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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

Reading this, it would seem the President of Samsung is more important to Korea than their National President. One is mentioned in every paragraph; the other in only one, offhand.

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There were HUGE protests [1][2] last year with the President of South Korea, so people do not really like/trust their president right now. Also, I've always been told by Koreans how Samsung is a great Korean company in a way that it shows that it's a big national pride.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Korean_political_sc...

[2] https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=korea+protest&hl=en&tb...

Yes, literally every person I saw in Seoul owned a Samsung phone.

I see a lot of iPhones. I would say about 50-50

There is a hint of irony to this. Many Koreans (especially the younger crowd) views Samsung-like chaebols with disdain not unlike many have towards Wall Street, and yet getting an offer from one of these companies is a dream come true.

Has there ever been an Occupy type movement in Sol?

It is perhaps ironic, but not surprising. Familiar human nature shouldn't surprise anyone.

I'm a damn lib, but a year or so ago, a fellow graduate student left to become a VP at JP Morgan (he's a well connected fellow). I was damn well tempted to follow him but I eventually decided against it.

Samsung alone is responsible for about 20% of Korean GDP. This article is from 2012, but I don't expect it to have changed much: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/whoa-sam...

In fairness, the article is about the president of Samsung, I don't find it hugely surprising that it would talk about him a lot...

Many Koreans do believe that the President of Samsung is more powerful than the president. Though the current president of Samsung is relatively new since his father had an unexpected stroke in 2014. The succession of power wasn't complete at the time so they had to pull some legal/financial gymnastics with some "help" of the president to keep control.

Aside from its size, keep in mind that Park is a lame duck (her term is up soon & SK requires only 1 term) and the damage there has been done - she's been dead meat for months, but this comes at a bad time for Samsung and further, this guy was expected to run Samsung for decades (he's only 48).

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