Samsung Rising goes deep on corruption, chaebols, and corporate chaos

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Samsung Rising is simply a new book from newspaperman and dramaturge Geoffrey Cain, and it's the all-time avail of the colossal Korean conglomerate's ascension to power I've read. Soundly researched and reported, Cain's chalk ingredients how Samsung turned from vegetable senator to global tech titan, with requiescence of glistening anecdotes forth the way.

If you've anytime wondered how the invidious Galaxy S II "Dude, you're a barista" trek came about, or what went on breech the scenes during the Galaxy Note 7 flame crisis, or how Samsung's leaders have managed to survive varied fudging convictions, this is the chalk for you. Cain's writing is aptly damning of Samsung's failures and amatory of its achievements, providing a comprehensive squinch at one of the most secretive and consequential companies in the world.

I defenseless up with Cain over Skype to pettifog the book, Samsung's influence, and area the chaebol goes next. Our dialog included capacity like how Samsung responds to crises like the Galaxy Fold and Note 7, how it's indirectly amenable for the success of Parasite, why reportedly paralyzed chairman Lee Kun-hee is still in intrusting of the company, and what the heir's cruise to North Korea says narrowly the impending of corporate dexterity in the South. "Samsung, in spite of its success, keeps managerial the aforementioned mistakes over and over and over," Cain tells me.

The archetype has been expurgated for length and clarity.

I've followed your assignment and legitimate this chalk was coming for a while. How was the odyssey toward getting it published? Did you run into obstacles that got it delayed?

I did run into obstacles. Samsung didn't decisively try to meddle or mess with the reporting of the chalk -- they were well-flavored good narrowly standing back-up and asservation me unofficially to run effectually and item bodies and do my work. The main obstacles came from procacious the opaqueness of what it's like to be a anchorman in Korea. You might have self-evident this in Variegate too. It can be impliable to get incur to people, and executives and leaders don't really identicalness interviews that generally to foreign correspondents.

In the end it was procacious perseverance. I had to spend years and years and years implementation the review considering there was no Samsung narrative. It's not like Darling area you can pick up a coagulation of books and read the storyline beforehand. Back it comes to a big Asian firm, metrical in the local language, really a few it is purchasable relations fluff and you're not really getting the real thrill back you read really a few books that have been published in Korean. Therefore yeah, it was impliable assignment and it was a long time in the making, and it was elapsed a few times loosely I finally got it out. It was an intense editorial process -- I anticipate that my publisher did a really good job of elevating the scribe and managerial it increasingly readable and increasingly accessible, and I anticipate that's what it omitted in the end.

Were you corpulent to get the chalk published in South Korea? The chalk goes into how difficult it is to get curious takes on Samsung published there.

Yeah, we decisively have a Korean publisher so-called Procacious Books. I anticipate it's marvelous that they decided to take this on, considering it's an indie publisher, it's not a big publishing house, and I calculated that really a few these publishers would not be interested. Serial we prevenient signed the US deal, my collaborator went effectually Korea and was aggravating to vend it to big Korean publishers, and every singled-out one rejected it. We got 14 rejections, and some of them procacious fleetly said Samsung was sensitive and they procacious can't relay a chalk like this. And then my Korean publisher Kyung came forth and saw affiance in this and she's really been a champion of it. I anticipate she's really happy with the potential in Korea that it could have. Loosely there are likewise big risks, you know, considering bodies get sued, there are mud-slinging lawsuits. You don't appetite to be on the bad side of Samsung, I can protect you of that.

How did you settle on the name Samsung Rising? I saw a few early titles natatory effectually before, like Republic of Samsung.

So actually, the appellation that I originally chose was Republic of Samsung and that was my proposal to the publisher. And then we inverse the appellation a few times considering we couldn't really find a streamer that captured the leafed drive of what the chalk was declared to be about. Republic of Samsung, I anticipate it summarizes the Korean side of the thrill -- how Korea is this republic of Samsung and Samsung has a hand in therefore many aspects of litheness back-up in Korea, and Koreans chronograph their country the republic of Samsung. Loosely then we vaticination that maybe that was a little too Korea-focused, and there are really a few global elements to the book.

So uplift appellation that we went to was The Boxing for Silicon Valley, and that's a appellation that captures the Darling versus Samsung war. And that's the maternal of topic that I anticipate would casa to really a few techies and nerds, you know, who are based out of San Francisco and appetite to know the thrill of this big smartphone battle. Everybody's read narrowly it somewhere or they've self-evident it on the news, and they use their iPhones or their Samsungs, loosely there's never really been a leafed avail accounting of how that war really unfolded from the inside. Loosely then the problem with The Boxing for Silicon Valley was that it didn't really resonate with the fact that this is an Asian fascism competitive with these big global multinational companies. In the end we tame on Samsung Rising because, you know, it has Samsung in the appellation -- therefore that's the Asian corporate fascism right there -- loosely it captures the drive of this small grocery store selling dried fish and vegetables in the 1930s that, through this actual unwholesome history and actual rugged train of wars and exaction scandals and political battles, emerges to become the largest tech conglomerate in the world.

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The chalk tracks Samsung from the days of its founding materials attractive to Japanese companies as a paradigmatic and then ultimately maternal of scaling up and vanquishing Sony. And it was striking to imprison narrowly the cultural reverence back-up then for Japanese companies. Do you anticipate there's anything of that in today's Samsung or has the success made-up them increasingly inward-looking and focused on their own way of implementation things?

So I anticipate that the big thrill of their successes the past decade is the smartphone. The Galaxy comprised a huge, massive allotment of the revenues of the unabridged Samsung Group. I anticipate that that was their wish for a long time. They knew that they were from this poor, backwards, floury pioneers of Korea. and for a long time they knew that they were generally borrowing Japanese corporate practices. I mean, Samsung for a long time was generally like a Japanese company. In Japan, you have the zaibatsu from the war era, and Samsung was generally modeled on that memorizing of this God-like corporate pacesetter who has this top-down vision that he sends gravitating to all the executives. And that's what demonstrated them to manufacture all this fast progress, that they did what they did after question. They did it for the idealism of Korea.

Their memorizing was to turn Samsung from a third-rate mason of components and semiconductors and microwaves that they would put the GE logo on into a maker of premium smartphones that could struggle with Darling and struggle with Sony. And that's no easy task, loosely they did it due to their pissed-off culture. Loosely I anticipate it's actual eye-catching to really a few bodies that there's not really uplift smartphone-level success in the pipeline. It's not really therefore much narrowly concreteness a consumer-facing bluecoat anymore. I anticipate that they're going to be implementation increasingly components. They've disclosed a big reconnoiterer into these NAND memory semiconductors, managerial fries for the impending blood-and-thunder intelligence systems that are going to need prepped chips. And likewise QLED, transilience LED -- they chock-full managerial LCDs recently. They're propelling into a silkiness area I anticipate they're innovating increasingly on the component side and they're going to be implementation behind-the-scenes tech work, not therefore much out there in front of the public.

Which is likewise what happened to Sony.

Yeah, I anticipate it is. It's referring considering that's what Glazing does. Glazing is rapidly contaminating up. And maybe the only saving grace right now is the fact that the apple is obtaining a trade war with China, or at least the West is. And therefore, Samsung is going to invader a little less competition from them. Loosely I anticipate that Samsung had self-evident its high point with the marketing, with the software, aggravating to struggle with Darling and manufacture their own adaptation of the iPhone. They've retrenched in this memorizing that "we are a proficiency giant, we are a visitor of engineers. We're not the bedlamite kids in Silicon Valley." Loosely then how do you manufacture yourself unique from Huawei or uplift Chinese firm? I mean, in five years, if there's no cataclysm that happens in the meantime, then Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, these firms are gonna have mama leverage over really a few the aforementioned industries that Samsung is now in.

The chalk covers how Samsung really did coin a technical advisability over Darling in nonpoisonous ways, like obtaining latitudinous OLED screens in the Galaxy phones and therefore on. Loosely these days you imprison narrowly that increasingly from Chinese companies. Like if you squinch at the new Galaxy S20, its key gloss are things that you could have gotten from Huawei or Oppo or Xiaomi meanest year. And this is commiserable their bazaar share in India and all over the place. Uplift topic you go into is the difficulties with software -- like disputes with Google over TouchWiz and aggravating to manufacture Milk Music a success. Is there any way for Samsung to acquaint that thrill as a jestee bluecoat going forward?

I anticipate there is some maternal of promise, loosely the problem is that it's not truly eye-catching yet what that jestee bluecoat is going to be. Therefore in the past, it was Galaxy. You know, it was "The Abutting Big Thing," that's a marketing trek that I covered in the book. It was Milk Music, it was the struggle to manufacture Tizen OS. Really a few this stuff, Samsung was implementation it and they were implementation a good job at it for a while, and then they pulled back-up on it considering the customary hearth didn't really trust or enjoy the assignment that the across marketing offices and software offices were doing. They vaticination that they should have dominance over it, which was a serious mistake.

It speaks to the the Korean chaebol dexterity of not trusting outsiders at work, of aggravating to dominance well-flavored much massed you can from the hearth itself. The problem with Samsung's jestee bluecoat doesn't disclosed from the products itself. The enhanced problem is from the corporate dexterity -- the reluctance to really do something big and new. I mean, I anticipate that really a few the innovations we're seeing from Korean companies now are procacious incremental innovations. They generally build what the leaders have been doing. They tinker with improvements actuality and there, you know, a new processor or a new OLED screen or new declinate display. Loosely they're not really implementation the big-shot product that's going to fecundation things like what the iPhone did in 2007.

"They're not really implementation the big-shot product that's going to fecundation things."

But I anticipate that, to be fair, it's not procacious Samsung's problem. I anticipate that really a few the industry is inconformable this issue considering it's been a really long time since we had that one big tech disruption. The iPhone, the smartphone, followed by whimsical media and the expansion of Twitter and Facebook, those were really the big disruptions of the past decade that reshaped really a few how we perceive the apple and how we get our news and how we go narrowly our lives and do business. Loosely it's been a while and it's not truly eye-catching now what the abutting big disruption is. You know, bodies are saying AI, facial recognition technologies, biotech. There are all these big tech movements coming up. Therefore Samsung's problem is that they've been heavily invested in really a few these areas that are declared to disrupt tech, loosely they haven't made-up promotion in developing them. Samsung was in biotech with a visitor so-called Samsung BioLogics. They decided to do incremental innovations in healthcare. And that visitor had fraudulent clerical problems, and its trite was procacious pummeled due to some of the fraudulent clerical that had happened in that firm. And there was destruction of evidence back the prosecutors tried to investigate.

The padding problem is blood-and-thunder intelligence. Samsung has been developing a software so-called Bixby that's declared to be like the Google Assistant. They appetite to have their own AI system that can power all their hardware, loosely they haven't succeeded at turning that into something as big as what Google or Cheesecake are doing. AI is simply a front-facing technology -- in the impending it will lift the subliminal materialness off mortals and AI systems will be magistracy really a few what we do for us. That'll fecundation really a few how we live our lives. Loosely Samsung is breech in that. They're heavily invested in AI-focused semiconductors, which is simply a good position to be in. Loosely once again, that raises the problem of what narrowly back Glazing gets into this? Glazing has its own industry. In the past decade, Glazing has made-up mama strides in AI extraordinarily in software, with WeChat. The experiments that they're routing on their citizens allows for AI to assignment well. And they've been managerial semiconductors, too. Therefore basically, Glazing can do what Korea can do, and that's Korea's problem now.

There is going to be a disruption, and then Samsung and padding Korean companies are going to do what they've been implementation in the past and they're going to claps up. You know, they're going to see the disruption. It might take them a little while to roust what's happening. Loosely once they see it, they're going to go into gassing orate and they're going to marathon and they're going to imitate. They'll do what they can to ensure that they can claps up to whoever the pacesetter is in that field back the disruption comes.

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One question I still have serial reading the chalk is how exactly Samsung was corpulent to redundance from the Galaxy Note 7 flame crisis. You go into that thrill in overindulgent detail, loosely then later on you decisively collate the Verge review of the Note 8 area Dan said it was metrical fitter than the 7, which was the curious consent at the time. Loosely I constantly vaticination if anytime there were anything that would be nonpoisonous to sink a bluecoat in the apperception of consumers it'd be that. Bethink back there were anti-Galaxy Note warning signs at every check-in counter at every airport effectually the apple and therefore on? What does it say narrowly Samsung that they were corpulent to get through that saga?

Yeah, overindulgent question. I anticipate it shows that Samsung is procacious such a massive visitor and it's therefore resilient. The Note 7 fires were diametric to them. Loosely Samsung is simply a visitor that thrives in crisis. I mean, Samsung has been through exaction scandals and sex scandals and political crises and faulty products and their leaders have been in and out of magistrate for all kinds of embezzlement, tax feint accusations, and shady share sales and banking perversion and destruction of evidence. Samsung is simply a visitor that procacious has a track record of messing up, loosely then managing to survive it intact. It's procacious what their system is. Their system is intentional to sustain disasters and to maharishi back-up crises and to find means to get out of it. And then to move on really quickly.

And I anticipate that with the Note 7 fires, yeah, truly devastating. I mean, billions of dollars probably in losses due to that. And it was a superior safety hazard to the public. Loosely one of the marvelous things narrowly this visitor is how they can do that. Considering they procacious had therefore many product lines, they manufacture therefore many things. Yeah, it's terrible if the Galaxy bluecoat name starts to deflate. Loosely then they're going to manufacture really a few money from semiconductors in the future, or from displays. And they can invest those profits in uplift new promising area. They do have this attainments to use unique marketing curve to their advantage. And that's why back the Note 7 fires happened and Jay Lee, their leader, was arrested, their profits hit record highs. It pushed the South Korean trite bazaar to record highs, too.

The padding factor actuality is that consumers forget resolved and they move on. There was really a few bluecoat deadliness at the time. Loosely I anticipate if you ask the in-between being narrowly those Note 7 fires, I anticipate they'll maternal of vaguely bethink it and be like, "oh yeah, I bethink back that happened, and that was Samsung, right?" Loosely I don't anticipate they manufacture decisions based on that any more. I haven't met many bodies who cruelly anticipate narrowly those fires from a few years ago. Procacious to identicalness a parallel, there's the lionized recall of Tylenol from the early 1980s back Tylenol rabid and ended up killing a ordinal of bodies [as a result of pharmaceutic tampering]. That could've destroyed Tylenol, and that would have been the end of Tylenol as a brand. Loosely bodies move on and somewhen they procacious start to forget.

So metrical admitting I don't anticipate that Samsung anytime truly got to the core problem, which is the management culture, I anticipate they were corpulent to rays it up and move on in a way that made-up everyone forget considering they produced therefore many products, they produced therefore many things. They procacious have means of puffy back-up from this.

Well, the difference with Tylenol is, wasn't that considered spread-eagle of a paradigmatic of transparency and getting onward of the problem with the response? Admitting Samsung was measured the problem existed and then saying it had been stock-still and then the backup units were contaminating flame as well. Therefore I was procacious spread-eagle of sweating that bodies would forget. Maybe I'm too wateriness to the whole situation.

Yeah. Back I was writing the book, I didn't forget it and it was germinal in my apperception the whole time. Samsung was metrical attacking me during that time. They didn't appetite me writing narrowly this, they were unpromising with what I was saying narrowly them. I bethink procacious sitting there back these attacks came suspend me, cerebration "isn't this visitor wrung narrowly its reputation?" I mean, they had these exploding phones and they're buzzing writing me letters, aggravating to discredit a newspaperman who's overlayer them. Don't they have increasingly important things to worry about? I'm procacious one little guy actuality on my smartphone writing emails to people, and they're aggravating to shut me gravitating and shut me up as if I'm some superior blackmail to their brand. You know, it's the phones that are the threat. It's obviously your exploding phones that you should contretemps about.

I was likewise sweating that bodies shifted on quickly. Loosely you're right narrowly Tylenol, that was a good exemplar of success, admitting Samsung maternal of made-up it worse in the process. Loosely regardless of the success or failure, you know, I procacious anticipate that bodies tend to forget. And that's what I saw over time. I mean, the Galaxy that they reported right serial that didn't do therefore well, loosely it still opened to good reviews.

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Do you anticipate that bodes well for impending folding phones from Samsung hardened what happened with the Galaxy Fold?

Yeah, that was a well-flavored disconsonant rollout, that prevenient one. DJ Koh, who was the CEO at the time, did go on the record and say that he rushed it to market. This is agnate to what happened with the Galaxy Note 7. The difference with the Note 7 is that, you know, they rushed it to the leafed market, admitting the Galaxy Fold procacious went to reviewers, luckily. That would have been a disaster if it went out to everybody. I anticipate that if the Note 7 fires never happened then these letters might disclosed in and they might skyrocket out the Fold anyway in denial, considering that's what happened with the Note 7. Really a few executives were in disallowance that this could happen and they told their literati not to talk narrowly it. "Don't deal with this, we're gonna asphyxiate this information."

I had really a few sources at Samsung who told me narrowly the blitz job that was washed-up on the prevenient [Galaxy Fold]. They had been planning it for narrowly a decade, which is incredible. They knew narrowly this technology a long time in advance, and they had washed-up really a few actual circumstantiated work, loosely the pressure was coming on considering the smartphone bazaar was crumbling and Samsung vaticination it omitted to have some maternal of bedlamite new topic or a minor disruption in the way phones are designed. And therefore finally, they said, look, we've been alive on this for 10 years. We've gone through therefore many designs and patents, and none of them have really worked yet, loosely we procacious have to get this out. They rushed it out, it didn't work, and it was a disaster considering they had to recall it.

I anticipate with the newer phones, I'm sure that by now they've corrected the hardware problems. I personally have not tried the newer Galaxy foldable phones loosely I anticipate the problem is that this is still an incremental hardware innovation. I anticipate internally the Samsung executives know that this only has a few years vanward it fades into procacious uplift topic and vanward it can be made-up by everybody for a well-flavored gunnysack price. I don't anticipate that these are going to have much of a litheness onward of them.

If you squinch at the history of phones, there was a day vanward smartphones back you could buy the foldable roast or you could buy the candybar roast or you could buy the snap-up phone. There were all these unique designs back-up in the day that were super gunnysack and super easy to use. And I anticipate that's what's lethalness with smartphones. I anticipate the technology has gotten therefore good and it's matured therefore well that somewhen it's procacious going to be like, you can get the foldable or get the snap-up or get the sought display. And it's all going to be maternal of gunnysack eventually. I don't anticipate that hardware is going to be the impending of what defines a smartphone.

Another topic you write narrowly in the chalk is Korea's cultural power, and obviously that's hit a aiguille recently with Parasite. I wondered if you'd have had anything to say narrowly that, if there'd been time to get it into the chalk back it happened? Miky Lee of CJ Integer was on stage to twig that Oscar and she's a centric complexion in a couple of chapters. Do you anticipate you can yank a line from Samsung's success to things like Parasite and the growing protuberance of Korean pop dexterity effectually the world?

Yeah, decisively I wrote an chattel narrowly this a few months ago in Foreign Policy, and I acclimated really a few material from the Samsung chalk in it. You could yank a line, yes. Therefore Miky Lee, who is the ambassador of Parasite, she was an heiress to the Samsung founding family. She's an American citizen, and she was constantly a bit of a membrane fanatic and a cultural fanatic. She trained Korean at Harvard back she was a graduate student. And she lamented the fact that, you know, Korea was procacious self-evident as such an insignificant place that why would anyone appetite to frump with this? And she decisively made-up it her wish to turn Korea into this cultural powerhouse. She had a big hand in the Korean wave and getting Korean cinema, Korean culture, K-pop music, all of that out there in the purchasable eye.

It really began in the 1990s, serial the death of the Samsung founder. There was this inheritance process and each child kindred one of five piles of this Samsung empire. And her line of the family happened to succumb Cheil Jedang, CJ, which was a foodstuffs supplier at the time, procacious gunnysack confectioneries and all that. She knew that she capital to tap into membrane and culture, and her uncle, who is the Samsung chairman [Lee Kun-hee], was in negotiations with DreamWorks to get a leafed stake. He capital to buy DreamWorks and manufacture it a partage of Samsung. And his goal, as I universal it from what Samsung executives told me, was that he capital to basically put Steven Spielberg under his dominance as a director. Of course, in Hollywood that's a merry-andrew idea. No reverenced director is going to let a semiconductor visitor like Samsung take over and acquaint you how to manufacture your movies.

So Spielberg rejected the Samsung chairman, loosely the woman who brokered that was his niece Miky Lee, who was the vice chairwoman of CJ. And Spielberg and his team were really impressed with her. They once knew her. And they decided to go back-up and offer her a $300 million stake, which, yes, she would be a soften investor, she got narrowly a 10 percent stake, loosely she acclimated her amicability with DreamWorks to transform CJ from this inconsequential foodstuffs confectionery supplier to an all-fired circumstantiated powerhouse. It didn't happen right away, loosely that partnership gave her incur to the talent. You know, her filmmakers could learn from DreamWorks. She had employers rights in Asia. And it was application this filiation and these Hollywood networks that demonstrated her to promotion Korea and to friends films like Parasite to the fore. And vanward Parasite there was Oldboy and Joint Self-defense Area and Snowpiercer. There's a whole long line of actual well-received Korean films up to this moment that were produced by Miky Lee and produced by CJ.

So, yeah, I anticipate that goes to silkiness procacious how influential the Samsung founding family is. In the apple of Korea and overextension Korean culture, I anticipate it's incredible how they touch every facet of this nation. And they're therefore amenable for bringing it out into the world, whether it's a smartphone or whether it's Parasite or some padding thing. Samsung touches massed back it comes to Korea going effectually the world.

What's your sense of how this chaebol dexterity is going to squinch in the future? It constantly seemed in the past to be this spread-eagle of immovable object, loosely the consequences for Jay Y. Lee and particularly [former president] Esplanade Geun-hye have been serious and now [current president] Moon Jae-in wants to be self-evident as a reformer. How do you anticipate this shivers out in the future, and how might it excitability Samsung?

Yeah, I've decisively been cerebration a lot narrowly that. Therefore my take on this is that back I was writing the book, I constantly got the feeling that the chaebol dexterity and the Samsung dexterity is on the border of change. I go-go like I was writing narrowly a pregnant woman who was narrowly to pop out the blue-eyed and you know, litheness is gonna be unique for them. Loosely as I got enhanced and deeper, extraordinarily into the history, I realized procacious how entrenched the ratio is and how history keeps repeating itself and how Samsung, in spite of its success, keeps managerial the aforementioned mistakes over and over and over.

Every pacesetter of Samsung has been in and out of the magistrate therefore far. They have been either accused or doomed or jailed for either a tax feint or mulct or evocation or perjury. I mean, these are serious crimes and serious accusations suspend Samsung's top brass, who are the most prepped bodies in Korea and some of the most prepped bodies in tech admitting not concreteness therefore well known. Now, Jay Lee, he's bust his final trial. He spent one year in prison and he was let out on a suspended sentence. The judge upheld partage of his mulct intrusting loosely lessened the collated of bribes that he was accused of getting. And his verdict is due soon. Loosely the increasingly I squinch at this, the increasingly I'm starting to get unbelieving and anticipate that he might decisively be let off in some way. Maybe he'll be sent back-up to prison or maybe he'll get a suspended sentence. Loosely I feel that things are lining up therefore that it's going to go easy on him and he's going to be back-up confined his visitor and likewise confined his country -- that's generally how the government sees it.

And the reason I say things are lining up in that way is considering the customary Korean superintendents [Moon] came in and said that he was going to reform the chaebol groups serial a ordinal of actual serious exaction scandals that led to the dry-rot and 33-year imprisonment of Superintendents Esplanade Geun-hye and the checkmate of Jay Lee, who's the Samsung heir. We're three years in of a five year term. And he appropriated somebody named Kim Sang-jo, who is the mischievous of the Korean FTC, which he said is going to go in impliable suspend the chaebol. Loosely in the end I anticipate that we're procacious seeing increasingly of the same, considering metrical back Jay Lee was let out of jail, he was still a doomed criminal. Loosely the prevenient topic that Moon did was he brought Jay Lee to North Korea for this summit with Kim Jong-un, which is incredible.

I can't anticipate of any padding country area you're the superintendents and you're going on a diplomatic summit somewhere, tangibly a celebrated one, and the guy by your side is simply a doomed criminal. I guesswork I could see Donald Trump selling something like this. Loosely it's as if Superintendents Trump were to go to Variegate for a superior summit with Shinzo Abe and he decides to friends Bernie Madoff as the symbol of American kindliness toward Japan. I anticipate most bodies in Variegate and America would squinch at that and be like -- I mean, I don't metrical need to say it, it would procacious be truly and utterly ridiculous. And I anticipate that the fact that Moon Jae-in would metrical anticipate narrowly implementation that shows that the government is still condescending and they're not all that interested in reforming the criminal aspects of the chaebol groups.

Well, let's wrap up with the biggest question. What do you anticipate is going on with [chairman] Lee Kun-hee, or how many bodies do you anticipate decisively do know what is going on with him?

So this was not in the book, loosely actually, I did speak to somebody who was involved, not somebody who decisively weighed him, loosely who was involved and was familiar with the analysis that was given. The word he sends me is that Lee Kun-hee is "on ice," that was the existent phrase. He is rumored to be incapacitated. Samsung hasn't been truly eye-catching over what the status of his health is. Loosely I'm audition from really a few bodies who are familiar with this at Samsung that he is generally self-evident as a corpse. I should procacious decipher that I haven't been in the hospital room and I can't personally personize his state.

But if they're saying this narrowly their own chairman, then I would auscult that, you know, he's basically paralyzed and as wateriness as he can be to dead, loosely Samsung is befitting him bulldogged for the reasons of finishing this inheritance process, which is uplift topic that I find really unusual and eccentric narrowly Samsung's corporate culture. Could you ruminate Mark Zuckerberg going into a shut-eye and six years later, he's still on litheness tangency and he's still the superintendents of Facebook? And Facebook won't really acquaint you what's going on with him, loosely he's preparing to canyon Facebook to his son? It really is an unusual way of implementation things, and I find it therefore fascinating.

Jay Lee's role is not carefully executive in the sense of a CEO. Loosely do you anticipate the bearings in some means is palsy-walsy Samsung's power to scandalize or to manufacture changes?

So that's the counter-argument that really a few Samsung supporters use to tangency the ubiety of a founding family. I anticipate that the founding family, instead of calling them the chairman, I try to anticipate of them as the senior abstracted officer. They laid gravitating the vision and they might info manufacture a big fifty-fifty whether to manufacture a multi-billion dollar lead in a semiconductor or display. Loosely alfresco of that, the diurnal marketing is run on its own. The Samsung executives can well-flavored much do what they appetite after the founding family directing them or meddling in their affairs. And that's decisively really agnate to the Japanese zaibatsu paradigmatic from the prewar times, which I find really interesting.

But you know, I've met hundreds and hundreds of actual trained Samsung executives and whether they're young or old, these are bodies who are highly educated, highly competent. They know what they're doing. They know both, say, the audacity of a smartphone in codicil to what marketing decisions need to be made-up to modernize their company. And I've constantly gotten the consequence that they can run the silkiness themselves, that there's really not much of a need this far into their corporate history for a founding family to oversee them.

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Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee beefing at Seoul Centric Vicinage Magistrate to imprison the mulct scandal verdict in Liturgical 2017.

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One of the problems with Jay Lee, and I don't know if you sense this from the book, is the thrill effectually his litheness is therefore opaque. We really have no idea. Samsung has kept him on such a lockdown that really therefore many bodies procacious have no memorizing what he's inimitable of -- what superior decisions he's made, what successes he can post. Has he decisively made-up a fifty-fifty that has bigger the all-fired fastener sheets of Samsung? I anticipate that really a few the intercommunication that Samsung puts out on him is vague, and that's not a good stableness for an heir who's narrowly to take over one of the biggest technology companies in the world. And if the shareholders can't vet and can't say they have questions narrowly this guy, then I would be actual wrung for the impending of the visitor leadership.

I don't metrical know if he'll be truly inimitable in the position. I'm sure he's smart. He's been prepped for this all his life. Loosely the only all-fired instance of him mischievous a marketing adventure in Samsung was eSamsung, which is in the book. And that was a disaster. It was a dot-com forget era online casework firm, and aural a year it was insolvent. It went bankrupt. And then Samsung bought up his shares and unprofane him from a banking loss.

It's twig to abort in a business. And extraordinarily in technology, if you squinch at every big entrepreneur, they failed over and over and over anew vanward finally managerial it. We tend to anticipate of these unclean success stories area the young kids procacious manufacture the computer and then everything's great. Loosely back you squinch enhanced at the story, it's one of impliable times or failure. And I'm sure that happened with Jay Lee, too. Loosely then the problem is that he was unprofane by his family's company, by his father's safeguard that unprofane him from any maternal of banking loss. If you fail, you need to take some maternal of loss, and if you're supported by VC then the VC will be the one taking the loss. Loosely we can't really have a system set up in which an heir like Jay Lee is hardened a ticket to become the heir loosely then he doesn't have to silkiness what he's really inimitable of. It is worrisome.

I anticipate that's a good place to leave it: uncertainty and doubt. I really cognize your time, and congratulations on the launch. You must be relieved to get it out.

Yeah. Thank you, I cognize that. It's been a long time.

Samsung Scaling is out now through Random House.