SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY : Head of AST Reflects on Business Success in Magazine Column

Safi U. Qureshey, co-chairman and chief executive of Irvine-based AST Research Inc., has written a column scheduled to appear in the May-June issue of the Harvard Business Review.

In the column, titled “How I Learned to Live With Wall Street,” Qureshey reflects on how he and fellow co-founders Tom Yuen and Albert Wong helped to build a company that last year had sales of more than $530 million. He describes how he learned to kick an “addiction” to monitoring the company’s stock price and how he learned to trust his own judgment despite early criticism from Wall Street.

“This kind of column is a place for high-level people to talk to their peers, and it’s a much more intimate kind of article where people can share a learning experience,” said Geraldine Willigan, associate editor at the Harvard Business Review.

The piece closes with this thought from the computer executive:

“It is hard to be fooled into doing things others think you should if you know what you want the company to be.”