Lee was a canny entrepreneur, and South Korea’s government stood firmly behind him. Yet Samsung’s all-in bet on chips wouldn’t have worked without support from Silicon Valley. The best way to deal with international competition in memory chips from Japan, Silicon Valley wagered, was to find an even cheaper source in Korea, while focusing America’s R&D efforts on higher-value products rather than commoditized DRAMs. U.S. chipmakers therefore saw Korean upstarts as potential partners.
