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samsung means three stars in korean but if you're the proud owner of a fancy

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samsung phone tv or washing machine you might be

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expecting a five-star experience due to samsung positioning itself as a premium

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tech brand with price tags to match but expensive gadgets weren't what

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samsung was always known for in fact the company started all the way back in 1938

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in the korean city of taigu as a trading firm that dealt in foods like dried fish

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and noodles and then later expanded to seoul korea's capital after world war ii

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ended this period of prosperity was short-lived however as after the

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invasion of that city during the korean war samsung nearly went under only

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surviving thanks to its diversification the company actually established a sugar

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refinery in the port city of busan which was the only major city in korea that

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was untouched by communist aggression samsung also got involved in textiles

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and wood milling and as war economies are often kind to the manufacturing

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industry samsung's new businesses help them not only stay afloat but continue

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to expand after the war with insurance

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being one of their first divisions that didn't involve commodity trading in fact

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samsung is actually the largest insurance company in korea to this day

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all of this growth led samsung to become one of the chebules or massive korean

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companies that are primarily family run rather than mostly controlled by

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shareholders who have bought stock meaning that they became very

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influential in national politics in korea but it wasn't until 1969 that

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samsung started making electronics and perhaps unsurprisingly their first

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product was a small black and white television

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they continued to expand in the early 1970s by cranking out home appliances

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but there was an obstacle in their way samsung was relying on imports of small

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components in order to assemble their products so in 1974 they decided to buy

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a domestic semiconductor company in order to have greater control over their

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supply chain although this decision wasn't unanimous among the samsung brass

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it played a huge role in samsung's future fortunes having its own

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semiconductor manufacturing ARM allowed the company to make more electronics and

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ship them to more distant parts of the globe bringing in more money and helping

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them grow samsung then ventured into heavy industry defense construction chemicals

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and even a theme park and hotels in fact

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they still run a chain of luxury hotels in korea with the original location once

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serving as the official guest house for the korean government but getting back

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to electronics samsung started producing dram in the early 1980s a product

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they're still known for thanks to its earlier investment in manufacturing with

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help from micron and sharp now the timing for this was great as more and

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more devices were starting to use dram but not all was well in samsung land

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unlike today where samsung products are generally viewed as higher end its

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electronics from the 1980s and early 90s were poorly received and ironically this

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was especially true for their mobile phones in fact they had such a

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reputation for poor quality that japan-based motorola dominated the

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market even in their home turf of south korea for quite some time which is

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interesting when you consider that korea and japan have historically had pretty

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frosty relations this actually nearly led samsung to

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abandon the phone market completely but

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instead of giving up they decided to spend time figuring out how to make

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higher quality consumer goods instead of just churning out cheapo bargain

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basement offerings so samsung underwent a huge transformation in its electronics

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division 24 000 workers were laid off

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and huge parts of the company totaling around two billion dollars were sold

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then instead of trying to rush the next big thing

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to market samsung focused on making quality components both to sell to other

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companies and to help them improve their own consumer devices down the road and

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of course as a massive chebul they had

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quite a bit of money to pour into development this ended up paying huge

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dividends and samsung of course did ultimately become a premium brand for

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example they started making lcd displays fairly early on in the 1990s that meant

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that by the time they really started catching on with consumers samsung had

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already spent years perfecting them which set the stage for them to become

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one of the world's largest manufacturers of flat screen tvs and monitors this

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same strategy also helped samsung become a leader in the Android mobile phone

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market now although their galaxy obviously wasn't their first Android

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phone it was one of the first to showcase more advanced features than the

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iphone helping samsung become a real rival to apple to the point where they

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ended up doing some pretty clever marketing poking fun at the hype

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surrounding new idevice releases which really got consumers to start

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considering samsung as a serious premium alternative

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samsung's success in the mobile market did come with some unexpected

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consequences though and the hospital that they run in seoul actually has to

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give out discounted treatments for swipe induced carpal tunnel these days

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that last bit was a joke there's no discounted treatment although they do

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actually run a hospital in seoul this video is brought to you by massdrop

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featuring the sennheiser pc 37x gaming

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can join the drop today at the link in the video description so go check them

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out so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos and

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