The Emperor Has No Clothes
THOUGH THEY SUPPLIED APPLE’S chips, Samsung’s executives,
complacent and successful, paid little heed to the new iPhone. In fact, many
companies failed to foresee its significance. The South Korean government
banned sales of Apple’s new device in 2007, citing a regulation that
smartphones in South Korea had to support a technology called the
Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability, or WIPI. In reality, it was a
protectionist trade measure to keep the iPhone out of the country.
“You don’t understand! Koreans will never browse the Internet on their
phones!” an American Google employee heard from his local staff in
Seoul. Samsung didn’t have to worry about competition from the iPhone.
But a crisis was brewing, and Samsung would soon be in a tough
position.
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A STAFFER BASED IN the chairman’s office at Samsung told me that in late
2007 or early 2008, “we were given a directive. ‘Someone’s going to come
and wipe your hard drive. Sorry.’ ”
Another employee in the chairman’s office objected to what seemed
like the destruction of evidence and refused to have his hard drive wiped.
“I understand the position and your pain,” a more senior employee told
him. “Why don’t you and I go down and get coffee and talk about it?”
When they returned, his hard drive had been wiped.