By Daniel Lefferts
Publishers Weekly
Nov 29, 2019
If corporations are people, as the Supreme Court ruled in 2010’s Citizens Uniteddecision, it’s only natural that they should have biographies. Forthcoming narratives about businesses new and old offer a window onto each company’s history as well as the social and economic contexts out of which they arose and which they in turn have influenced. Readers “want to know more about the individuals behind these companies,” says Paul Golob, executive editor at Holt, which will publish Billion Dollar Brand Club in January. And business people, he says, may find them instructive. “There are lessons and examples to learn from.”
Samsung began as an agricultural enterprise, dealing in such nontechnological goods as produce, beer, and fertilizer. But amid the rise of the PC industry, and with advice from a young Steve Jobs, the company’s then-chairman, Lee Byung-chul, set out to transform Samsung into the tech heavyweight it is today. Cain, who has reported on Samsung from South Korea for the Economist and other publications, focuses on the company’s continued competition with Google and Apple, in which it appears to have an edge: the company has 369,000 employees to Apple’s 80,000 and, worldwide, its Galaxy line of smartphones outsells the iPhone.
Read more about Samsung Rising and other forthcoming narratives about businesses at Publishers Weekly
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