Tan was born on 5 November 1977 in Singapore to Tan Kim Lee, a real estate consultant, and Low Ken Yin, a homemaker. Tan is the youngest of four children in his family.^[7]

As a Singaporean, he is bilingual, being fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese. Two of Tan's siblings eventually became doctors, one of whom is the renowned clinician-scientist Tan Min Han (who is also the founder, CEO and medical director of Singaporean genomic medicine company Lucence Diagnostics).^[8]

Tan attended Raffles Institution and Hwa Chong Junior College prior to attending university and graduated from the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (NUS Law).^[9][10] Tan graduated with a Master of Laws,^[11] and was ranked top 20 in his post-graduate law class when he graduated in 2002.^[12]

Prior to founding Razer, Tan was an advocate and solicitor for the Supreme Court of Singapore.^[13]

In 1999, Tan and Robert Krakoff (who was GM of kärna LLC) first met and worked together to design the world's first gaming mouse — the "Razer Boomslang".^[14][15]

In 2005, Tan and Krakoff founded Razer.^[15] Subsequently, Tan acquired the rights to the brand and officially incorporated Razer Inc, subsequently taking on the role of CEO and Creative Director of Razer.^{[citation needed]}

On March 31, 2015, Tan was appointed as a board member of Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS).^[4]

On November 13, 2017, Razer had their IPO and Tan became the youngest self-made Singaporean billionaire at the age of 40.^[16] With Tan as CEO, the company developed gaming mobile phones but failed to develop its business-to-consumer Razer Pay e-wallet app after not getting the respective license it Singapore in 2020^[17]

In 2023, Tan paid tribute to Sim Wong Hoo, the founder of Creative Technology who passed away; Tan claimed he often met with Sim to "discuss things like audio technology and design."^[18]

Fan base and reputation edit

Tan has a cult-like following worldwide and his fans have created fansites of him as well as even tattooed Tan's name on themselves.^[19] One of his fans has gone as far as tattooing Tan's face on himself.^[20]

In December 2019, Kotaku published an exposé, based on the statements of 14 former Razer employees, containing wide allegations that under Tan's leadership Razer celebrates a culture of fear, and that Tan himself berates, threatens and shames his staff.^[21]

Tan was included in the "Top 10 Most Influential Leaders in Tech" in 2015 by Juniper Research.^[22] Tan was named one of "The 25 Most Creative People in Tech" by Business Insider.^[23] He has been ranked one of the top 40 most powerful people in gaming by Kotaku in their "The Kotaku Power 40" list.^[24] Tan was ranked No. 1 of the 30 top Southeast Asia tech founders by TechinAsia.^[25] Tan was named the Asian of the Year in 2016 by Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times.^[26]

He has won awards from his alma mater, NUS, such as the Outstanding NUS Innovator Award in 2011^[27] and Outstanding Young Alumni in 2015.^[28]

In March 2012, Tan contributed US$10,000 to the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter project where he admitted it was to atone for infringing the copyright of Wasteland when he was a child. Brian Fargo replies that Tan has more than made up for his downloading of the game.^[29][30]

In November 2014, Tan donated US$10,000 and did the Ice Bucket Challenge in an effort to raise funds for ALS.^[31]

In February 2015, Tan donated £10,000 to fight Motor Neuron Disease. The donation was done via Twitch live stream subscription to ProSyndicate.^[32]

Tan was a backer of Wasteland 2^[33] and Torment: Tides of Numenera^[34] on Kickstarter which resulted in him being added to both games as a non-player character. He also appears in Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues.^[35]

Tan has also had cameos in movies like Dead Rising: Watchtower where he acted as a zombie.^[36]

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