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SMIC President - Richard Chang - Missionary, Accused (and aquitted) Thief, Patriot, CEO
The ex-president of SMIC is a colorful charismatic man. I can see how a lot of people trust him to lead. He's a forceful personality, and I can understand how for those who know him he's inspiring, but I can also understand how those who work closely with him, can find him stubborn, frustrating, and difficult to work with.
I personally have met with him, and although I don't agree with him on everything. But I do admire him.
My own experience consists of talking to him about a job out there and finding out that he wanted me to convert 30 of his employees to Christianity, in the first year I was there. I did state that I wasn't going to convert anyone's heart, only God does that.
There's a long LA Times article written mostly about him, and his company World Wide Semiconductor which was bought by TSMC in 1999, and then he started SMIC in China in 2000.
He seems to make the semiconductor newswire every couple of months. And he seems to have a more colorful portrayal, than the usual pretty academic, positive types that are portrayed in press releases.
He got asked to step aside as president (although he's still CEO) by the board of directors recently.
And he seems to have a personal grudge against not only TSMC, but now also against the entire Taiwanese government.
Here's his response to the Taiwan's government fine that he improperly invested in China, despite government reguations.
Richard Chang, the founder and the chief executive officer of Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., was fined NT$5 million in March after he was found to have set up the SMIC in China in 2000 with money raised in Taiwan through a foreign-registered company.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs demanded that he pay the fine or face legal action that could result in the liquidation of his property in Taiwan.
Chang will be fined repeatedly if Chang does not pull his investment out of China within six months, a spokesman for the ministry's Investment Commission said yesterday.
I think he's probably guilty as charged.
But like everything, being cheap, I think the threat of liquidating his assets in Taiwan, is a pretty good threat for him to come clean and at least find a way to settle. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if he still did have quite a few asetts in Taiwan still, but I wonder if they can really fine them and seize them. He may be a threat to the political establishment in Taiwan, and in violation of the rules against foreign investment. But I wouldn't consider Richard Chang a terrorist. A threat to US national security in the long term? Maybe.... but so am I, for all the information I've shared with companies around the world
August 26, 2005