Fresh Off of Parole, Samsung Heir Ascends To Chairman of the Company

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Samsung Electronics officially has a new executive chairman. The heir to the Samsung empire, Lee Jae-yong (aka Jay Y. Lee), ascended to the throne of the world's biggest chipmaker on Thursday. Samsung announced the move alongside its Q3 2022 earnings report, which it probably hopes will distract from the 23 percent drop in profits compared to the previous quarter. Lee has been the de-facto leader of Samsung for several years now, so his appointment is mostly a formality. The former Samsung chairman and Lee's father, Lee Kun-hee, died in 2020, but before that he was incapacitated for years following a 2014 heart attack. Lee's ascension to chairman has always been expected, but it has been delayed due to Lee's numerous legal issues. [...] The new chairman's legal troubles are not necessarily over. Lee is still facing yet another trial for stock price manipulation and accounting fraud.

Just another friendly reminder

[rsilvergun]

That we have a ruling class. And the rules don't apply to them like they do you and me.

You know it doesn't have to be like this. Complete the quality might not be what we want as a species but having Masters definitely isn't.

Re:

[hdyoung]

It’s bad for Korea. To be clear: I’m not saying this guy is bad, but his troubles say quite a bit about him. It means that there are DEFINITELY better potential leaders being passed over so family blood can remain at the top. The result is that fresher, hungrier companies are more likely to pull ahead.

This is why successful family dynasties almost never last more than two generations. Not in companies. Not in politics. 2 generations of success, maximum. After that, at best they can coast on

Re:

[sg_oneill]

I get the feeling business is still fairly Game-of-thrones in Sth Korea. Samsung has had an immense amount of fuckery going on with its ruling clique. Arrests, family dynasties, boardroom double crosses, governments and banks bending the rules for it. But its only one of many companies, and Samsung is the tip of the iceburg. After all as a very public company, its under incredible scrutiny. So what happens in the less transparent big companies away from scrutiny?

This is why successful family dynasties almos

Re: Just another friendly reminder

[saloomy]

Just to be clear, Samsung has no throne. It is a for profit company. You can chose to engage with their products and services. Or not.

Re:

[hdyoung]

Fair enough. It's true that there are some places where family wealth can be preserved for centuries, but that generally means that the wealth has been cemented in place by rigid legal and societal structures. The Windsors might be billionaires, but they certainly can't put the crown jewels and the Buckingham up as collatoratal for a business venture. Basically, they've preserved their wealth by not doing anything with it. The Windsors are figureheads.

There are other similar clans in Europe less famous

Re:

[quantaman]

Well, unless your the Windsors. But less face it, with British Royalty , and in fact most modern western royalty, theres a certain lack of consequence that keeps the thing from completely sinking under its own madness. It doesn't REALLY matter if Prince harry or Prince william succeeds the throne. Nobody is going to be burning down london in a rage of dragonfire over it. Although how much of that is Queen Lizzies famously hands-off approach to government, and how much is fixed in constitutional stone I'm not sure.

Oh, I think there's quite another level of crazy they could reach if they fell into standard rick kid debauchery (and at that point the monarchy would get the boot).

I think all the "duty" stuff the British Royals always talk about is less about serving the country and more about stopping themselves from going insane with the wealth, prestige, and entitlement of being royals.

Re:

[quantaman]

It’s bad for Korea. To be clear: I’m not saying this guy is bad, but his troubles say quite a bit about him. It means that there are DEFINITELY better potential leaders being passed over so family blood can remain at the top. The result is that fresher, hungrier companies are more likely to pull ahead.

This is why successful family dynasties almost never last more than two generations. Not in companies. Not in politics. 2 generations of success, maximum. After that, at best they can coast on momentum before collapsing. But more often, generation 3 creates a dumpster fire in short order.

There is real value to systems that regularly bring in fresh blood. Rotating leadership. Elections with term limits. Those are signs of real strength. Family dynasties and lifelong leaders are signals of incoming problems.

It goes all the way back to Imperial Rome (though I'm sure the pattern was there for Korean Royalty as well).

An Emperor adopting an adult to be their successor generally led to that successor being a good Emperor.

But when the Emperor was succeeded by their own child who was raised in the Imperial household... well now you're in for "interesting times".

I suspect the same thing happens with highly successful companies. The 2nd generation still mostly grew up as normal folk so they understand the real world. B

Re:

[Iamthecheese]

I'll just leave this [vanityfair.com] here. And this. [telegraph.co.uk] And this [albawaba.com].

Re:

[ISoldat53]

Is this a golden handcuff?

nice

[backslashdot]

Wealth ought to mean laws are not applicable. If you are rich, that should mean you can do whatever you like to people, otherwise having all that wealth is meaningless. What good is a billion dollars if you can't blatantly commit a few felonies? It would mean you're no different than some dirty homeless guy. There'll be no incentive to creating thousands of jobs and develop new quality of life enhancing services if it didn't come with the privilege of blatantly committing at least a few felonies. I would say per billion dollars, or ten thousands jobs created, you should be able to commit 25 misdemeanors or 5 felonies.

Signed,
Republicans

Re:

[bustinbrains]

It's amazing how corruption is a global phenomena....almost like it's hardwired into the human psyche. Oh wait, it is and has nothing to do with Republicans, Democrats, or, as per the article, Koreans.

Re:

[quintessencesluglord]

Korea is a slightly different case as familial bonds are more pronounced there.

Moral outrage is also hardwired into the human psyche (the near decade of protest in Korea during the 80s against corruption). I can see that returning if the situation doesn't improve.

Horatio Alger

[gijoel]

If you work hard and stay on the straight and narrow, you too can rise to the top. /s

outsourced email support service

[KathleenEmbree]

I am a fan of the Samsung company and have studied its history from beginning to end. What surprised me was that one of the key success factors for this company was the outsourced email support service [wow24-7.io] Many campaigns make the mistake of ignoring the importance of customer support. Samsung has proven otherwise.