Word: samsung
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Other coups followed as B.C. moved into real estate speculation and sake brewing. In 1952, he decided that South Korea "could only prosper through trade." He set up his Samsung (Three Star) export-import company to do just that, and the firm quickly provided profits that Lee shrewdly invested in other ventures. Now Samsung is the umbrella of a 17-company conglomerate that includes Seoul's finest department store, one of its largest newspapers, a group of sugar refineries, paper factories and an electronics firm. Together they rang up sales of $731.9 million last year...
...success is an iron demand for efficiency. A decade ago, B.C. shocked family-conscious Koreans by abruptly firing two of his three sons who were Samsung managers. "They were not fit to hold executive positions," he explains. "The life of a man is short, but that of a corporation must never be." To keep his companies healthy, Lee keeps them lean. When he started the afternoon newspaper Joongang Ilbo (current circ. 680,000) in 1965, he built up a talented staff of 1,400. Today Joongang has expanded into radio and TV, but still employs only 1,400 people...