Terry Gou
Terry Gou | |
|---|---|
| Born | Terry Tai-Ming Gou October 8, 1950 |
| Nationality | Taiwanese |
| Occupation | Chairman of Hon Hai Precision |
| Years active | 1974–present |
| Children | 3 |
Terry Tai-Ming Gou, sometimes written as Terry Guo, (traditional Chinese: 郭台銘; simplified Chinese: 郭台铭; pinyin: Guō Táimíng) (born October 8, 1950 in Banqiao Township, Taipei County) is a Taiwanese tycoon who leads Hon Hai Precision (Foxconn), a company that manufactures electronics on contract for other companies. It is the largest such electronics manufacturing services company in the world, with factories in several countries, mostly in mainland China, where it employs 800,000 people and is its largest exporter.[1]
Early life
Gou's parents lived in mainland China's Shanxi Province before they fled to Taiwan in 1949,[2] where Gou was born. Gou has two younger brothers, Tai-Chiang Gou and Tai-Cheng Gou; both of them later become successful businessmen as well.
Founding of Hon Hai
Gou founded Hon Hai in Taiwan in 1974 with $7500 in startup money and ten workers, making plastic parts for television sets in a rented shed in Tucheng, a suburb of Taipei.[3] A turning point came in 1980 when he received an order from Atari to make connectors to the console joystick.[3] He further expanded his business in the 1980s by embarking on a 11 month trip across the US in search of customers. As an aggressive salesman, Gou dropped in unannounced on companies and was able to get additional orders.[3]
Empire building
In 1988 he opened his first factory in mainland China, in Shenzhen, where his largest factory remains today. Operations in China took on a giant dimension when Gou vertically integrated the assembly process and facilities for workers. The manufacturing site became a campus that included housing, dining, and medical care for the workers, and even chicken farming to replenish the cafeteria.[3]
In 1996, Hon Hai started building chassis for Compaq desktops. From this turning point, he gained other customers for building the bare bones chassis including HP, IBM, and Apple, and would go on to grow into a consumer electronics giant within years.[3]
He now owns 30% of the public company and was ranked 179th on Forbes magazine's 2011 list of the world's richest people, with a net worth of US$5.7 billion.[4]
Gou drew controversy when comments he made during a board meeting about employees were translated into English as "Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache."[5] Through Foxconn, Gou would protest that the translation was poor and took his comments out of context.
Personal life
Gou and his first wife, Serena Lin (Chinese: 林淑如; pinyin: Lín Shúrú, 1950–2005), have a son (born 1976) who works in the film industry and a daughter (born 1978) who worked in the financial sector. Gou founded an educational charity organization with Lin in 2000 and intends to eventually give away one third of his wealth to charity.[1] After her mother died, she quit her job and operated the charity organization.
In 2005, Serena Lin died of breast cancer at the age of 55. Gou's younger brother, Tai-Cheng Guo, died in 2007 of leukemia in Beijing. Gou married his second wife, choreographer Delia Tseng (traditional Chinese: 曾馨瑩; simplified Chinese: 曾馨莹; pinyin: Zēng Xīnyíng, born 1974) on July 26, 2008.[6] Tseng and Gou have two children, a daughter (born April 30, 2009) and a son (born November 19, 2010).
In 2007 court documents were revealed showing that he had been blackmailed by a woman who, in 1992, secretly shot a video of them having sexual intercourse during an affair.[7]
In 2002 he bought a Roztěž castle near Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic for $30 million.
See also
References
- ^ a b Apple Investigating Foxconn's Steps to Deal With Suicides , The Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2010
- ^ Bruce Einhorn, Q&A with Hon Hai's Terry Gou, BusinessWeek, July 8, 2008. Retrieved on November 29, 2008.
- ^ a b c d e Balfour, Frederik (9/9/2010). "The Man Who Makes Your iPhone". Businessweek.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ The World's Billionaires #179 Terry Gou, Forbes, March 2011. Retrieved on 5 July, 2011
- ^ Foxconn Clarifies, Apologizes for CEO's Comparison of Workers to 'Animals', pcmag.com, January 2012. Retrieved on 5 January, 2012
- ^ Tycoon Gou gets a better half, marries girlfriend, The China Post, July 27, 2008
- ^ Hon Hai chairman dismisses rumors of affair, Taipei Times, 22 April 2007
Further reading
- Dean, Jason, "The Forbidden City of Terry Gou", The Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2007
External links
- Hon Hai Precision
- Yonglin.org.tw, his charity organization
- The Man Who Makes Your iPhone, interview in BusinessWeek 2010-09-09