Racism could have played a part, but I think he largely fell afoul of the Chicago school and MBAism; where engineering and deep business knowledge took a backseat (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics).
1958:
- "When Chang arrives at Texas Instruments (TI), he’s immediately impressed. Almost everyone is young, less than 40, and everyone works very hard, 50 hours a week or more."
- "Some employees work so much that they bring cots into the office to sleep. And while there’s an obvious chain of command, there’s few trappings of status or hierarchy"
- "...executives and workers eat together in the cafeteria, and high-level managers and production-line workers converse freely"
- "...everyone at TI seems to be an expert on them (semi conductors)."
1972+:
- "His immediate boss, Fred Bucy, has no semiconductor background"
- "...the knowledge of the executive leadership is increasingly out of date (something they seem to be ignorant of)."
- "Chang tries to convince leadership to start buying manufacturing equipment from outside vendors, which is more advanced and can achieve higher yields than TI’s internally-designed equipment, but he’s unsuccessful."
- "He also fails to convince them to increase R&D spending, which Chang views as a short-sighted decision to prioritize short-term profits over long-term competitiveness."