The story
Founded by John Robert Beyster in 1969, in La Jolla.1
As SAIC
The company was founded by J. Robert "Bob" Beyster in 1969 in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, as Science Applications Incorporated (SAI). Beyster, a former scientist for the Westinghouse Atomic Power Division and Los Alamos National Laboratory, who became the chairman of the Accelerator Physics Department of General Atomics in 1957, raised the money to start SAI by selling stock he had received from General Atomics, combined with funds raised from the early employees who bought stock in the young enterprise.
Initially, the company's focus was on projects for the U.S. government related to nuclear power and weapons effects study programs. The company was renamed Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) as it expanded its operations. Major projects during Beyster's tenure included work on radiation therapy for the Los Alamos National Laboratory; technical support and management assistance to the development of the cruise missile in the 1970s; the cleanups of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station after its major accident, and of the contaminated community of Love Canal; design and performance evaluation of the Stars & Stripes 87, the winning ship for the 1987 America's Cup; and the design of the first luggage inspection machine to pass new Federal Aviation Administration tests following the terrorist bombing of Pan American flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Contrary to traditional business models, Beyster originally designed SAIC as an employee-owned company. This shared ownership was accompanied by shared responsibility and freedom in business development, and allowed SAIC to attract and retain highly educated and motivated employees that helped the company to grow and diversify. After Beyster's retirement in 2003, SAIC conducted an initial public offering of common stock on October 17, 2006. The offering of 86,250,000 shares of common stock was priced at $15.00 per share. The underwriters, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley, exercised overallotment options, resulting in 11.25 million shares. The IPO raised US$1.245 billion. Even then, employee shares retained a privileged status, having ten times the voting power per share over common stock.
In September 2009, SAIC moved its corporate headquarters to Tysons Corner in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, near McLean.
In 2012, SAIC was ordered to pay $550 million to the City of New York for overbilling over seven years on the CityTime contract. In 2014, Gerard Denault, SAIC's CityTime program manager, and his two accomplices within the city's government were sentenced to twenty years in prison for fraud and bribery related to that contract.
As Leidos
In August 2012, SAIC announced plans to split into two publicly traded companies. The company spun off about a third of its business, forming an approximately $4 billion-per-year service company focused on government services, including systems engineering, technical assistance, financial analysis, and program office support. The remaining part became a $7 billion-per-year IT company specializing in technology for the national security, health, and engineering sectors. The smaller company was led by Tony Moraco, who beforehand was leading SAIC's Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance group, and the bigger one was led by John P. Jumper. The split has allowed both companies to pursue more business, which it could not pursue as a single company which would have resulted in conflicts of interest. In February 2013, it was announced that the smaller spin-off company would get the name "Science Applications International Corporation" and stay in the current headquarters, while the larger company would change its name to Leidos, (created by clipping the word kaleidoscope) and would move its headquarters to Reston, Virginia. The split was structured in a way that SAIC changed its name to Leidos, then spun off the new SAIC as a separate publicly traded company. However, Leidos is the legal successor of the original SAIC and retains SAIC's pre-2013 stock price and corporate filing history.
Before the split, Leidos employed 39,600 employees and reported $11.17 billion in revenue and $525 million net income for its fiscal year ended January 31, 2013, making it number 240 on the Fortune 500 list. In 2014, Leidos reported US$5.06 billion in revenue.
In August 2016, the deal to merge with the entirety of Lockheed Martin's Information Systems & Global Solutions (IS&GS) business came to a close, more than doubling the size of Leidos and its portfolio, and positioning the company as the global defense industry's largest enterprise in the federal technology sector.
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In January 2020, Leidos purchased defense contractor Dynetics for approximately $1.65 billion. In May 2020 it purchased the Security Detection and Automation Systems division of L3Harris (notable for providing the detection screeners that all airport travelers pass through when flying).
As of December 2023, the company has 47,000 employees. In 2023, Leidos reported US$15.4 billion in revenue. It ranked 266 on the 2024 Fortune 500 list.
On March 4, 2025, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce placed 15 U.S. entities (including Leidos) on its export control list, barring the export of dual-use commodities to that business. In May, the Department of Homeland Security terminated for convenience its $2.4 billion cybersecurity services contract with Leidos.
In January 2026, Leidos agreed to buy utility consulting and engineering services platform Entrust Solutions Group from Kohlberg & Co. for ~$2.4 billion in cash.
From Wikipedia’s article on Leidos, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.9