“None of us will ever forget what happened last year,” CEO D.J. Koh
said after taking the stage on August 23 at New York’s Park Avenue
Armory, revealing the new device to the world. “But I know I will never
forget how many millions of dedicated Note loyalists stayed with us.”
At $930, the new Galaxy Note 8 would prove to be a hard sell. It
needed to be flawless—reviewers and customers would be quick to make
comparisons to the faulty Note 7s. But early indicators suggested Samsung
had been successful.
“A year ago, I wrote that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was the best big
phone ever made,” wrote The Verge’s Dan Seifert. “In fact, in all of the
important areas, the Note 8 is a better device than even the Note 7 was.”
—
TWO DAYS LATER, ON August 25, Jay Lee and the four former Samsung
executives showed up at the courthouse to hear the verdict. Protesters
swarmed in the area outside the courthouse in a raucous scene.
“Jay Y. Lee, not guilty verdict!” shouted flag-waving Samsung
supporters along the street leading to the courthouse. Most were senior
citizens.
“Prosecutors falsified evidence!” read their pickets. “Sickening lies,
spun forcefully!”
“Please wave your flags as hard as you can, everybody!” shouted a
college-aged protest leader. “There’s a news team to our left!”
Protest trucks blasted military songs from the 1960s over loudspeakers,
driven by men bedecked in Cold War–era military garb. The police looked
bored and slightly amused.
Inside, the judge prepared to read the verdict. In the courtroom, the
media, colleagues, lawyers, and family waited anxiously.
Jay Y. Lee, the judge announced, was not believed to have sought
“direct favors” regarding the “specific agenda” of the merger. But the judge
believed that he shared in an “implicit awareness and consent” in the
exchange of “illicit favors.”
“Is he going to walk?” a journalist asked me.
“Looks like he’s innocent,” said another. “No smoking gun.”
But the judge was not finished. He read his verdict over a nail-biting
twenty minutes. Then he got to the point.