From the San Francisco Chronicle — Dolby possible IPO.
The name of Ray M. Dolby, chairman of Dolby Laboratories Inc., has been synonymous with high-fidelity sound for four decades.
The noise-reduction method he pioneered in the mid-1960s is used today to record the sounds of nearly every movie, professional music performance, and radio and television broadcast in the world. Technology made by Dolby Labs, headquartered in San Francisco since 1976, has been built into more than 1.4 billion consumer electronic products sold — including everything from car stereos and cassette decks to DVD players and high-definition TVs.
Now, 40 years after founding a singularly successful private company inspired by a dream, Dolby, 71, is preparing for another first, one he can’t talk about. As The Chronicle first reported in December, people familiar with Dolby’s plans expect the company, almost wholly owned by Ray Dolby, to initiate an IPO worth about half a billion dollars by the end of this year.
Dolby agreed to speak with The Chronicle on the condition that he would answer no questions about any possible IPO plans. “My lawyers would kill me,” Dolby joked as he sat down with a Chronicle reporter in the Presidio Golf Club Cafe on a breezy, cloudless Friday in March.