<South Korea's semiconductor industry is becoming increasingly difficult>

<South Korea's semiconductor industry is becoming increasingly difficult>

TSMC has been succeeded by the third CEO since Morris Chang. After Morris Chang, the CEO was Mark Liu, and now author Wei is in charge. The three CEOs who were in charge of TSMC management are not blood-related, and all of them are semiconductor masters and experts with long experience in the industry.

Wei, the current CEO, received his doctorate in electrical engineering from Yale University, joined TSMC in 1998 after working for Texas Instruments, ST Microelectronics, and Chartered Semiconductor (currently Global Foundry) and has been the sole CEO since 2018.

I think TSMC's former and current CEOs can meet comfortably with CEOs of other global tech companies and talk happily about semiconductors for five or 10 hours on the spot, and then they will not be exhausted.

Meanwhile, Chairman Lee Jae-yong of Samsung Electronics graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Oriental History, and the detailed explanation is omitted. The person I know said that it would not be easy to "join" Samsung Electronics, let alone executives, if it was Chairman Lee Jae-yong's qualifications, but I don't think so.

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However, the semiconductor business is at the forefront of war-level competition between countries. It is necessary to have the best mercenary skills to directly understand the cutting-edge technology, development, and trends, or otherwise use subordinate managers with that understanding. You can't be an average good manager, but frankly, you need superhuman-class people. I think Chairman Lee Jae-yong could have done well in any business. Chairman Lee Byung-chul and Chairman Lee Kun-hee were also excellent managers, but during their tenure, Samsung Electronics was not this global company, had relatively few checks, and competition for semiconductors between countries was not this sharp.

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Sometimes, a few pages deliver stronger information than a long article. I was very shocked to see the following two pages at a press conference held by Chairman Lee Nam-woo at the Korea Corporate Governance Forum on February 5 (Honestly, the two pages below gave me the decisive opportunity to think that the future of Samsung Electronics has already been decided).

In fact, the TSMC board of directors was a group of global 'super insiders'. On the other hand, all Koreans who have had some social experience can guess what criteria Samsung Electronics' directors would have been appointed. However, this does not mean that these people are not capable, so I hope you do not misunderstand. Since they are also executives, they are naturally capable, but there is another character to have anyway.

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Previously, President Carlos Ghosn was accused of embezzlement by Nissan executives after breaking all vested interests at Nissan, and he staged a grand flee show of the century. Currently, Nissan has long withdrawn from the Korean market and has significantly lost its competitiveness in the global market.

In the past, Olympus had conducted Japanese craftsmanship (? accounting manipulation) for 20 years. I was sure I would never get caught because it was perfect, but when the foreign CEO Woodford heard about it, he tried to find out, and then a board meeting was held and the CEO was dismissed in five minutes. Since then, Olympus has been on the verge of delisting after it turned out that massive accounting manipulation was true, and has been reduced to a coin stock.

In the end, Olympus was able to achieve a dramatic reversal by putting two foreign directors recommended by ValueAct Capital, a global activist fund, on its board of directors and undergoing painful restructuring.

However, Japan has friendlier conditions than Korea to bring in foreign CEOs or directors. This is because the vested interests to be broken are only those of existing organizations, executives, and employees, and are relatively weak.

On the other hand, in Korea, the vested interests of 'controlling shareholders' may disappear. Therefore, it is not easy to enter a foreign CEO or director who does not know the context of the Korean hierarchy or organizational life, and has no loyalty to the controlling shareholder into the board of directors.

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Come to think of it, I was also audited without such an interest, but everyone knows what I've done since I became an auditor.