Thread! The death of Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee at 78 will be a defining moment for both South Korea and technology. https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/10/24/21532544/samsung-chairman-lee-kun-hee-dies-78

Recently, a source at the Samsung Medical Center informed me that the Chairman was metaphorically "on ice" and that his death would be imminent.

Samsung is a fascinating company because of 1) Chairman Lee's vision that made Samsung and Korea what it is today and 2) all the stops Chairman Lee pulled to pass Samsung to his son, Vice Chairman Jay Lee

Chairman Lee was an eccentric and demanding recluse with an opioid drug habit who saw in the 1990s that the world was changing in the age of globalization. Samsung, a rickety microwave maker, needed to modernize or lose to Japan, the US, China and Taiwan.

He scoured the world for talent and upgraded Samsung's quality control in the most incredible ways. In 1993 he invited Samsung execs to Frankfurt and harangued them in eight-hour speeches. In 1995 he ordered Samsung to bulldoze and raze faulty phones in front of employees.

Under Chairman Lee, Samsung quickly overtook Sony in TVs and Japan in semiconductor tech, dominant at the time, a feat that few thought was possible because they saw Korea as sloppy and backwards.

Samsung shot all the way up until the release of the Galaxy, when it went head to head with Apple, a risky move because it supplied memory tech to the iPod and iPhone.

But things slowly changed at Samsung those years. In 2014, Lee had a heart attack and disappeared into a hospital suite. And the bonanza from smart phones and globalization was ending, with the rise of China.

The Chairman's son and heir Jay Lee was set to take over the Samsung empire when he was arrested and spent a year in prison in a bizarre scheme of Samsung execs giving horses to powerful figures to ward off an attack from a foreign hedge fund that could dislodge the inheritance.

Since then, it's been uncertain times for Samsung, even as it posted record profits from its memory and display businesses. The Galaxy Note 7 began igniting, instigating two embarrassing recalls.

Samsung and Korea had to contend with growing hostility from China, which had been pushing out Samsung's key businesses there, a major smartphone market and manufacturing hub.

One 007-like court case in 2016 involved a Samsung exec who was caught allegedly attempting to steal and pilfer loads of documents containing secret memory tech to sell them to China.

Jay Lee, despite legal troubles, has been beginning to step up to leadership years later, largely absent to employees for much of Samsung's history. Samsung execs tell me something is missing now -- his father's charisma.

One longtime exec explains that Samsung has felt like a headless octopus, without the vision and leadership that built South Korea from nothing to greatness since the 1980s. What comes next?

Jay Lee takes the helm during the opposite time of his father: now an age of deglobalization, trade wars, a pandemic, 5G, China and the centrality of AI and software platforms where Samsung doesn't lead.

Will Jay Lee be able to muster the charisma and vision that his father used to move the massive ship of Samsung? Or will Samsung putter along in the Jay Lee era, as some execs fear? That's where things stand now, and those are the questions we should ask.