A legacy created through insight into the times: Chairman Lee Kun-hee’s management philosophy and future milestones > News

When Chairman Lee Kun-hee was alive, what he was most wary of in human relationships were the types of people who betrayed trust or avoided responsibility. He preached that the success or failure of a business ultimately depends on the people, and that as one gets older, it is more important to have the insight to boldly resolve bad relationships rather than chasing new opportunities. In particular, he urged people not to surround themselves with people who only make grandiose plans but do not follow through on actions, people who are jealous of others' success without being truly happy, and people who do not admit their own mistakes and blame others. This is a truth that applies not only to corporate management but also to individual life, and represents his philosophy that a successful leader should have trustworthy people by his side who can fulfill their responsibilities even in difficult times, rather than using flashy rhetoric. This insight led to strict and essential teachings to his children, like the ‘Lee Kun-hee style’ method, which taught Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin to understand the dangers of trash cans on his own when he first joined the company.

One of the driving forces that made Samsung what it is today was Chairman Lee Kun-hee’s extraordinary ‘eye for people’ and bold communication with him. A handwritten letter sent to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, who was almost unknown at the time in 1996, is considered a representative example. His actions, which led Jensen Huang to Korea by presenting a vision of future technology through the spread of the Internet in Korea and video games, became the foundation for NVIDIA to grow into a global AI company today. Jensen Hwang also acknowledges that Korea's technological growth trajectory and NVIDIA's development are intertwined, and recalls his experience of running sales at Yongsan Electronics Market as a valuable relationship. In this way, Chairman Lee Kun-hee demonstrated a pioneering plan to directly discover and connect future key talents and partners regardless of national borders or company size, which served as a decisive bridgehead for Samsung to secure global technological hegemony.

Chairman Lee Kun-hee's legacy goes beyond the realm of management and is being sublimated into a cultural asset that promotes the identity of Korean culture to the world. The vast collection he collected throughout his life has now become a ‘herald’ proving the roots of Korean art on the global stage of the British Museum through international touring exhibitions. The large-scale Korean exhibition to be held in London starting this October is a meaningful event held for the first time in 42 years, and will showcase national treasure-level relics spanning 2,000 years of history, from the Bronze Age to modern art. This journey, which extends from Washington DC and Chicago to the UK, is impressing upon the world that Korea's artistic identity is not simply a record of the past, but a living culture that is constantly being recreated. This not only promotes cultural pride, but also shows that the value of ‘top-notch’ that Samsung has pursued is expanding beyond material abundance to sharing spiritual values.

The seeds of ‘innovation’ sown by Chairman Lee Kun-hee are being reborn as a huge wave called ‘AI Transformation (AX)’ under Chairman Lee Jae-yong. Like the decision of Chairman Seon-dae, who shouted, “Change everything except your wife and children,” Chairman Lee Jae-yong is also leading comprehensive changes to transform Samsung’s organizational DNA into an AI native company. The introduction of AI boot camps and generative AI tools from the CEO to executives is a will to go beyond simply introducing technology and reorganize the entire way of working and thinking around artificial intelligence. In addition, Samsung Electronics has become the largest shareholder of Element Bioscience in the medtech sector and is targeting the future precision medicine market as an extension of the five new business types that Chairman Lee Kun-hee emphasized in 2010. This proves that Samsung's persistent management philosophy of securing new growth engines by converging AI and biotechnology, rather than resting on past success equations, is being inherited.