He repeated his family’s three values during both of our chats. Then he
explained what made Samsung’s culture unique—a devotion to detail that
came from his grandfather.
“One of the good habits I picked up from my grandfather is taking
notes,” Henry told me. “I take notes. Every detail.”
“Do you tell your employees to take notes?” I asked.
“I don’t tell. They’re supposed to notice. They’re supposed to notice
what I do, what I think, how I think. They pick it up,” he explained of his
family’s style of imparting their vision in their companies, while letting
their “Samsung Men” manage the day-to-day business.
Detail, precision, and cautious record keeping were B.C.’s trademarks
as well.
“At meals he would tear his napkin in half and save the other half for
later,” Henry told me. Like the heads of many Korean companies, he
wanted to discourage waste, a quality that was of particular importance
since Korea was relatively devoid of natural resources. Meetings and
decisions at Samsung were documented and recorded with an obsessive
flair. Employees were required to write reports on each meeting within
incredibly specific parameters, from margins to word count to length.
B.C.’s face was often stone flat, Henry told me; he rarely smiled or
showed emotion. And he chose his words carefully.
“He was so cool, you know?” he told me. “I went in there as a kid, and
he never even blinked.”
B.C. loved golf and Chinese calligraphy, activities that contributed to
his almost meditative business philosophy.
“And his political connections?” I asked.
“As far as politics was concerned,” he said of B.C.’s powerful allies in
government, “keep them ‘not too far, not too close.’ ”
“B.C. arrives at his downtown Seoul office at 9 A.M. sharp, ready to
meet with his executives in exhaustive planning sessions,” Time reported.
“Twice a week he breaks the routine and plays golf. Lee returns to his
palace, pottery and peacocks by 5 P.M. He usually dines alone, then plots
new ways to increase his wealth. Preferring the glitter of Seoul, his wife
[Park Du-eul], eight children and 20 grandchildren live apart from Korea’s
richest man.”
B.C. lived in a palatial estate an hour south of Seoul in Yongin, where a