. Never left a meeting with him without new inspirations."

Razer co-founder and CEO Tan Min-Liang said Singapore and the technology world had "lost a legend."

Sim was also a major philanthropist, donating more than S$49 million to funds and charities during his lifetime. His family continued that legacy in June, donating S$385,000 (US$300,000) to The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund at the launch of his biography.

His influence extended beyond the products he created. Decades before Singapore developed into a major technology hub, Creative showed that a homegrown company from the small city-state could compete on the global stage.

Former technology journalist Oo Gin Lee said that was what people would remember about Sim and Creative. "It was an example of how Singapore may be a small country, but it could be a global champion in consumer tech even with our small population, and this is something that people will always remember."