David Sarif

David Sarif is the founder of Sarif Industries and Adam Jensen's employer in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Human Revolution comics.

Background
David Sarif is the founder and CEO of Sarif Industries, a moderately-sized biotechnology company based in North America. He is a well-preserved male in his late 50s, of average height and build, in decent shape. His features are Mediterranean.

The son of an immigrant family from Boston, Sarif was brought up to understand the value of hard work and dedication, and from an early age his insight into machines set the tone for the man he would become. He worked his way through university and from there to a scholarship at MIT, getting an MBA before entering the prosthetics field.

Sarif believes in justice, progress, science and technology, civilization, human endeavor, and people. He is direct when dealing with others and unafraid to show emotion. Some find him blunt or pushy, others refreshing, even invigorating. His sense of honesty applies only to his behavior - he has no aversion to keeping secrets when appropriate. In 2007, David Sarif promised to revitalize his home city of Detroit by introducing a new industry of mechanical augmentation to the city. Refitting disused automobile plants for the production of mechanical augmentations for military and civilian use, Sarif has nearly single-handedly revitalized the economy of the city and prevented its collapse. He is close friends with Hugh Darrow, the father of mechanical augmentation

When the Aug Incident plunged the world into chaos in 2027, society turned against augmented people, and the industry that had created them crashed. Sarif's company, personal fortune, and dreams crashed with it. Two years after the Incident, Sarif is an older, wiser, slightly more reserved version of the man he was before. He’s still wealthy; still direct when dealing with others; and still believes in progress, science and technology, and human endeavor. He also continues to hold onto an idealistic belief in a mechanically-enhanced mankind. He's just learned to be patient and let others carry the banner into the spotlight for him, for now.

Family
Sarif has a sister and a niece named Natalie and Nina Freeman, respectively. Nina is kidnapped in issue 1 of the Deus Ex: Human Revolution comic series, and it is there revealed that Natalie is the vice-president and a staunch supporter of the Humanity Front.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution
He was preparing for the augmentation debate in Washington when a black-ops team, the Tyrants, attacked the Sarif HQ in Detroit. The Tyrants killed several scientists, including the company's top researcher, Megan Reed, and nearly killing the chief of security, Adam Jensen. Sarif opted to save Jensen and arranged for him to be mechanically augmented. While only Adam's left arm and chest cavity needed to be augmented in order to save his life, Sarif decided as Jensen's medical proxy (thanks to a convenient employment contract clause), to replace most of Adam's body with cybernetic prosthetics.

Six months later, he pulled Jensen out of sick leave when an extremist anti-augmentation group known as Purity First attacked the Milwaukee manufacturing plant, just as the production of a top-secret military augmentation, the Typhoon Explosive System, was to begin there. He sent Jensen to secure the data and rescue the hostages.

Upon Adam's return, Sarif had him retrieve the neural hub of the augmented Purity First hacker from the Detroit Police Department morgue, implying that Adam either use old contacts to get inside or to sneak in. After this, he tasked Jensen with disabling the transmitter in Derelict Row district that kept a backdoor open to the SI network, that Sarif himself created for background checks (that neither Jensen nor Frank Pritchard were aware of). Once the signal is shut down, Sarif delegates Adam to investigate an abandoned bot factory complex in Highland Park, the source of the hacker's signal who was attempting to steal the Typhoon.

After Jensen discovered the secret FEMA detention facility and defeated Lawrence Barrett, Sarif had a meeting with William Taggart, and then sent Jensen to Hengsha to find the hacker, but diverted him to Juarez to save his niece from augmented captors. After the rescue was a success, Sarif tried to reconcile with his niece and her mother, a high-ranking member of the Humanity Front, who rejected him. In the aftermath of an attack on a Humanity Front rally in Detroit, Sarif sent Jensen to Montreal to follow a hacker's trace that lead him to Katrina Sutherland. Sarif had another meeting with William Taggart in London, this time together with Zhao Yun Ru. The three appeared to have a history together, and the two revealed considerable knowledge of the troubles Sarif Industries had endured and offered him to work together with them rather than oppose them. Sarif immediately rejected the offer, knowing it to be a conspiracy. On the way back to Detroit, Sarif and Jensen being transported by Faridah Malik, were attacked by Quincy Durant, Jensen's former SWAT-commander, and the mastermind of the attack on Humanity Front in Detroit. The ordeal eventually lead to the death of Katrina Sutherland.

Jensen continued his original mission to Hengsha, where he found out the scientists lost in the attack six months earlier were alive, and then headed to Montreal to confront Eliza Cassan. When he returned to Detroit, in the midst of heavy riots, Sarif warned him about the conspiracy. After a personal meeting with Hugh Darrow, Sarif sent Jensen back to Hengsha to find one of the missing scientists.

While Jensen disappeared, Sarif departed Detroit to visit Panchaea, where Hugh Darrow had gathered several political and corporate leaders to unveil the installation, and activate the biochip that drove augmented people around the world into a spree of induced insanity and violence. Sarif was not affected, and barricaded himself inside the facilities' submarine bay with other survivors.

When Adam Jensen finds him, Sarif will admit his part in using Adam's DNA for development purposes. He will also ask Adam to alter Darrow's recorded message to the world, framing the Humanity Front for tampering with the distributed biochips. But when questioned by Adam, Sarif retreats and says he knows Adam will make the right choice.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Inexplicably, based on the June 8th 2016 gameplay trailer, Stephen Shellen has been replaced as the voice actor for David Sarif by Brandon Keener.

Augmentations
Being the CEO of Sarif industries, it is fair to assume that all of Sarif's augmentations come from his own company.

Sarif has two main augmentations: a social enhancer (which has some discreet grooves on his forehead) and a very ornate mechanical right arm. He appears to have an EMP shield aug, as he does not react if you throw an EMP grenade at him on Panchaea. He may also have others, however this cannot be confirmed.

CASIE Summary
The following is the CASIE Social Enhancer's summary of David Sarif:

Personality Traits

 * Aggressive
 * Excitable
 * Envious

Psychological Profile

 * Has a tendency to shift blame onto others, but will back down rapidly if resistance is felt.


 * Is not afraid to use his authority to get his way and doesn't like to be defied.


 * Will sometimes change the subject in order to win an argument.

Trivia

 * You can find Sarif's portrait in his office that pictures him with both hands augmented. In the game, however, Sarif is shown with only his right hand augmented visibly. Whether it was intentional or not remains unknown.
 * Sarif wrote an article, "Building Wings: A Better Tomorrow", which highlights his personal beliefs regarding transhumanism. It can be seen as a contrast to William Taggart's "No Better: The Myth of Human Augmentation".
 * Sarif is often seen holding a baseball with his augmented arm/hand. He often picks it up from his desk and toys with it when he is agitated or uncomfortable.
 * The official Eidos Montreal "Ask Pritchard" Tumblr blog response to the question of how Sarif's arm got augmented was that "He had it removed to play better at the company baseball games."
 * The chess set on Sarif's desk is actually a real chess set called the Mancini chess set.
 * David Sarnoff may be the historical prototype of David Sarif.
 * Šarīf (شريف) is an Arabic personal name meaning "noble" or "highborn" commonly used by Arabs and non-Arab Muslims.
 * It is also a homonym for the word 'seraph', which is the highest class of angel
 * David is a Detroit Tigers fan. You can see this by looking at the wall behind him in his office; it shows stats for that season. He can also be seen throwing a baseball up and down.
 * David shares similarities with Damien Knight of Ares Marcotechnology from the Shadowrun series. Both CEOs of a powerful megacorporation specializing in weapons and augmentation. Both of their headquarters are based in Detroit.
 * When the player encounters Sarif in Panchaea, he will not be affected by Darrow's signal, nor will he be affected by EMP grenades.
 * He can be killed on Panchaea, but this will not affect the story.