New Employees With an Annual Salary of 1 Trillion Won - Chapter 149

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 149. Flocking Talents (3)

GL Battery was reorganized at a rapid pace.

Over 200 employees applied to the lithium polymer team, and Dr. Robin selected 100 of them to launch the dedicated team.

But there was no time to rest.

The reorganization of the semiconductor division, incomparable to GL Battery, was waiting.

“Branch Manager, Chairman will be arriving in the country today.”

“How many people are coming in with him this time?”

“Over 100 people. Talents recruited from the United States, Hong Kong, and Japan will be joining us this time.”

As Tiger Fund as a whole moved, talents flocked to Korea.

This was possible thanks to Chairman Robertson personally meeting and persuading the talents, and promising high salaries and various benefits.

“Indeed, with Chairman stepping forward, we were even able to recruit Intel’s CTO (Chief Technology Officer).”

“You mean Pat Gelsinger? He hasn’t confirmed his job change yet. Although he’s visiting Korea with Chairman, he’s decided to make his final decision after personally touring the semiconductor factory and research institute.”

“If his heart is somewhat inclined, that’s why he’s visiting Korea. It’s not difficult to reel in a fish that has already taken the bait.”

Daehyeon Semiconductor was relatively lacking in technology.

Therefore, various talents were needed to improve technological capabilities.

Pat Gelsinger, called the father of the 486, could become the center of the engineers.

“Dinner with Chairman and CTO Pat Gelsinger is scheduled for today. Couldn’t we lift the net at that occasion?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. With Chairman helping a little from the side, we should be able to secure his job change confirmation without difficulty.”

Meetings with other recruited talents were scheduled for next week.

A week’s rest was given to them to adapt to life in Korea, and Gelsinger’s recruitment confirmation, who would become their center, had to be completed before next week.

***

Seoul’s most famous large Korean fine dining restaurant.

The entire annex was reserved to welcome Chairman and CTO Gelsinger.

“Branch Manager! How long has it been? Come to the United States sometimes. I have to come all the way to Korea to see your face.”

“I’ve been too busy with Korean schedules to have time to go to the United States. Please understand.”

“If you say that, don’t I look like a bad person for no reason? Oh, and the person next to me is CTO Gelsinger, whom you begged me to recruit. Exchange greetings.”

CTO Gelsinger smiled and extended his hand to me.

Just seeing that, I was convinced my decision wasn’t wrong.

The moment I saw him, I heard beautiful harmony from the gear structure I had been envisioning.

“It’s an honor to meet you like this. I’m Lee Jung-hoo, in charge of Tiger Fund Korea Branch. You can comfortably call me Mister Lee.”

“I’ve heard countless stories about Branch Manager from Chairman Robertson. I heard them so much during the flight that my ears were ringing.”

We exchanged handshakes with laughter.

Meanwhile, food came in, and after lightly satisfying our hunger, we continued the conversation again.

“Thank you for coming all the way to Korea.”

“I came with the concept of a vacation. I haven’t decided whether to continue living in Korea or return to the United States.”

“I would like to welcome CTO Gelsinger as president of Daehyeon Semiconductor. I promise much higher salary and benefits than what you receive at Intel. Of course, I know well that you’re not someone who moves only for money.”

First, I lightly threw out the salary topic.

CTO Gelsinger would have received a salary of over $400,000 at Intel.

If we could bring him over, we could promise a salary of over $800,000, double that amount, and I had already planned long-term contracts and high performance bonuses and incentives.

“I heard about that part from Chairman Robertson too. He said you’d promise more than double my current salary. But at my age, there’s no reason to be obsessed with money, is there? I’ve already saved enough money to last a lifetime.”

“That’s natural. The salary increase is just a gesture of sincerity. I want to pioneer new markets together with CTO Gelsinger.”

Now was the real beginning.

When I brought up pioneering new markets, he seemed interested and leaned forward slightly.

“I heard you’re starting the foundry business. But I’m someone completely unrelated to foundries – what are you planning to do with me?”

“The portion that foundries occupy in the current semiconductor market is very small. But I’m confident that in the future, all IT companies will abandon in-house production and move to contract manufacturing.”

The foundry market was just beginning.

Most companies were conducting design and production in-house, and only TSMC was a specialized foundry company.

But now times were changing.

With the current method, it was absolutely impossible to respond to the changing times.

“Are you expecting IT companies to entrust all contract manufacturing?”

“That’s right. The difficulty of advanced processes is rapidly increasing, raising manufacturing technology barriers. Eventually, it will be impossible for all companies to keep up with the latest processes.”

“How many semiconductors or chips need the latest processes?”

For him who still had doubts, I continued the explanation.

“Product life cycles are rapidly shortening. Generation changes for mobile phones and PCs happen several times a year. Eventually, dedicated factories will be needed to produce various chips. But building dedicated factories is too burdensome, isn’t it?”

“You mean they’ll use foundries instead of dedicated factories to increase market response speed.”

This wasn’t all.

I explained several more reasons why the foundry market had to grow.

“Considering cost reduction and efficiency, the foundry market is attractive. Through economies of scale, semiconductors can be produced at much cheaper prices. And fabless companies that specialize only in design are rapidly increasing.”

“Certainly the foundry market will grow larger than now. But what role I can play is missing.”

CTO Gelsinger acknowledged the growth potential of the foundry market.

Now it was time to explain the role he would take on at Daehyeon Semiconductor.

“You can play many roles. In the future, we will produce semiconductors and chips according to the design requirements of global IT companies. To do that, we need to quickly understand the technology and characteristics each company wants, and I judged that no one has as much expertise in that area as CTO Gelsinger.”

“That’s what I’ve done my whole life, so I can do it without difficulty. But it wouldn’t be very interesting.”

CTO Gelsinger showed a contradictory reaction.

He seemed interested as if his abilities were being recognized.

But he was somewhat skeptical about having to pour his capabilities into contract manufacturing.

“You absolutely won’t be bored. The foundry market will grow explosively in the future, and Daehyeon Semiconductor will become dozens of times larger than Intel before long.”

“That’s hard to believe. Intel is currently the world’s number one semiconductor company in both sales and market capitalization. Are you saying you’ll create a gap of dozens of times with such a company?”

Intel was a giant in the semiconductor industry.

Even Samjin Electronics, Korea’s largest semiconductor company, was less than half of Intel’s size.

CTO Gelsinger even chuckled when I said we’d surpass Intel, which recorded over $30 billion in sales.

“It’s fully possible. Right now the foundry market is just over $10 billion, but the market size will grow to over $100 billion. If we capture just 50% market share of that, we can surpass Intel.”

“Is that really a possible scenario?”

“If CTO Gelsinger joins us, it’s fully possible.”

“I’d like to see the future vision in more detail. Right now it’s just words, isn’t it?”

Who would believe a vision that’s just words?

To persuade CTO Gelsinger, I had already prepared a concrete vision.

“The schedule will be the proof.”

“What schedule?”

I handed him a schedule.

It was a schedule that didn’t even fill half an A4 sheet, but CTO Gelsinger widened his eyes and checked the schedule several times.

“Are global IT company representatives really scheduled to visit Daehyeon Semiconductor according to this schedule?”

“Starting with Apple, Qualcomm and NVIDIA are all scheduled to visit Korea during the World Cup season and discuss foundry contracts with us. But it’s difficult to persuade all of them with just our strength.”

“Certainly, if we make all those companies our customers, Branch Manager’s plan could be realized.”

The Korean visits by global IT companies weren’t simple coincidence.

It was the result of chance and inevitability intersecting.

First, during the IT bubble collapse period.

It was thanks to Tiger Fund aggressively buying shares of major IT companies and quickly rising to become a major shareholder.

The position of major shareholder made contact with them much easier.

But arranging meetings and setting the meeting location as Korea were completely different problems.

The World Cup solved that problem.

An international event that drew the world’s attention.

Thanks to that, the justification for calling IT company representatives to Korea was perfectly established.

“Daehyeon Semiconductor has already completed all preparations. Now we just need a captain to set the direction so we can go to sea.”

“What if I lead you down the wrong path?”

“It’s fine. If it’s a ship led by an engineer, even if we take the wrong path, technology remains from that process. Eventually, it wouldn’t be wandering lost, but pioneering a new route.”

Technology-centered management.

I made it clear that while Intel was rejecting technologists, we would do the opposite management.

“Can I really not worry about things like cost reduction?”

“Of course we’d be grateful if you do cost reduction, but technology preemption is several times more important than that. If technology preemption is possible, it’s fine no matter how much we spend on research costs.”

“There’s one thing that concerns me. Daehyeon Semiconductor is a company owned by a fund. Won’t it eventually be sold off to someone else?”

Gelsinger CTO’s heart seemed to have already leaned toward accepting.

Since he looked ready to sign on the dotted line once this one remaining doubt was resolved, I quickly provided an answer.

“Tiger Fund acquired Daehyeon Semiconductor looking at its future potential. We absolutely have no plans to sell it off in the short term. While I can’t promise we’ll be together forever, we plan to hold onto it for at least 30 years or more.”

“Thirty years. Good. I’ll properly implement technology-centered management that’s being rejected in today’s era.”

“Thank you. And please recruit as much talent as you need. We’ll guarantee the industry’s best compensation.”

“Let’s bring over all the engineers who’ve been pushed out by number-focused management at Intel and various other semiconductor companies.”

I succeeded in recruiting Gelsinger CTO.

He had now become the president of Daehyeon Semiconductor.

He would soon lead the upcoming meetings with global IT companies alongside Chairman Robertson.

Chairman, who didn’t know this fact yet, was only wearing a pleased smile.

But before long, when the killer meeting schedule begins, he’ll be crying out that he wants to return to the United States.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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