The company began with six full-time employees: the Varian brothers, Dorothy, Myrl Stearns, Fred Salisbury, and Don Snow.

Technical and business assistance came from several members of the faculty at Stanford University, including Edward Ginzton, Marvin Chodorow, William Hansen, and Leonard Schiff.

[1] Francis Farquhar, an accountant and friend of Russell's from the Sierra Club, later became a director, as did Frederick Terman, dean of engineering at Stanford, and David Packard, of Hewlett-Packard.

They initially created the company to commercialize the klystron[6] and develop other technologies, such as small linear accelerators to generate photons for external beam radiation therapy.

Although politically progressive to the point of having socialist leanings, the Varians were patriotic at heart and had no sympathy for the Marxist model of socialism practiced by the Soviet Union.

[9] Most of the founders of Varian Associates, had progressive political leanings,[10] and the company "pioneered profit-sharing, stock-ownership, insurance, and retirement plans for employees long before these benefits became mandatory".

[2] It had problems raising additional capital, particularly due to Russell's insistence that the company be owned by its employees and his related refusal to accept outside investors.

[9] In 1953, Varian Associates moved its headquarters to Palo Alto, California,[13] at Stanford Industrial Park – noted as the "spawning ground of Silicon Valley" – and was the first firm to occupy a site there.

California Representative Anna Eshoo stated that the company had been awarded over 10,000 patents and was a "jewel in the crown of...Silicon Valley".