Samsung Rising : Inside the Secretive Company Conquering Tech
Review by Korea JoongAng Daily
February 15, 2024Author: Geoffrey Cain
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Can the Asian giant beat Apple?
Based on years of reporting on Samsung for The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and Time from his base in Korea, and his countless sources inside and outside the company, Geoffrey Cain offers the first deep look behind the curtains of the biggest company nobody knows.
How has this happened? Forty years ago, Samsung was a rickety Korean agricultural conglomerate that produced sugar, paper and fertilizer. But with the rise of the PC revolution, Chairman Lee Byung-chul came up with an incredibly risky multimillion dollar plan to make Samsung a major supplier of computer chips. Lee had been wowed by a young Steve Jobs who sat down with the chairman to offer his advice, and Lee quickly became obsessed with creating a tech empire.
Today, Samsung employs over 350,000 people — over four times as many as Apple — and their revenues have grown 40 times their 1987 level. Samsung alone now make up more than 20 percent of Korea’s exports and sells more smartphones than any other company in the world. And furthermore, they don’t just make their own phones, but are one of Apple’s chief supplier on technology critical to the iPhone. Yet their disastrous recall of the Galaxy Note 7, with numerous reports of phones spontaneously bursting into flames, reveals the dangers of the company’s headlong attempt to overtake Apple at any cost.
A sweeping, insider account of the Korean company’s ongoing war against the likes of Google and Apple, shows how a determined and fearless Asian competitor is poised to take on the giants of the tech world.
The original book review can be found in Korea JoongAng Daily.
See Also:
- Asia Experts Forum Geoffrey Cain on “Samsung Rising”
- Geoffrey Cain on ‘Samsung Rising: The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant that Set out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech’
- In ‘Samsung Rising,’ a mega-brand is stripped bare
Read more about Geoffrey Cain’s new book, Samsung Rising at Forbes
