Samsung executives gathered around a fresh grave on a crisp February day in 1988. They placed a tribute on the burial site: a tiny piece of metal and silicon, the four megabit DRAM chip. It was a bittersweet moment. The chip represented Samsung’s potential to be a serious player in semiconductor manufacturing, marking their greatest electronics success to date. But Samsung was also reeling from a loss. The loss of their founder and chairman — the man who had grown the company from one dried fish shop to an empire — Lee Byung-chul.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://commoncog.com/c/cases/lee-kun-hee-samsung-corruption