You can't use a failure to negate a person, this sentence is about the current MediaTek CEO Cai Lixing.
On June 11, 2009, Zhang Zhongmou, who had already retired at home, suddenly released a personnel appointment that shocked the global semiconductor industry: after four years of absence, he announced his return to TSMC as CEO and chairman of the company; former CEO Cai Lixing stepped down and became the general manager of the new division "New Business Organization".
What happened to TSMC? Why is there a sudden market-shaking appointment?
In the financial tsunami of 2008, TSMC was inevitably affected, and in the first quarter of 2009, TSMC's net profit hit the lowest level in 8 years, down a full 95%.
But what made Zhang Zhongmou's comeback was not only the decline in performance, another important reason was that he was greatly dissatisfied with the actions of the former CEO Cai Lixing.
In that year, in order to resist the financial storm and reduce the company's costs, the management team of TSMC at that time laid off nearly a thousand people through the elimination of the last place, but due to the improper handling of personnel, a considerable number of them were very dissatisfied with the layoffs.
For example, some people are unable to receive unemployment benefits because they have not received an involuntary separation certificate issued by TSMC, and it is even more difficult for them to find another job because of the impact of the financial turmoil on the industry.
In March 2009, these unemployed employees, who had no way to ask for help, ran to Zhang Zhongmou's house and pulled up banners with the words "deceive employees", and some people wrote directly to Zhang Zhongmou to lament the unfair treatment suffered during the TSMC layoffs.
After returning to TSMC, Zhang Zhongmou's decision to remove Cai Lixing took only ten minutes before and after, and the next step was to plead with the laid-off employees to come back to work.
The storm was arguably the biggest setback in Cai's career, and at the end of 2013, he left TSMC, where he had served for 25 years, to become chairman of Chunghwa Telecom.
It is said that at that time, the employees of Chunghwa Telecom heard that Cai Lixing had come to become the chairman of the board and planned to surround the board of directors and ask Cai Lixing to look good.
Cai Lixing personally contacted the representative of the trade union and gave a promise of "no layoffs and no salary cuts for 5 years", so that more than 3,000 Employees of China Telecom accepted themselves and believed in themselves.
Later, with the improvement of Chunghwa Telecom's performance and huge profits, Cai Lixing spent about 200 million yuan to raise the salaries of all employees, and it has to be said that his experience at TSMC has greatly changed his management style.
In July 2017, Cai Lixing joined MediaTek, and MediaTek's stock price soared by 40% on the same day.
Although within MediaTek, there was a fear that the storm of "layoffs" would recur, Cai Lixing quickly suppressed the rumors, emphasizing that talent is MediaTek's biggest asset.
In the next few years, with his deep understanding of semiconductor industry trends and manufacturing technologies, as well as his own relationship with TSMC, Cai Lixing was able to accurately bet on 5G, AI and other industry waves, while also ensuring the high-quality production of its products.
Since 2018, MediaTek's annual R&D investment has reached 24% of revenue, which is comparable to Qualcomm, according to Cai Lixing's vision, MediaTek's goal is to become the world's first 5G chip manufacturer.
A few days ago, a vivo mobile phone equipped with MediaTek's latest flagship chip Tianji 9000 was exposed, whether it is a single core or a multi-core, the running score has surpassed the new generation of Snapdragon 8 and Samsung's Exynos2200, it is likely that this year, MediaTek will successfully gain a foothold in the high-end smartphone chip market.
Under the leadership of Cai Lixing, MediaTek has the strength to compete with Qualcomm.
In 2021, Cai Lixing excitedly said that last year's MediaTek revenue is expected to reach more than twice that of 2019, and profits have increased by nearly 5 times, it can be said that Cai Lixing lost at TSMC, and now it has doubled back in MediaTek.
At that time, Zhang Zhongmou regretted that Taiwan did not establish a world-class complete semiconductor industry chain, only packaging, testing, manufacturing, no design, and now relying on MediaTek, Zhang Zhongmou's vision is being realized step by step.