T.J. Rodgers—along with Fred Jenne (R&D), Mike Starnes (wafer fab), Lowell Turriff (sales), Fritz Beyerlein (assembly) and Steve Kaplan (engineering)—founded Cypress Semiconductor in December 1982 and led it to a public offering 29 months later in May 1986. Rodgers served as Cypress’s CEO for 34 years until stepping down in August 2016 as the longest-tenured CEO among all publically-traded technology companies.