Lee Kun-hee, Who Built Samsung Into a Global Giant, Dies At 78 (nytimes.com) 11
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Lee Kun-hee, who built Samsung into a global giant of smartphones, televisions and computer chips but was twice convicted — and, in a pattern that has become typical in South Korea, twice pardoned -- for white-collar crimes committed along the way, died on Sunday in Seoul, the South Korean capital. He was 78. Samsung announced the death but did not specify the cause. Mr. Lee had been incapacitated since a heart attack in 2014.
When Mr. Lee took the helm at Samsung Group in 1987, after the death of his father and the conglomerate's founder, Lee Byung-chull, many in the West knew the group's electronics unit only as a maker of cheap televisions and unreliable microwaves sold in discount stores. Lee Kun-hee pushed the company relentlessly up the technological ladder. By the early 1990s, Samsung had surpassed Japanese and American rivals to become a pacesetter in memory chips. It came to dominate flat-panel displays as screens lost their bulk. And it conquered the middle-to-high end of the mobile market as cellphones became powerhouse computing devices in the 2000s. Samsung Electronics today is a cornerstone of South Korea's economy and one of the world's top corporate spenders on research and development. Mr. Lee -- who was chairman of Samsung Group from 1987 to 1998, chairman and chief executive of Samsung Electronics from 1998 to 2008, then Samsung Electronics chairman from 2010 until his death -- was South Korea's richest man. "In 1996, Mr. Lee was convicted of bribing the country's president, then pardoned," The New York Times notes. "More than a decade later, he was found guilty of tax evasion but given another reprieve, this time so he could resume lobbying to bring the Winter Olympics to the mountain town of Pyeongchang in 2018."
"Soon after the Pyeongchang Games, Lee Myung-bak, South Korea's president from 2008 to 2013 and no relation, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for accepting $5.4 million in bribes from Samsung in exchange for pardoning Mr. Lee."
When Mr. Lee took the helm at Samsung Group in 1987, after the death of his father and the conglomerate's founder, Lee Byung-chull, many in the West knew the group's electronics unit only as a maker of cheap televisions and unreliable microwaves sold in discount stores. Lee Kun-hee pushed the company relentlessly up the technological ladder. By the early 1990s, Samsung had surpassed Japanese and American rivals to become a pacesetter in memory chips. It came to dominate flat-panel displays as screens lost their bulk. And it conquered the middle-to-high end of the mobile market as cellphones became powerhouse computing devices in the 2000s. Samsung Electronics today is a cornerstone of South Korea's economy and one of the world's top corporate spenders on research and development. Mr. Lee -- who was chairman of Samsung Group from 1987 to 1998, chairman and chief executive of Samsung Electronics from 1998 to 2008, then Samsung Electronics chairman from 2010 until his death -- was South Korea's richest man. "In 1996, Mr. Lee was convicted of bribing the country's president, then pardoned," The New York Times notes. "More than a decade later, he was found guilty of tax evasion but given another reprieve, this time so he could resume lobbying to bring the Winter Olympics to the mountain town of Pyeongchang in 2018."
"Soon after the Pyeongchang Games, Lee Myung-bak, South Korea's president from 2008 to 2013 and no relation, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for accepting $5.4 million in bribes from Samsung in exchange for pardoning Mr. Lee."
Naturally. (Score:2)
A day late and a dollar short, guys. How long till the âoedupeâ?
Re: Naturally. (Score:2)
Different culture (Score:2)
What can be seen as outrageous in America might not be as bad in SK.
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South Korea wasn't even a liberal democratic state a few decades ago. Totalitarian governance of the kind it used to have after Korean War tends to breed corruption across state structures and within political elite that takes several generations to root out.
And to give South Koreans credit where credit is due, they are liberalizing their society at a breakneck pace.
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Korea is unfortunately positioned between China and Japan, and has always been the invasion point between one or the other, never able to get out of either's shadow. Lee took a low quality goods manufacturer and turned it into an utter powerhouse of high quality electronics manufacturing that easily competes today with Sony, the only real competition to Apple when it comes to smart phones, and accomplished something China still has been unable to replicate: build a dom
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TL;DR, there's no point in wealth past a certain point, there is point in helping others and avoiding screwing others.
A lesson that Bob Murray ultimately never managed to learn.
He may have been dead for several years (Score:1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
His death may have been kept a secret so his son could negotiate with the government to slowly pay off the taxes so he can maintain control of Samsung.