Chapter 1Disrupt or Be Disrupted

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

—Lao Tzu

The year was 1993, and Lee Kun-Hee, CEO of Samsung, had absolutely no rational reason to be unhappy. Since he took over the company after his father’s death just six years earlier, Samsung’s revenues had soared by an astonishing 250 percent. But Lee wasn’t running victory laps. He wanted to help Samsung do even more. So he left South Korea to embark on a world tour to examine how his brand and company were doing internationally.

Lee’s first revelation came early in the trip. At an electronics store in California, he was shocked to see Samsung TVs collecting dust on the back shelves, while the store prominently displayed those from competitors ...

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