This has a lot to do with korean culture where keeping face and loyalty for his employer are two most important things in the life of a corporate drone.
This reminds me of a cool analogy: big companies behave like artifical general intelligence, very smart, but very unlike human intelligence.
I think he wanted to know how on earth 'AI' will solve this. People will claim AI can solve anything...
But surely, preventing a PR and product release disaster would count as being loyal to the company and helping the company to keep face.
At least, they hope it will stick for a little while, long enough for them to find the next random thing that will stick for a little while.
Their approach to product design seems pretty chaotic but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.
I bought two mid range Samsung phones and they were terrible to the point I suspected they were fake. Then I bought a Samsung refrigerator that broke down often. It's not niche or anything, they just make everything quite hacky.
Sure. First as in before they launch a deeply flawed product? Sometimes a half-assed launch is worse that a delayed one. I'm having a hard time touching any bleeding edge tech from Samsung when I know they're willing to dump this kind of stuff on the customer.
Do the hard work, then charge full price when it's done and ready.
I don't think Samsung would have done something like this for a mass consumer device, take for instance their recent S10. So no.
Galaxy Folds are different though. They are not 100% ready yet -- I'm pretty sure they knew about some of the shortcomings -- but this is still a major leap in mobile display technology and the Fold's release is anything, but, a typical, or 'classical' release. Based on their announcement on bold pricing, limited availability by reservation only, with different support and service model, it is fairly evident that the release is targeting those self-selected tech-savvy folks who want access to the incomplete product just to get a glimpse into the future. And, I'm surprised by the bold move that Samsung is willing to serve such niche group of customers.
That being said, I've never been so excited about a mobile device since I got my first iPhone in 2008. If I had a couple of grands to spare, I would be more than happy to sign up, just to see what it's like.
Companies other than Apple do this all the time. That's what most "X beat Apple at innovation bringing Y to market" amount for.
For all the BS lip service about "innovation" (in an industry where few do any), Jobs Apple was thoroughly evolutionary. Each subsequent iPod iteration added something small but substantial, each iPhone iteration ditto.
There was no huge revolutionary steps between releases -- the product itself, and being well thought out and usable and good was the revolution.
The product idea wasn't revolutionary either (there were touch smartphones before the iPhone, and mp3 players before the iPod, tables before the iPad and so on -- the key wasn't that it was the revolutionary, but it was the first finally decent all-rounder -- as opposed to the first thrown-together mis-mash that works if you have low expectations and love tinkering as a "power user").
That said, Apple has increasingly been doing the same "pre-announce/release half-though BS" themselves past 2015 or so (e.g. the butterfly keyboard, the can Mac Pro, the touch strip, the wireless charger that never materialized, the 2+ years in the making Mac Pro replacement, etc).
This isn't a mass consumer product. Samsung had explained that their customers would receive different kind of support and services, which means more cost to Samsung.
eg stop dirt getting in