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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the

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Speaker 1: Tech Are Yet. So it is Friday again. It's time

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Speaker 1: for another classic episode. And last week we did the

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Speaker 1: Samsung Story Part one, so shocking. We're gonna do the

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Speaker 1: Samsung Story Part two today. This originally published on May

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Speaker 1: twenty sixth, twenty seventeen. Hope you enjoy Samsung, as it

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Speaker 1: turns out, is a conglomeration of companies that do lots

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Speaker 1: of different things. Electronics is just part of it. It's

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Speaker 1: one of the more forward facing components, especially outside of Korea,

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Speaker 1: but it's just one element of the overall company. Also,

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Speaker 1: keep in mind, I'm talking about a Korean company with

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Speaker 1: a lot of Korean names. So again, I apologize right

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Speaker 1: up front for the numerous occasions I'm sure I will

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Speaker 1: mispronounce Korean names. It is not through any lack of respect,

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Speaker 1: but rather just a simple ignorance of the correct pronunciations

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Speaker 1: for that language. I will do the best I can. However,

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Speaker 1: it will get a little confusing because I'm going to

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Speaker 1: talk a lot about the family who was in charge

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Speaker 1: of Samsung, and there are an awful lot of them,

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Speaker 1: but we will get to that a bit later. Now,

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Speaker 1: If you remember, I left off at the point when

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Speaker 1: Samsung began to produce its first televisions and washing machines.

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Speaker 1: That brings us up to the nineteen seventies. So what

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Speaker 1: was going on in Korea during that time? Well, you

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Speaker 1: might remember in the last episode I told you that

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Speaker 1: Korea had come under the rule of a military leader,

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Speaker 1: a general named Bach Jonghi or also sometimes spelled Park

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Speaker 1: chung Hi. These names are anglicized version of the Korean names,

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Speaker 1: so often it's as close to an approximation of an

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Speaker 1: anglicized pronunciation as we can get. So there are different spellings.

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Speaker 1: Park Chunghi is probably the most common, but I've also

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Speaker 1: seen Bach Chonghi same person. However. In fact, this is

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Speaker 1: a good time for me to mention this. In the

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Speaker 1: previous episode, I talked about a US backed leader, and

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Speaker 1: I talked about THEIM a lot. I said Li Sung

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Speaker 1: Man and also mentioned a man named singman Ri. Both

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Speaker 1: of those names are actually the same person. See in

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Speaker 1: the Western world, we will say a person's surname last.

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Speaker 1: But in Asia and many Asian cultures at any rate,

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Speaker 1: you say the surname first, So Lee is the surname

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Speaker 1: Li sungman or singman Ri is the way that we

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Speaker 1: often see it spelled, depending upon the source you're looking at.

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Speaker 1: So I know it gets a little confusing, but these

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Speaker 1: are the same people. They are just anglicized versions of

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Speaker 1: the name. Anyway, let's go back to Park Chunghi, the general,

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Speaker 1: the person who had been in charge of South Korea

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two. He put the country under martial

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Speaker 1: law and solidified his power in South Korea, they would

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Speaker 1: hold elections and Park Chunghi would win those elections. But

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of people who essentially said that

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Speaker 1: Park Chunghi was really just a military dictator. Just a

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Speaker 1: military dictator is probably the wrong way of saying it,

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Speaker 1: But he was a military dictator as opposed to a

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Speaker 1: legally elected president, according to whom you ask. Meanwhile, at

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Speaker 1: the same time, South Korea government officials were starting up

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Speaker 1: talks with their counterparts in North Korea, and the two

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Speaker 1: countries talked about wanting to reunite, to have a reunification

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Speaker 1: of Korea. They said that there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: requirements for that. One of the big ones was that

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Speaker 1: they demanded no outside interference. They didn't want other entities

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Speaker 1: coming into Korea to try and guide the process. Remember,

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Speaker 1: Korea had been the subject of a lot of interference

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Speaker 1: from the Soviet Union, from the United States of America

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Speaker 1: before that, Japan, and China, so they were really determined

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Speaker 1: to do this themselves. But spoiler alert, that never really happened.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy nine, the head of the Korean Intelligence Service,

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Speaker 1: Kim jagyu, assassinated Park Chunghi, so, the head of the

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Speaker 1: Korean version of the CIA, assassinated the president of the country.

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Speaker 1: After that, there was a brief period of civilian rule

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Speaker 1: where the Prime Minister assumed roles of the president before

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Speaker 1: another general. This one fellow by the name of General

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Speaker 1: Chu du Pan, receives power in nineteen eighty and thus

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Speaker 1: returned the country back to a dictatorship with token elections,

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Speaker 1: and that would continue to be the case until the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen eighties. So Korea still had a tumultuous and

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Speaker 1: often violent power structure, with people struggling to rule the

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Speaker 1: country in different ways. Remember, even though you know you

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Speaker 1: would say that that Park Chunghi was a dictator. He

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Speaker 1: was largely seen as someone who worked very hard to

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Speaker 1: improve conditions in Korea, so he wasn't just exploiting his power,

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Speaker 1: at least not in the view of many people. However,

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Speaker 1: that being said, he also wasn't willing to have a

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Speaker 1: transition of that power, and thus eventually he was assassinated.

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Speaker 1: So very complicated political structure in Korea at the time,

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Speaker 1: and despite all that political chaos, Samsung continued to do well.

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Speaker 1: I'll talk more about how they did that a little

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Speaker 1: bit later in this episode. The company had, for one thing,

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Speaker 1: diversified quite a bit. It was getting into so many

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Speaker 1: different industries and it was playing a key component in

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Speaker 1: the economy of South Korea. It was also creating Korean

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Speaker 1: electronics with Korean parts, so they weren't importing elements and

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Speaker 1: then building television sets and then selling them. They were

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Speaker 1: making all of this stuff piece by piece. This helped

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Speaker 1: establish Korea as one of what was called the Four

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Speaker 1: Little Dragons. The Four Little Dragons were nations in East

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Speaker 1: Asia that were very rapidly expanding economically and technologically, and

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Speaker 1: they also included Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, so these

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Speaker 1: Asian countries were really quickly catching up to other nations

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Speaker 1: like Japan and China. In nineteen seventy seven, Samsung began

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Speaker 1: producing color televisions and exporting them to Panama. So this

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Speaker 1: was a humble step toward Samsung becoming a global player

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Speaker 1: in consumer electronics. Before that, they had really been selling

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Speaker 1: mainly to South Korea, but now they were expanding beyond that,

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Speaker 1: and they were determined to really continue this level of

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Speaker 1: success with all different types of electronics. Around the same time,

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Speaker 1: Samsung began to produce other products in consumer electronics, including

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Speaker 1: air conditioners, which I have covered in previous episodes of

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff and the microwave, and there is also a

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Speaker 1: classic episode of tech Stuff about how the microwave works.

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Speaker 1: So I'm not going to go into a full explanation,

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Speaker 1: but because this episode is going to be a lot

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Speaker 1: about corporate politics and actual politics because of the complicated

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Speaker 1: nature of Korean business, I thought why not go ahead

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Speaker 1: and have at least a brief explanation on the science

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Speaker 1: slash technology side of microwaves to really have this podcast

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Speaker 1: earn the name of tech Stuff, because otherwise we're just

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about lots of economics, politics, and

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Speaker 1: very complicated issues. So I'm going to give you some

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Speaker 1: highlights of how microwave ovens work. So, the radiation micro waves.

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Speaker 1: Microwaves are in the electromagnetic spectrum in between infrared and

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Speaker 1: radio waves, so they are longer waves than visible light.

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Speaker 1: Microwave ovens produce microwaves that a frequency of two point

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Speaker 1: four or five gigaherts. That's two point four or five

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Speaker 1: billion wavelengths passing through a given point within a second. Now,

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Speaker 1: certain stuff like fats, sugars, and water absorb waves that

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Speaker 1: are at this two point four or five gigahertz frequency.

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Speaker 1: As they absorb those waves, their atoms begin to get excited.

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Speaker 1: That means they start to move around, and we call

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Speaker 1: this heat. Right, if atoms are moving around a lot,

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Speaker 1: they are warm, they're giving off heat, and they're giving

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Speaker 1: off that form of energy. Likewise, if you apply heat

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Speaker 1: to materials, you start to make their atoms move around

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Speaker 1: more rapidly. So stuff like glass, ceramics, and plastics do

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Speaker 1: not absorb waves at that frequency. So if you were

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Speaker 1: to put a glass like a glass container in a

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Speaker 1: microwave and you turned it on and then you took

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Speaker 1: the glass container out, assuming there was nothing on it

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Speaker 1: to heat up to absorb those microwaves. It should not

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Speaker 1: be really any significantly warmer to the touch, So that's

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Speaker 1: why the food in a microwave will heat up, but

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Speaker 1: the containers do not. Metal, by the way, reflects microwaves,

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Speaker 1: which is why the interior of most microwave ovens tends

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Speaker 1: to be metallic. It's to reflect waves back into the

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Speaker 1: oven in order to give the food a better chance

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Speaker 1: at absorbing the waves and heating up and cooking in

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Speaker 1: the process. This is also why we say that this

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Speaker 1: kind of food cooks from the inside out, and you're

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Speaker 1: not applying any heat to a surface, so you don't

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Speaker 1: get that seared nature you would get if you were

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Speaker 1: to say, cook in a pan. One other thing, microwaves

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Speaker 1: are not a form of ionizing radiation. That means that

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Speaker 1: the waves don't carry enough energy to ionize atoms or molecules,

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Speaker 1: or to simplify it even further, it means microwaves don't

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Speaker 1: pack enough of a punch to strip electrons away from atoms.

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Speaker 1: Ionizing radiation includes stuff like ultraviolet radiation, X rays and

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Speaker 1: gamma rays, and they do have enough energy to strip

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Speaker 1: away electrons, and if you are exposed to that sort

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Speaker 1: of radiation, you can suffer immediate and long term damage

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Speaker 1: as a result. So in a short term, very brief exposure,

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Speaker 1: you might suffer burns. In the case of ultraviolet radiation,

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Speaker 1: it may take a little bit longer for you to

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Speaker 1: actually suffer burns, but you know that's what sunburn is.

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Speaker 1: In the long run, you're talking about bigger risks like cancer,

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Speaker 1: so you want to really minimize your exposure to ionizing radiation.

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Speaker 1: But happily, microwaves are not in that category, nor are

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Speaker 1: radio waves. It's the stuff in those bigger wavelengths. They

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Speaker 1: don't have the energy to do that, which is why

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Speaker 1: you shouldn't have to worry about microwaves or radio waves

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Speaker 1: or anything like that causing you any harm. They just

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Speaker 1: don't have the energy to do that to you. Whereas

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Speaker 1: X rays, gamma rays, that kind of stuff certainly has

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Speaker 1: that sort of energy. Now, if you want to learn

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Speaker 1: more about how microwaves work, including how they actually generate

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Speaker 1: the microwave radiation in the first place, make sure you

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Speaker 1: check out that Classic Tech Stuff episode. It is titled

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Speaker 1: how microwave ovens Work. Yeah, we thought long and hard

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Speaker 1: about that title anyway, that episode came out way back

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Speaker 1: on March first, twenty ten. Let's get back to Samsung.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty Samsung made another big acquisition. Remember that's

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Speaker 1: how this company was really growing. It was buying up

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Speaker 1: other companies and getting involved in as many different industries

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Speaker 1: as possible. This time it was a telecommunications hardware company

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Speaker 1: called hanguk Jinja Tungsen. The number one product the company

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Speaker 1: made was telephones boards, so they were starting to install

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Speaker 1: more telephone infrastructure in Korea. Samsung soon expanded this to

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Speaker 1: produce telephone and faxt systems and much later on mobile phones.

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Speaker 1: More on Samsung's mobile phones. A bit later, Samsung expanded

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Speaker 1: the operations of its electronics division into other nations, including

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Speaker 1: the United Kingdom in the US, and the company had

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Speaker 1: become an empire. And that's when it lost its emperor.

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Speaker 1: It was nineteen eighty seven and Li Biongchol, who was

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Speaker 1: the man who founded Samsung when he was just twenty

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Speaker 1: eight years old, passed away. Now, if you listened to

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Speaker 1: our last episode, you know he had come from a

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Speaker 1: wealthy family to begin with, but his company had elevated

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Speaker 1: him and his family to truly wealthy status billionaires. Now

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Speaker 1: at the time of his death, he had one of

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Speaker 1: the largest private collections of Korean art in all of

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Speaker 1: the nation, which was opened up to the public after

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Speaker 1: his passing. He had ten children, six daughters and four sons.

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Speaker 1: There were also rumors of him having other children with

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Speaker 1: other women besides his wife in Korea, but that was

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Speaker 1: a rumor. That the family is very secretive in the

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Speaker 1: first place, so it's not like this was necessarily open information. Now,

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Speaker 1: at the end of this podcast, I'm going to trace

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Speaker 1: the very complicated history of Lee's family. I'll do this

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Speaker 1: because in Korea it is still traditional for families to

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Speaker 1: keep control over businesses, so you can inherit a position

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Speaker 1: of leadership in a company. The world of board of

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Speaker 1: directors and choosing a CEO isn't the way things are

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Speaker 1: done in Korea, at least not for a lot of companies.

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Speaker 1: They follow a more traditional pathway and that has caused

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Speaker 1: some consternation. As it turns out, now the company split

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Speaker 1: into four major business groups that eventually became their own

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Speaker 1: individual companies, and at least according to the people running

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Speaker 1: those companies, have nothing to do directly with one another. Anymore.

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Speaker 1: Those include the Shinsegae Group or Shinsega I guess group,

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Speaker 1: I should say, which is mostly concerned with retail businesses,

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Speaker 1: you know, department stores, that kind of thing. There's the

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Speaker 1: CJ Group, which includes businesses in food, chemical, entertainment industries.

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Speaker 1: There's the Hensall Group, which includes telecommunications and paper manufacturing industries.

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Speaker 1: And then you have the Samsung Group, which is pretty

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Speaker 1: much everything else. So for right now, the only important

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Speaker 1: thing you need to remember is that Lee byungchal, the

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Speaker 1: founder of Samsung, died in nineteen eighty seven, and I'll

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Speaker 1: try to focus exclusively on Samsung Electronics from here on out,

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Speaker 1: though I should mention the company as a whole consisted

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Speaker 1: of eighty smaller companies at one point or another, eighty.

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Speaker 1: It was a really a conglomerate in the true sense

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Speaker 1: of the word. It was a company filled with other companies. Many,

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Speaker 1: in fact, most of those companies had nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with consumer electronics. In the late eighties and early nineties,

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Speaker 1: Samsung Electronics began opening manufacturing facilities in different parts of

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Speaker 1: the world. The company was really making a name for itself,

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Speaker 1: becoming a global player in the electronics space. This is

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Speaker 1: pretty remarkable when you remember that companies like Sony had

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Speaker 1: been in the electronics industry for decades, whereas Samsung really

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Speaker 1: only began to dive into it in nineteen sixty nine

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, so they had a lot of catching up

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Speaker 1: to do. Samsung continued to expand the types of electronics

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Speaker 1: it produced in the nineteen eighties, like I said, with

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Speaker 1: air conditioners and microwaves starting off, but by nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: three the company also began to get into the personal

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Speaker 1: computer business. The very first Samsung computer was the SPC

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Speaker 1: one thousand, which came out in March nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 1: and it was an eight bit personal comput which looked

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Speaker 1: more like a giant electronic typewriter. It had sixty four

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Speaker 1: whole kilobytes of RAM and before megahertz processor. Yeah it was.

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Speaker 1: From the time it was, you know, it was good,

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Speaker 1: but by today's standards it is it is almost laughably underpowered.

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Speaker 1: But we have Moore's law to thank for that. The

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Speaker 1: computer included the keyboard, a game pad, external disk drives,

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Speaker 1: and a TV like monitor and you would hook them

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Speaker 1: all up and then you'd be able to run stuff

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Speaker 1: using the DOS operating system. Good times in nineteen eighty four,

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Speaker 1: Samsung began to export VCRs to the United States. And

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Speaker 1: I've covered VCRs in the past, including a deep dive

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Speaker 1: on the format wars between VHS and Betamax, so I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to really dive into it again. Here you

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Speaker 1: can listen to that classic episode of tech Stuff if

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Speaker 1: you like. And in nineteen eighty six, Samsung created what

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Speaker 1: was then the smallest videotape recorder, a four millimeter videotape recorder.

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Speaker 1: By the end of the nineteen eighties, the company's products

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Speaker 1: could be found on store shelves around the world, so

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Speaker 1: they really made rapid progress. From the mid seventies up

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Speaker 1: to the late eighties, TVs were still leading the way,

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Speaker 1: with Samsung's twenty million color television produced in nineteen eighty nine.

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Speaker 1: The company developed its first mobile phone handset in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety one, though it would continue to work on the

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Speaker 1: software side and the systems side for another year. By

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, Samsung had become the global leader in

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Speaker 1: producing memory chips for electronics, so essentially RAM and it

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Speaker 1: fell only behind Intel for chip making in general, so

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Speaker 1: Intel was the number one producer of computer chips In

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, and Samsung was number two, again, a

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Speaker 1: remarkable story for a company that had only recently started

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Speaker 1: to get into electronics at all. Samsung pioneered work in

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Speaker 1: building LCD display in the mid nineties, and if you

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Speaker 1: listen to my history of TV series, you know that

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Speaker 1: the LCD panels really helped push televisions into a new era,

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Speaker 1: allowing for a thinner form factor in flat screen TVs.

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Speaker 1: Samsung Electronics would end up making millions of dollars by

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Speaker 1: licensing LCD panel technology to other companies that became a

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Speaker 1: chief source of revenue for the for the Samsung Electronics division.

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Speaker 1: Also in nineteen ninety two, Samsung began manufacturing in China

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Speaker 1: and producing computer components such as RAM and hard disk drives,

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Speaker 1: with a two hundred and fifty megabyte drive released that year,

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Speaker 1: which again sounds like nothing at all. Two hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty megabytes. I mean, you can get multi gigs on

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Speaker 1: a single flash drive these days, but back then it

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Speaker 1: was pretty impressive. Samsung was also producing industrial robots at

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Speaker 1: this time and managed to hit the ten million products

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Speaker 1: shipped by the end of nineteen ninety two, and by products,

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Speaker 1: i'm talking specifically robots they produced ten milli billion industrial

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Speaker 1: robots by the end of nineteen ninety two. That's pretty incredible. Now,

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Speaker 1: I've got a lot more to talk about with Samsung's electronics,

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Speaker 1: but before I dive into the next section, let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. In nineteen ninety three,

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Speaker 1: Samsung's Advanced Institute of Technology, also known as SAIT or SAT,

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Speaker 1: developed the first digital versatile disc recorder or dvd R device.

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Speaker 1: I guess I mean it couldn't have been the DVD

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Speaker 1: we all know, because that didn't exist in nineteen ninety three.

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Speaker 1: That wouldn't be introduced until nineteen ninety five as a

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Speaker 1: joint project between Sony and Panasonic. Honestly, I'm not really

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Speaker 1: sure how Samsung's device fits into the history of DVDs

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Speaker 1: and dvd rs. In particular, I found the entry that

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Speaker 1: the company first produced this first DVD R in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety three on Samsung's actual website, so this is according

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Speaker 1: to the company itself. But that really strikes me as

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Speaker 1: strange because as far as I know, the standard didn't

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Speaker 1: really exist until nineteen ninety five. So how do you

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Speaker 1: produce a product two years before you've figured out the standard.

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Speaker 1: It's possible that the entry is erroneous, but it did

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Speaker 1: come from Samsung itself, so I thought it would include it, so,

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Speaker 1: you know, grain of salt. It may very well be

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Speaker 1: that they produced a DVDR on an early version of

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Speaker 1: what would become the standard in ninety five, but it

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Speaker 1: just seems a bit early to me. Totally possible, just

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Speaker 1: something that I did not hear about when I was

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Speaker 1: researching DVDs years ago. In the mid nineties, Samsung products

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Speaker 1: began to number on the top sellers for certain categories

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Speaker 1: like LCD screens. Samsung was definitely leading the way there. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Lee kun He, who was a son of Li b

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Speaker 1: yung Chol. Remember I said Lie Byung Chol had ten children. Well,

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Speaker 1: Lee kun He, the third son. He would join the

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Speaker 1: International Olympic Committee in the mid nineties, and that move

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Speaker 1: is really important to note because it illustrates how critical

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Speaker 1: a role Samsung was to the country and economy of Korea,

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Speaker 1: and it also showed how critical the Lee family was

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Speaker 1: and how strong their political influence was at the time.

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Speaker 1: I have a lot more to say about that. Toward

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Speaker 1: the end of this episode. In ninety four, Samsung unveiled

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Speaker 1: the first four power zoom camera that came from Samsung Aeronautics,

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen ninety five, Samsung launched the Samsung Entertainment Group.

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Speaker 1: That same year site you know sait showed off a

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Speaker 1: real time MPEG three technology. And then there was a

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Speaker 1: story from that same year or around ninety five. I

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Speaker 1: guess that Lee Kunhe, who again was the head of

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Speaker 1: Samsung Electronics at that time and in fact still is today,

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Speaker 1: ordered an entire your inventory of smartphones destroyed because they

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Speaker 1: apparently did not work properly. So the story was that

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Speaker 1: an early smartphone really an internet connected phone, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: a smartphone the way we would imagine today, didn't work

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Speaker 1: properly as it came out of production, and so rather

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Speaker 1: than trying to fix the inventory, leekhen He just ordered

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Speaker 1: them all to be burned. Samsung obviously didn't give up

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Speaker 1: on the mobile business, and in fact, eventually the mobile

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Speaker 1: business would become one of the most profitable divisions within

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Speaker 1: the country the year twenty sixty notwithstanding, and in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety six, the company produced what it claimed to be

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Speaker 1: the fastest central processing unit chip, the fastest CPU. They

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Speaker 1: called it the Alpha. In nineteen ninety seven, South Korea,

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Speaker 1: along with countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, were

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Speaker 1: all caught in a terrible financial crisis. It began in

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Speaker 1: Thailand with the collapse of Thailand's national currency, and that

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Speaker 1: created a sort of ripple effect, and South Korea was

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Speaker 1: caught in it. In fact, you could argue caught some

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Speaker 1: of the worst of it, with national debts surging as

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Speaker 1: a result. Samsung was affected by this problem just like

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Speaker 1: other companies were, although Samsung was in good position to

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Speaker 1: be able to weather the storm better than a lot

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Speaker 1: of its competitors. According to the company's website, Samsung reduced

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Speaker 1: the number of affiliated companies to forty five, which is

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Speaker 1: still an enormous number of affiliates, right, I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: a big conglomerate, and keep in mind this is family

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Speaker 1: owned businesses. The company ended up laying off about fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand employees and sold ten business units. And one of

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Speaker 1: the businesses Samsung sold off was its motor vehicle business

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Speaker 1: or it used to be Samsung Motors, but the company

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Speaker 1: sold off its interest to Renault at a big loss. Renault.

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Speaker 1: Samsung is mostly owned by Renault, like eighty percent ownership

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Speaker 1: and less than twenty percent of that ownership falls to Samsung.

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Speaker 1: In the late nineteen nineties, Samsung began to produce larger

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Speaker 1: LCD screens and they ushered in a new era of

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Speaker 1: large flat screen televisions and monitors, and they also started

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Speaker 1: mass producing digital televisions. The semiconductor branch of the company

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Speaker 1: was busy creating RAM and flash based chips, and in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, Samsung launched a smartphone. This would be

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Speaker 1: a true Internet capable mobile phone handset. But keep in

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Speaker 1: mind again, nineteen ninety nine smartphones are not the same

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Speaker 1: thing as the smartphones of today. You're still talking about

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Speaker 1: pretty simple form factors, not the big touch screens that

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Speaker 1: we think about when we use smartphones these days. Now,

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Speaker 1: the turn of the millennium, you know, around two thousand,

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Speaker 1: Samsung got into the HDTV game. High definition television was

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Speaker 1: still pretty young. I mean, it had been pioneered in

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Speaker 1: the nineties, but two thousand was when consumers were starting

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Speaker 1: to really look at HDTV for the first time in

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Speaker 1: a serious way, and Samsung was able to secure a

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Speaker 1: spot among giants in the industry like Panasonic and Sony.

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Speaker 1: Samsung Television's remained one of the top brands on the market,

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Speaker 1: so it's a real triumph for the company to get

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Speaker 1: their products right next to these other big name brands,

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Speaker 1: considering that they had a much much shorter history in

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Speaker 1: the consumer electronics field. Through sheer willpower and lots of investments,

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Speaker 1: they were able to do this. By two thousand and one,

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Speaker 1: the company's subsidiary, Samsung Techwin would become the supplier for

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Speaker 1: engine parts for the Airbus A three eighty and for

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Speaker 1: the Boeing seven eighty seven, so they also were doing

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Speaker 1: a lot of business to business deals. In two thousand

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Speaker 1: and five, Samsung became the largest producer of LCD panels globally.

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Speaker 1: The following year, two thousand and six, Samsung and Sony

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Speaker 1: he formed a deal in which Samsung would supply Sony

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Speaker 1: with LCD panels, and this partnership was almost fifty to fifty,

407
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: almost Samsung owned one share more than Sony did, and

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Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, Samsung would buy out Sony's steak in

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Speaker 1: this partnership and take over the business completely. As for

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Speaker 1: the mobile phones, Samsung really joined the fray in twenty

411
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Speaker 1: ten when it launched the Galaxy S that was its

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Speaker 1: first flagship Android phone. Since that time, Samsung and Apple

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Speaker 1: would engage in numerous court battles around the world over

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Speaker 1: various patents and designs, with each side accusing the other

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Speaker 1: of copying the first one. So Apple would say Samsung

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00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,439
Speaker 1: copied us in this way, Samsung would say Apple copied

417
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: us in this way, and these got really complicated and enormous.

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Speaker 1: We went into some detail of the story in an

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Speaker 1: episode called The Past in Wars, which came out in

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven, but obviously those have continued since then. Samsung

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00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 1: also manufactured the first popular consumer tablet running on Android

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Speaker 1: in twenty ten. That was the Galaxy Tab, and it

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00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: began to experiment with smart televisions. Those are TVs that

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00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 1: pull in content directly from the Internet. You probably are

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00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: familiar with the many of you may have a smart TV.

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Speaker 1: I your humble host, am still falling behind the times

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00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: as my TV is not smart, but I got a

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00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 1: lot of smart stuff connected to it. Anyway. In twenty twelve,

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Speaker 1: Samsung actually overtook Nokia or Nokia if you prefer it's

430
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: definitely not Nokia as the number one production company for

431
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 1: mobile phones. So this is a big deal for Samsung

432
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 1: to overtake the giant Nokia in twenty twelve. The company

433
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 1: is a true powerhouse in Korea. It accounts for it

434
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: almost fifteen percent of the gross domestic product in Korea

435
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: back in twenty twelve. And in case you're rusty on

436
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: your economic terms, gross domestic product refers to the total

437
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: value of goods and services originating from inside a country

438
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: within one year. So Samsung's business accounted for fifteen percent

439
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: of all of Korea's GDP in twenty twelve. That is enormous.

440
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,439
Speaker 1: There's no company in the United States that comes close

441
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: to that, and the overall company has an employee base

442
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: of nearly half a million people. Huge, huge, huge company.

443
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: Now they now focus on just a few core businesses,

444
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: which include mobile technology, electronics, and biopharmaceuticals, among a couple

445
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: of others. It really is big. It is the third

446
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: largest company in the world by revenue, and it holds

447
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: more US patents than any other company. It's also involved

448
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: in emerging markets, including stuff like virtual reality and wearables.

449
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: Oh and there's some notable stories about some of the

450
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: Samsung products that are out there. You know, some things

451
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: that suffered a couple of issues. Let's talk about the

452
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: one that I bet you already know I'm referring to

453
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: it is, in fact, the Samsung Galaxy Note seven. This

454
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: phone became infamous after more than one hundred of the

455
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: handsets were reported to have burst into flames. So what happened, Well,

456
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: the phones have lithium ion batteries, and lithium ion batteries

457
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: are flammable. That's why you're not supposed to put any

458
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 1: in your luggage that you're gonna store unless you're going

459
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: to check. You know, when you go to an airport,

460
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: you don't check bags have lithium ion batteries in them

461
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: because of the potential danger for fire. So what can

462
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: happen is a short circuit can create this dangerous situation.

463
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: And a short circuit is kind of what it sounds like.

464
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: It's when you create a shortcut in a circuit and

465
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: electrons can flow. The can follow the shortcut rather than

466
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: the path you want them to follow. So the basics

467
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: of electronics is this, we harness electrons to do what

468
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: we want them to do, and we do it through

469
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: making all these different pathways and gates, and as long

470
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: as we've got that working, the electrons can only follow

471
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:17,719
Speaker 1: the gates and go through the gates that are that

472
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: we allow them to go through, and they don't go

473
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: through the ones we don't allow them to go through.

474
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: Our electronics work. But if we create a shortcut so

475
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 1: that electrons can jump from one pathway to another directly,

476
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 1: then we have a problem. Electrons will take that path

477
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: of least resistance, no pun intended, and as a result,

478
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,959
Speaker 1: it starts to heat things up. You've got this extra

479
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 1: energy being given off in the form of heat. So

480
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: with batteries, if there's a puncture between the positive and

481
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: negative electrodes, you can have a direct change of electrons

482
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: and the material will start to heat up. Well, Lithium

483
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: ion batteries are really flammable, so if they heat up enough,

484
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: they'll burst into flames. Originally, Samsung tried to address this

485
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: problem by replace batteries, but they received reports of several

486
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: replaced handsets also catching fire, so the company was forced

487
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: to issue a full recall on the device, or rather

488
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: they did issue a full recall before the force thing

489
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: became a real necessity. Meanwhile, you started seeing representatives at

490
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: airports telling travelers that they had to surrender any Galaxy

491
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: seven phone before getting on a flight. It was really

492
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: bad PR for the company, and Samsung is still kind

493
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: of dealing with that to some extent, although it's already

494
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: starting to slack off a little bit because now we've

495
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: got the Samsung Galaxy S eight coming out as I

496
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: record this podcast, early reviews are coming out about this

497
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: new phone, and most of the reviews I've seen have

498
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: been generally positive. The new phone has a twelve megapixel

499
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: camera on the back and an eight megapixel forward facing camera,

500
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: and Samsung has introduced a personal assistant similar to Siri

501
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: or Alexa called Bixby, which I think is kind of

502
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: adorable and it also the new phone has an iris

503
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: scanner so that you can use that for authentication. You

504
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: can go totally James Bond with your phone. That's pretty cool.

505
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: So the company is still producing these gadgets, not like

506
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 1: they've backed off after the problem with the Galaxy seven,

507
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: but that was really bad PR for them. I should

508
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: also say that before I get into the next section,

509
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 1: which is largely about the behind the scenes at Samsung

510
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: and the incredibly complex political struggles within the Lee family,

511
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: that Samsung makes some awesome products. I have several Samsung

512
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: products myself, So while I'm going to talk a lot

513
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: about some of the controversies behind Samsung. I don't want

514
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: that to come across as me slagging the company as

515
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: a whole. I think that there are a lot of

516
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: really good Samsung products out there, but it is really

517
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: fascinating to take a look at the family behind the

518
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: company and their relationships with one another. Because you know,

519
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: this is some game of throne stuff, and I'm not kidding.

520
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: You should probably grab some popcorn and I'm gonna take

521
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. Let's get back

522
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: to Lee Byung Choll's legacy. His is a complicated story.

523
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: I talked about him a lot in the last episode

524
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: and about his dreams for Samsung and how he wanted

525
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: his company to be a contributor to Korea's economy and

526
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: help the country create an industry of its own. But

527
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: it's not as simple as that or as heroic. Necessarily,

528
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: there's some complications to the tale. He was really intent

529
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: on the success of his company even as you saw

530
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:06,959
Speaker 1: regime changes. He even led Samsung from Japan. He was

531
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: in Japan when there was the coupdata where Park Chunghi,

532
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 1: the military general, took control of of the Korean government.

533
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: This was partially because lib Byung chung had developed a

534
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: beneficial relationship with the former leadership of South Korea. You

535
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,279
Speaker 1: know that US backed president that was in charge of

536
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: South Korea before the coup. Data, Well, Yung Chull was

537
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: buddy buddy with that president and had worked very closely

538
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 1: in order to ensure Samsung's success and the growth of

539
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: the Korean economy. So some would argue that perhaps this

540
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 1: was evidence of corruption, that perhaps Samsung had been buttering

541
00:34:55,719 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: up the Korean government or preferential treatment. So because there

542
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: was a coup a'tah where one regime was replacing another,

543
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: that put Yung chul in a delicate situation. Also, according

544
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: to at least some journalist reports, although I have not

545
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: been able to completely verify this, he was in Japan

546
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 1: at the time, staying at the house of his Japanese wife.

547
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: Back in Korea he had a wife as well, a

548
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: different one at the same time, So according to this journalist,

549
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: he kept two households, one in each nation and was

550
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: practically open about it, or at least didn't go to

551
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,240
Speaker 1: great links to hide it. Again, according to the journalist

552
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:43,240
Speaker 1: I was reading, but he did return to Korea after

553
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: he was given assurances that he wouldn't be put on

554
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,359
Speaker 1: trial for corruption charges, and again, to be fair, those

555
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 1: charges wouldn't necessarily be accurate. You know, Samsung had flourished

556
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: under that previous regime, and now you had a new

557
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: regime in place, and that new regime is trying to

558
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: wipe out everything from the previous one away, trying to

559
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 1: start with a clean slate. So it was a tricky time.

560
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 1: You could argue that perhaps there was some evidence that

561
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: he had colluded with the president, or maybe it was

562
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 1: just that, as the story goes, that he was trying

563
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 1: very hard to make Samsung a power player in the

564
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: East Asian economy. Now, General Park Chunghi gave Samsung some

565
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: preferential treatment that really is beyond question, and also a

566
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: few other Korean companies received this kind of preferential treatment.

567
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,240
Speaker 1: This was in order to encourage an era of industrialization

568
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 1: and modernization, but the government made out pretty well too

569
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:42,759
Speaker 1: as a result. So from one point of view, you

570
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: could argue that Samsung had managed to nuzzle up to

571
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: one leader then turn around to get buddy buddy with

572
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: the next one in order to maintain its advantage. But

573
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 1: from a different point of view, you could say Samsung

574
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: was able to lead the charge in bringing Korea up

575
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: to speed with the rest of the industrialized world in

576
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: a very short span of time. So again I'm not

577
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: trying to demonize Li b yung Chol, but I'm also

578
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:11,399
Speaker 1: not shying away from the fact that this is complicated. Now,

579
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, Lie byung Chung had to officially

580
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: resign as chairman of Samsung. This was due to a

581
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: charge that his second son, Li Changhi, had been smuggling

582
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: saccharin into Korea. So this scandal breaks out, Li byung Chung,

583
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: as part of this news break of his second son

584
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 1: being part of a smuggling operation, announces that he will

585
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:43,320
Speaker 1: step down as the head of Samsung Group, and thus

586
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,359
Speaker 1: control of the company passed, as is tradition in South

587
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 1: Korea to the eldest son that was Limanghi. Now, keep

588
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 1: in mind, Samsung Group is a company of companies, and

589
00:37:55,840 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: we're talking around eighty companies at this point. But found

590
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 1: under Lee byung Chol still had the power to choose

591
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,280
Speaker 1: which of his children would officially lead the company after

592
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 1: his death, which is common in Korea. Leadership can remain

593
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,959
Speaker 1: within a family and Biungchol watched as his eldest son

594
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: mag he began to alienate the leadership of the various

595
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: divisions within Samsung, and in fact, according to some reports,

596
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,359
Speaker 1: he had even written that within six months he had

597
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: plunged that upper echelon of executive leadership into chaos. There

598
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: were a lot of reports that Monghi was short tempered

599
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: and ill suited for leadership. Meanwhile, Biong Chol's second son,

600
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: changhe tried to position himself into a power position despite

601
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: his previous scandal of smuggling sacrin by talking to the

602
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: President of South Korea and revealing that byung Chol had

603
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: some slush funds that he was hiding from the government,

604
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: presumably for bribery and other purposes. And this is the

605
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:03,919
Speaker 1: point where we should really just be humming the Game

606
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: of Thrones theme and probably just keep it up for

607
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 1: the rest of the episode. So Bijung Chol made a

608
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: decision at that point that the ownership of the Samsung

609
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 1: group would not go to either of his first two

610
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: sons because he felt that they were both plotting against

611
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: him and would be a bad fit. So instead he

612
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 1: decided that we should go to the third son. Now,

613
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, this did not exactly go over

614
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 1: very well within the Lee family. So in nineteen eighty seven,

615
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: when Byung Choal passed away, the control of his company

616
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:41,360
Speaker 1: went to his third son, Lee Kunhi. Now, Samsung itself

617
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: is what is called a chebol, which is an institution

618
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: peculiar to South Korea. Essentially, at Chaebol is a large

619
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: conglomerate of businesses that more often than not fall under

620
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: a single family's ownership and leadership. And it can get

621
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: really complicated and be really dea and difficult to suss

622
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 1: out who owns what percentage of which company, so you

623
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: can make a lot of arguments as to whether or

624
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 1: not things are on the up and up. Well, Lee

625
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: Kunhi became the head of Samsung Group, and individual businesses

626
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: and divisions fell under the control of some of his siblings.

627
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 1: You might remember I mentioned earlier that Samsung Group kind

628
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,279
Speaker 1: of broke into four major components at this point, well,

629
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: those components went to other siblings. One of those was

630
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: Lie Monghi. He ended up taking control of the CJ Group.

631
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: You remember I mentioned that earlier. Well, later on much

632
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 1: later on, like in twenty twelve, Lee Mong he and

633
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: one of his sisters would go on to sue Lee

634
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:54,799
Speaker 1: Kunhi and Li Monghi was accusing his younger brother of

635
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: hiding shares from the company after their father's death, and

636
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 1: that it would last couple of years, only coming to

637
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,840
Speaker 1: a close in twenty fourteen when Soul's High Court upheld

638
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: a verdict that said Lee Kunhi was innocent of that.

639
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: Really more, it was more about how the claim of

640
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 1: any sort of claim you would have or inheritance would

641
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: have expired after ten years had passed from the death

642
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 1: of Jung Choal and Young Chal died in nineteen eighty seven,

643
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: so by twenty twelve it was far too late. But

644
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: that's not the end of the animosity within the Lee household.

645
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 1: It actually gets very complicated. So one of Bjung Chol's

646
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: daughters still second generation here, her name was Lee Sok

647
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: still is Li Sok. She married into another family in Korea,

648
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: another prominent family, the kium Sung family. Now the Kiumsung

649
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 1: family is the head of another chabol namely l G,

650
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: and as LG's electronic business began to flourish, this put

651
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: a brain on relations between the kyum Sung and Lee families,

652
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:09,760
Speaker 1: so that created some more tension inside the family. Now

653
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: getting into the more complications in this web of relationships

654
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: that were tested after Byung Chol's passing, I need to

655
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 1: talk about some of the other folks. Lee Chang Hi

656
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: founded a company called Sehan, which was an electronics and

657
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: textiles company. Also made one of the first MP three

658
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,439
Speaker 1: players called the MP Men. Chang Hi would pass away

659
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,839
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety. I think he was the first of

660
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: Byung Chol's children to pass away, so he only you

661
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: know he lived only three years after his father. Well,

662
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:47,840
Speaker 1: lie In He one of Byung Chol's daughters, another again

663
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 1: second generation here, became the leader of Samsung's home furnishing businesses,

664
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: and another one of the daughters, Lie Munghi, would end

665
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: up leading Sam Sung's retail businesses. Both groups of businesses

666
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:07,800
Speaker 1: would split off from Samsung. The home furnishing business split

667
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: off in nineteen ninety one and the retail business split

668
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 1: off in nineteen ninety seven. I've got some more to

669
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: talk about with Samsung once we come back from this break.

670
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 1: To thank our sponsors, So Lee and he founded the

671
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: Hansall Group, which is an electronics production company in paper

672
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 1: manufacturing business and according to Hansaal they have no connection

673
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: with Samsung Group at all, that there's no ownership connection

674
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: between the two. Lie Mjunghi would go on to found

675
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: the Shinsegay Group that was the department store franchise in

676
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: South Korea, and both of them are very powerful leaders

677
00:43:55,800 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: in Korea's economy. Then you had CJ Child Judan, which

678
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: is a business that sells all sorts of stuff including

679
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: food and biopharmaceuticals. Lie Maghi, the eldest of Biong Chul's sons,

680
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 1: led this company and then passed it on to his son,

681
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: Lie jay Hun. So Lee jay Hun is third generation.

682
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 1: He's a grandson of Biyeung Chung. Lie jay Hun led

683
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: c J Child Judang until twenty fourteen, and then he

684
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: was convicted of charges of theft and embezzlement and sentenced

685
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: to four years in prison. He would not be the

686
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: only Lee to be accused of and convicted for charges

687
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: such as these. In nineteen ninety six, in fact, Lee

688
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 1: Kunhi he's the guy again the third son of the

689
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: founder who would taken over control of Samsung Group. He

690
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 1: was accused of and convicted four charges of paying bribes

691
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: to Chundu Huan that was the general who took over

692
00:44:55,200 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: after Park Chunghi's assassination. So du Huan was a president

693
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: of Korea. South Korea and Lee kun He was convicted

694
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: of charges of bribing the government. He also was accused

695
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: of bribing the successor to Chundu Huan, who was Rot Taiwu.

696
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: So nineteen ninety six was a bad year for Lee

697
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,399
Speaker 1: kun He. He had these charges of bribery for two

698
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 1: of South Korea's recent presidents. But in nineteen ninety seven,

699
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 1: the then president of South Korea, Kim yung Sam, this

700
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: was the next successor, granted, couldn't he a pardon? So

701
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: kunn He gets a presidential pardon in nineteen ninety seven

702
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: after being accused of bribing the two previous presidents. By

703
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: the way, at this point, Korea had entered into what

704
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 1: is called the sixth Republic, which is what it currently

705
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 1: is in Koreas. In the sixth Republic, the third and

706
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: fourth Republic were Arc Chunghi's presidential administrations. I guess you

707
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,319
Speaker 1: could call it. And then you had the fifth one

708
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: with du Huan and Taiwu. All right, So, Kim Yong

709
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 1: Sam also pursued charges of corruption and treason against his predecessors,

710
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: du Huan and Taiwu. So the president who granted the

711
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: pardon to Samsung's Kunhi, President of South Korea, also went

712
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 1: after the two previous presidents of South Korea, but then eventually,

713
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: after having them both convicted, would grant them both a pardon.

714
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: So Samsung's politics are confusing, but so are Koreas, right,

715
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: because you had a current standing president accuse and convict

716
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: two former presidents of corruption charges and then grant them pardons.

717
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: Complicated stuff, all right. So Samsung's Kunhi gets his pardon

718
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven for those bribers recharges. Then he

719
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: goes back to managing Samsung. He has a son, and

720
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,799
Speaker 1: he had three daughters, all of whom attended school in

721
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: the United States. His son, Lee ja Yong also known

722
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: in the West as j y Lee, assumed control of

723
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: fourteen internet venture companies, but they went out of business

724
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,399
Speaker 1: within a year. So that didn't exactly instill a lot

725
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 1: of enthusiasm because again, the way Samsung operates, the way

726
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:34,839
Speaker 1: Korea businesses operate, especially in this old family tradition, Jay

727
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: Lee stands to inherit Samsung. His father Kunhee is the

728
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 1: current leader and would traditionally pass it down to his

729
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: eldest son. Well, Jay Lee is the only son of Kunhi.

730
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:54,680
Speaker 1: Kunhi's daughter, Lee Yung Jung, is the subject of a

731
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: really tragic story, and he may have heard about this

732
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: because it was big news when it happened. When she

733
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: was twenty six years old, the heiress to the Samsung

734
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 1: fortune hanged herself in a New York apartment building. Her

735
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:12,759
Speaker 1: death was international news. She was the daughter of one

736
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 1: of Korea's wealthiest men, and in Korea, her death was

737
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,759
Speaker 1: originally reported as the result of a car accident. She

738
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: had an avid interest in race cars, and people knew

739
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: that about her, but according to some people close to her,

740
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: she was also prone to bouts of loneliness and depression,

741
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: possibly because she had hoped to marry a man she

742
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: had fallen in love with back in Korea, but she

743
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 1: had been told by her parents that the man was

744
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 1: not of the right stature for her to marry, and

745
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: they forbade her from marrying him. Now, the true story

746
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:52,760
Speaker 1: that led to her suicide is probably not fully known,

747
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: and I'm sure is far more complicated than that simple answer,

748
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: but it was a shocking and tragic that made world headlines.

749
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, Lee kunhe was accused of

750
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: and convicted for tax evasions. So ten years after, a

751
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:13,320
Speaker 1: little bit more than ten years after his last conviction,

752
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 1: he gets accused and convicted for another set of crimes.

753
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 1: The charges said he failed to pay forty five million

754
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: dollars in taxes and he was hit with a fine

755
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: that was nearly ninety million dollars. As a result of

756
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 1: the scandal, he was forced to resign as chairman of Samsung.

757
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 1: That put his son, Jay Lee's claim in danger, actually

758
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 1: because since he had to step down, there was the

759
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: question of whether or not he would be able to

760
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 1: pass along the ownership of the company to his son.

761
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: But then in two thousand and nine he received another

762
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:52,280
Speaker 1: presidential pardon for giving him for his conviction of tax evasion,

763
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 1: and in twenty ten he reassumed leadership of Samsung Electronics.

764
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to CJ Group, which again

765
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:03,719
Speaker 1: spun off from Samsung in the early nineteen nineties. This

766
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: was the part of the company that dealt with food

767
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: and biopharmaceuticals and later got into the entertainment business, forming

768
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: subsidiaries like CJ Media's CJ Entertainment and CJ Internet. Lee

769
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: mong He, remember he was the eldest son of the

770
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:23,640
Speaker 1: founder of Samsung. He had a son, Lee jay Hun,

771
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,239
Speaker 1: you remember I mentioned him earlier, who became the head

772
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 1: of CJ Group in two thousand and two. So this

773
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 1: is a Samsung founder's grandson. Lee jay Hun would be

774
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 1: grandson to Byung Choll, the founder of Samsung. Anyway, in

775
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, Lee jay Hun was arrested on charges of

776
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 1: tax evasion and embezzlement, so you might be sen sing

777
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: a theme here. He would also eventually receive a pardon

778
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: from the president in twenty sixteen. As for mong He,

779
00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 1: the eldest son, he passed away in twenty fifteen, the

780
00:50:57,239 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 1: second of Biongchull's children to pass on. Now, of course,

781
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 1: this is not where the story ends. You have probably

782
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: heard about a scandal that is sweeping South Korea that

783
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:11,320
Speaker 1: hit worldwide news in twenty sixteen. It is often referred

784
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 1: to as the Choice Sunsil scandal. Samsung is caught up

785
00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 1: in that as well as lots of other companies and entities.

786
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 1: So what is the scandal all about? Oh boy, I

787
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: hope you still got some popcorn. Here we go well,

788
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: as you've no doubt gathered from this and the previous podcast.

789
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:31,400
Speaker 1: Korea's government has had a real rocky time since World

790
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:34,359
Speaker 1: War Two and even before that, with several leaders doing

791
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 1: their best to maintain a position of power beyond what

792
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:40,840
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be legally binding protections for the Korean people.

793
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:45,359
Speaker 1: Many Korean leaders have been involved in various scandals that

794
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 1: revolve around bribery and corruption, and honestly, I think it's

795
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 1: impossible to really lay blame here because the nation of

796
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 1: Korea has been the subject of so much interference in

797
00:51:55,200 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: international intrigue, but this particular scandal really stands out. Choi

798
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: Sunsil is the name of a woman. She was the

799
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: daughter of a man named Choi Thai Minh. Thai Minh

800
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: was the head of a sect of South Korean Christians.

801
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:18,240
Speaker 1: He was formerly a Buddhist and converted to Roman Catholicism,

802
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:23,360
Speaker 1: and some people call his group a cult. I do

803
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: not know enough about it to give it a term,

804
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 1: but he'd certainly led a sect of religious followers in

805
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:33,840
Speaker 1: South Korea. He became friends with and a mentor to

806
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: a woman named Park Gun Hey, and I know I'm

807
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 1: butchering her name but she was the daughter of Park Chunghi,

808
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: the military general who became the dictator of South Korea

809
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 1: for many years for the Third and Fourth Republics of Korea.

810
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:58,560
Speaker 1: Now Park Gun He was elected to the position of

811
00:52:58,640 --> 00:53:03,240
Speaker 1: president in twenty thirteen, and she was friends with Choice

812
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:06,360
Speaker 1: Sun Sil not time. Men had passed away in the nineties,

813
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,239
Speaker 1: but his daughter Sun Sil remained very close to Gunhi.

814
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, it became public knowledge that there were

815
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 1: a string of accusations and arrests that were flooding the

816
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: South Korean government, many of them targeting the people around

817
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 1: the president herself, and the story unfolded that Sun Sil

818
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: had been using her considerable influence over the president to

819
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:34,360
Speaker 1: create favorable deals for herself and her family and her friends,

820
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: and that many government officials have been accepting numerous large

821
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: bribes from lots of businesses, including businesses related to Samsung.

822
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:48,640
Speaker 1: This scandal has rocked South Korea. The president has stepped down,

823
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 1: she was impeached. She stepped down from the role of president.

824
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 1: The Prime minister took over. But as for Samsung, this

825
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: led authorities to go investigate Jay Lee, whom I hope

826
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: you'll remember, is Kunhe's son and therefore a grandson of

827
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 1: the founder Jung Chol So. Jay Lee was serving as

828
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:13,760
Speaker 1: vice chairman for Samsung Electronics. He's essentially the heir apparent

829
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:18,280
Speaker 1: to Samsung. He was accused of bribery, among other things,

830
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: and was arrested in January twenty seventeen. The accusations include

831
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,000
Speaker 1: one that says that he made sizable contributions to the

832
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 1: tune of about thirty five million dollars to two nonprofits

833
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:33,960
Speaker 1: that Choi Sunsil allegedly controls Now the story is still

834
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: unfolding at this time of the recording, and so the

835
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 1: future of Samsung leadership remains an open question. It could

836
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 1: turn out that it has merit and that Jay Lee

837
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,239
Speaker 1: will be convicted of these charges. It could turn out

838
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: that we see yet another presidential pardon come out and

839
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 1: absolve him of these charges. Who knows. One possible successor

840
00:54:56,080 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 1: to the Samsung empire could be Kun He's daughter, Li

841
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: Bu Jing. She is sometimes referred to as Little Kunhi

842
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 1: by the Korean public. She's the president of Hotel Shila

843
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:11,800
Speaker 1: and co president of Samsung Everland, which is a company

844
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: that oversees Korea's oldest amusement Park under the umbrella of

845
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: Child Industries. Now, if you listen to part one of

846
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: the Samsung story, you might remember I mentioned Child Industries

847
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 1: in that episode. It started off as a very humble business.

848
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: It was a woolen mill back when Samsung first was

849
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: diversifying in the mid twentieth century. Well, Li Bujin's sister,

850
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:39,799
Speaker 1: Li SiO Hyun is the other co president of Child Industries,

851
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: so the two sisters sit at the top of that company.

852
00:55:44,400 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: There was also a recent story where in an effort

853
00:55:47,239 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 1: to streamline things, there was a plan to have Child

854
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:54,200
Speaker 1: Industries acquire Samsung C and T. So that's not the

855
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 1: overall Samsung company, it's the construction and transportation company that

856
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:02,160
Speaker 1: was part of Samsung. But Paul Singer, who is an

857
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:06,080
Speaker 1: investor with more than seven percent ownership of stock and

858
00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 1: Samsung C and T, blocked that plan. He led a

859
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:12,319
Speaker 1: charge to block it, saying that he felt that the

860
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 1: nine point four billion dollar stock offer was undervaluing Samsung

861
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:20,600
Speaker 1: CNT and that shareholders wouldn't be paid a fair amount

862
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: for their ownership. That caused some headaches over on the

863
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,480
Speaker 1: Samsung side. For the leadership for the Lee family, I

864
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:32,840
Speaker 1: suppose I should say shareholders have pressured Samsung, trying to

865
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:35,759
Speaker 1: get them to change to a more traditional holding structure,

866
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 1: you know, like with a board of directors and that

867
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:41,919
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Many other chabels in Korea have given

868
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 1: up the ghosts, they have disappeared, They got broken up

869
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: by the government and dispersed and turned into more traditional

870
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:53,440
Speaker 1: Western style corporations. But Samsung's Lee family has not followed suit,

871
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:56,400
Speaker 1: and they have been putting up resistance to this and

872
00:56:56,480 --> 00:56:59,279
Speaker 1: have said that it's completely unnecessary and in fact would

873
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: end up more harm than good. That's their claim. So

874
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:09,239
Speaker 1: you could say they are disinclined to acquiesce to such pressures. Well,

875
00:57:09,480 --> 00:57:12,359
Speaker 1: that concludes the Samsung story at least as far as

876
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:14,719
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. I need to check and see if I've

877
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 1: done an update since then. I don't remember doing it.

878
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 1: But then I publish a lot of episodes, y'all. I

879
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:25,400
Speaker 1: cannot remember what I published two weeks ago, let alone

880
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: you know, three or four years ago. But I think

881
00:57:27,680 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: it may very well be time to do an update

882
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: to that if I have not already, So I'll have

883
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 1: to search the archives and see and if I haven't

884
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 1: done an update, that has gone on the list. I

885
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this classic episode, and I'll talk to

886
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:51,400
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.

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00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:56,720
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

888
00:57:56,840 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. The e