ages”—but found the technology of the day far too primitive to produce it.
But that didn’t deter Jobs. The personal computers and phones of the
future, he believed, would need to be portable. If Apple didn’t keep moving
forward into this space, then the colossal technology giant next door, IBM
—already unleashing an onslaught of PCs in an attempt to put Apple out of
business—would gobble him up. So where could he get the parts he
needed?
Jobs had traveled to Japan, where he had met Sony founder Akio
Morita. He was keen to adapt Sony’s management practices and sleek
design ethos. But he felt Japan’s neighbor, South Korea, which most of the
industry saw as sloppy and backward, was starting to show promise,
according to Elliot.
About an hour’s drive south of Seoul, Jobs disembarked at the grimy,
industrial entrepôt of Suwon. An entourage of solemn, bowing Samsung
employees greeted him. At the time, Samsung was still an obscure family-
run business manufacturing cheap microwaves for GE, as far as Jobs knew.
It called itself Samsung Electronics, but the company’s nickname among
Western expatriates was “Sam-suck.”
As Jobs entered the Samsung building, he was greeted by B.C. Lee.
Leading Jobs to a majestic conference room with large regal chairs and
Korean furnishings, B.C. unveiled his bold experiment: He intended to
position Samsung Electronics, which at the time was easily a generation
behind its American and Japanese rivals, as a massive supplier of the
world’s computer chips. With the PC revolution under way, the chairman
wanted Samsung to be an engine of it, a driver of it, bringing global
prestige and revenues to his country and company.
B.C. knew that the clock was ticking and that he needed to secure a
path forward for Samsung. Jobs needed memory chips. Samsung was just
getting under way in memory chips. But even at this stage, Samsung began
supplying Apple some of the displays and components it needed for its
PCs. B.C. Lee, the elderly Confucian who loved Chinese calligraphy and
the Korean art of face reading, got on well with the mercurial, talkative,
and occasionally obnoxious kid from California.
“Steve was boasting. He talked a lot. He wouldn’t stop talking,” said
Elliot.
Jobs prattled on about his brainchild the Macintosh, which was slated
for release the following year. B.C. Lee laid out some of his ideas for