You probably think of Samsung as the giant behind the phone in your pocket or that massive 8K TV in the living room. It's the tech titan of South Korea. But honestly, if you went back to the very beginning, you wouldn't find a single microchip or circuit board in sight. So, when was Samsung started exactly? The answer takes us all the way back to March 1, 1938.
That was the day Lee Byung-chul opened a small trading company in Daegu. He called it Samsung Sanghoe. Back then, it wasn't about "Global Innovation" or "Galaxy" devices. It was about dried fish. Seriously. Lee started with 40 employees and a dream of exporting groceries like noodles and dried seafood to China.
From Dried Fish to Microwave Ovens
The jump from fish to flagship smartphones didn't happen overnight. It was a slow, sometimes painful evolution. Lee Byung-chul chose the name "Samsung" because it means "three stars" in Korean. In his mind, three represented something "big, numerous, and powerful," while stars symbolized eternity. It's kinda poetic when you look at their market share today.
During the Korean War, things got dicey. Lee almost lost everything when the North Korean army took Seoul. He had to rebuild. He didn't just stick to noodles, though. He branched out into sugar refining (Cheil Jedang) and textiles. By the late 1960s, the landscape changed. The South Korean government started pushing for industrialization. This is the pivot point most people miss. Samsung Electronics wasn't born until 1969.
Their first electronic product? A black-and-white television.
It wasn't even a very good one compared to Japanese rivals at the time. They were basically playing catch-up. But they were relentless. By the 1970s, they were making washing machines and refrigerators. It's wild to think that a company that now pushes the boundaries of foldable glass started by mastering the art of the home microwave.
The 1993 Bonfire: The Turning Point for Quality
If you really want to understand why Samsung is a household name now, you have to look at 1993. This is the year of the "New Management" initiative. Lee Kun-hee, the founder's son, took over and realized Samsung was known for being cheap, not good. He famously told his executives, "Change everything except your wife and children."
He wasn't kidding.
When a batch of mobile phones and fax machines came off the line with defects, he didn't just issue a recall. He gathered 2,000 employees at the Gumi factory, piled 150,000 devices into a giant heap, and set them on fire. They watched $50 million worth of inventory turn to ash. That’s how you send a message. This obsession with quality is what eventually allowed them to challenge Apple and Sony.
The Semiconductor Gamble
People forget how risky the chip business was. In the 80s, everyone thought the Japanese had the market cornered. Samsung poured billions into R&D for DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory). It was a "bet the farm" moment.
If they had failed, the company might have collapsed. Instead, they became the world's largest memory chip producer by 1992. Today, even if you use an iPhone, there’s a high chance some of the components inside were actually manufactured by Samsung. They are the backbone of the entire global supply chain.
Why the 1938 Start Date Matters Today
Knowing when was Samsung started helps explain their "chaebol" structure. In South Korea, a chaebol is a massive, family-run conglomerate. Because they started in 1938, they grew up alongside the country itself. They aren't just a tech company; they build ships, they have life insurance arms, they even own a theme park called Everland.
This diversification saved them during economic crashes. When one sector failed, another thrived.
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- 1938: The "Three Stars" trading company begins.
- 1969: Samsung-Sanyo Electronics is established.
- 1983: They enter the computer chip market.
- 2010: The first Galaxy S phone launches.
It’s a timeline of constant pivots. They don't just enter markets; they try to swallow them whole.
Common Misconceptions About Samsung's Origins
A lot of people think Samsung started as a government-owned entity. Nope. It was purely private, though it certainly benefited from government-led economic policies in the 60s and 70s. Others think they "stole" the smartphone idea from Apple. While the legal battles were legendary, Samsung had been making handheld "PDAs" and cellular phones long before the iPhone was a sketch in Jony Ive's notebook. They were just... well, ugly back then.
Lessons From the Three Stars
The takeaway here isn't just a history lesson. It's about adaptability. Samsung survived the Japanese occupation of Korea, the Korean War, and multiple global recessions. They did it by refusing to stay in their lane.
If you are looking to apply the Samsung philosophy to your own business or career, focus on these three things:
- Iterate or Die: Don't be afraid to leave your "dried fish" behind if the future is in "silicon."
- Quality is Non-Negotiable: If your product is mediocre, literally or figuratively burn it and start over.
- Long-Term Betting: They invested in semiconductors for a decade before seeing real profit. True dominance takes patience.
To truly understand the modern tech world, you have to appreciate that it was built on the back of a grocery trader from Daegu who decided that three stars were better than one. They moved from the physical world of noodles to the invisible world of electrons, and they've never looked back.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Check your hardware: Look at the back of your devices; you might be surprised how many "non-Samsung" products use Samsung-made displays or memory.
- Research the Chaebol system: To understand the global economy, look into how companies like Samsung, LG, and Hyundai operate differently than Silicon Valley startups.
- Evaluate your "1993 moment": Identify one area in your professional life where you are settling for "good enough" and consider what a radical shift in quality would look like.