Chung-Mou Chang: Taiwan Semiconductor Chairman

Chung-Mou “Morris” Chang was born on July 10, 1931, in Ningbo, Zhejiang province. Morris at first wanted to be a writer, but his father thought he should try something else. He went to the US in 1949 to study at Harvard University. Later, Morris transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1952. The following year he received his Masters of Science in mechanical engineering from the same university. 

In 1958, Morris joined Texas Instruments as an engineering manager. In 1964, he earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. 

Morris spent 25 years at Texas Instruments and rose through the corporate ladder and eventually became the senior vice president in charge of the company’s global semiconductor business. In 1984 he left Texas Instrument then joined General Instrument Corporation as president. A year later the Taiwanese government recruited him to take over as president of its Industrial Technology Research Institute. 

Morris was put in charge of developing Taiwan’s emerging semiconductor industry. He came to the realization that electronic firms, in order to cut cost would increasingly need to outsource. So Morris came up with the idea of putting up a company that would work under contract to meet the design needs of such firms by making chips and other electronic devices. 

He founded, with the help of the Taiwanese government, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) and became its first CEO. Morris would go on to make TSMC into one of the most profitable chip makers in the world. TSMC, by 1999 had among its clients, Motorola, Siemens AG, and Texas Instruments and was hitting annual sales of $1.5 billion. 

Morris became a leading proponent of e-commerce, on the internet he placed a “technology library” which enabled users to access information on the products and designs of  TSMC. 

Morris did in fact find time to engage in his first love of writing. He wrote, “The Autobiography of Morris C.M. Chang-Volume I (1931-1964) which was published in 1998. 

Gou Tai-ming: Hon Hai Precision Founder

Gou Tai-ming was born on October 8, 1950 in Banqiao Township, Taipei Country, Taiwan. His parents lived in Shanxi Province in mainland China before fleeing to Taiwan in 1949. After graduating from college Gou continued his work in a rubber factory, working at a grinding wheel, and medicine plant until 24 years of age.

In 1974 Gou Tai-ming who is also known as Terry Gou founded Hon Hai Precision in Taiwan with $7,500 in startup money and ten workers. The company made plastic parts for television sets in a rented shed in Tucheng, a suburb of Taipei. In 1980, a turning point came when he received an order from Atari to make connectors to the console joystick.

Today, Hon Hai Precision better known by its trade name Foxconn is the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer and a key supplier to Apple as well as HP, Sony and Nokia. It has factories in a number of countries, most are in mainland China, where it employs 1.2 million people and is its largest exporter.  Terry owns 13 percent of the public company and is a billionaire. Hon Hai Precision recently registered sales of $127 billion.