LEGACY LEADERSHIP: Western Digital, or WD, was founded in 1970 by Alvin B. Phillips, an engineer, early pioneer in the semiconductor industry. Company was originally called General Digital Corp. and based in Newport Beach; later moved to Santa Ana. Became one of the largest technology firms headquartered in Orange County.
HQ: Western Digital changed its headquarters designation from Irvine to Silicon Valley in 2017; company is a major player in data storage and memory products.
OC SIGNIFICANCE: WD partners with the world’s leading hyperscalers, cloud service providers and enterprises to deliver storage solutions that are proven and trusted at scale. Irving Tan, who previously served as Cisco’s chairperson, Asia Pacific, Japan and China, is the company CEO.
KEY MOMENT: In February 2025, Western Digital completed its planned spin-off of its flash business unit from our remaining hard disk drive business, as a result of which Sandisk became an independent public company.
BY THE NUMBERS: Fiscal Q3 revenue rose 45% to $3.34 billion. The company’s share price stayed mostly flat during the 1980s, began an upward move in 2015 and shot up in the spring of 2025. They closed at $511.72 apiece on June 5, almost 10 times their value a year earlier.
QUOTABLE: “Our business continues to strengthen with visibility extending as we continue to build momentum across all our end markets, driven by innovation, strong customer engagements, and disciplined execution. We have also strengthened our balance sheet while deploying our robust free cash flow to drive shareholder returns.” —CFO Kris Sennesael
FUN FACT: Western Digital along with Seagate are two of the biggest makers of computer hard disk drives, controlling about 80%-90% of the worldwide market.
