DIAGRAM DESIGNED BY GORDON BRUCE AND JON CRAINE. USED WITH PERMISSION.
Samsung’s ownership structure in 2016. The Samsung Group consists of
more than fifty affiliates in chipsets, shipbuilding, a hospital, smartphones, a
theme park, and fashion. But the “Samsung Group” isn’t an actual business
entity, nor is it a holding company. It describes the bewilderingly complex web
of cross-shareholdings, above, that the Lee family uses to keep control of
Samsung with a relatively small stake.Its unveiling date? August 3, 2016—ten days earlier than the previous
year’s Galaxy phone release date. Confident in a head-to-head battle
against Apple, D.J. Koh’s executives opted to skip over the number six for
the new Galaxy Note—there would be no Galaxy Note 6—and go straight
to the name “Galaxy Note 7.” The company hoped that would place the
Note 7 directly in comparison with the iPhone 7 to consumers.
As Bloomberg Technology put it, “Apple’s taunts that Samsung was a
copycat would be silenced for good.”
In Samsung’s meetings with suppliers, executives demanded breakneck
speed with tight deadlines and aggressive specs.
“The pressure was tremendous,” the exasperated Samsung mobile
manager told me on the phone. “Tremendous! We were having shortages
[of the display] in the Galaxy S6, and now there was huge pressure to get