Gou has an "American dream" that began with arrogance on the surface, but in fact, it was determined by the nature of his businessmen who "dominated by profit."
Gou's arrogance began to manifest itself in 2010, when Gou became Taiwan's richest man with the outstanding performance of his founder's Foxconn in the mainland. This year, 60-year-old Gou Taiming was still old and had a son, and his wife Zeng Xinying gave birth to his son Guo Shoushan.
The picture below is a small photo taken by Gou in 2010, in which Gou holds a lens arrogantly and says: "This kind of precision lens can only be made by Foxconn, if you know any other company that can make it, tell me, I bought it." Its arrogant momentum makes anyone have to sigh: "President Guo, domineering."
However, human madness has always had calamities, and many calamities are often buried when they flourish. It was during this year that Foxconn jumped off buildings, with 14 jumps occurring at Foxconn from January 23, 2010 to November 5, 2010 alone. And this jumping incident has actually laid the groundwork for Foxconn's recruitment difficulties later.
On the afternoon of May 16, 2010, less than 40 hours after Foxconn's ninth jump, Gou and his wife Zeng Xinying held their daughter and leisurely walked on the lawn. In the photo, Gou is bare feet with a happy face, allowing his little daughter to sit on his belly and play.
It wasn't until the 10th jump that Gou rushed back to Shenzhen from Taiwan to "clean up the aftermath." As soon as he arrived at the factory, he played the emotional card, and said in an interview with the media that he "has not had a good night's sleep in a month and needs to see a psychologist." He also solemnly said: "Within a month, pull up the sky net, ground net, and invisible protection net, and prevent suicide at any cost." He also bowed three times to the media very sincerely, asking them not to report on the "next jump."
It turned out later that Gou failed to "prevent" the suicide. However, since then, news about suicides by Foxconn employees has indeed been reported less. And Gou Taiming himself can finally continue to be arrogant.
Gou ushered in the "American dream" that made him arrogant in his most arrogant years: in 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook brought his executive team to Foxconn. After Gou showed Cook a video, he arrogantly said to Cook: "On the iPad production line, replace all workers with robots." ”
Cook's eyes lit up, and he didn't know that Gou was painting him a pie. Arrogant people, sometimes even they can deceive themselves, even those who can deceive themselves, deceive people can always succeed.
Gou and Cook
It was also after deep contact with Apple in the United States that Gou, who thought he was a "big brother", became more and more arrogant. During this period, he not only said several times that "he is giving food to the mainland," but also made various shocking remarks, completely putting on a posture of "he is a benefactor of the mainland."
Gou's Foxconn, when it entered the mainland market in early 1998, was just a small and medium-sized enterprise. Later, Foxconn relied on China's hard-working labor force and a series of policies to benefit Taiwan, and gradually grew and became a world-class labor-intensive industry.
The mainland has specifically given Gou Taiming a specific number of preferential policies, and those who are interested can specifically investigate. Just say that in Zhengzhou, Henan, after Foxconn settled down, they not only took out a large amount of land, but also desperately improved various infrastructure, and gave Foxconn rare preferential policies: the first five years of tax exemption, the second five years, halved the levy.
Foxconn was hiring in Henan, and the provincial government even stepped in, and at that time, each of the 17 prefecture-level cities had a target, and on average each township had to recruit 30 to 50 workers.
As a labor-intensive industry, Foxconn's development and growth is the result of countless Chinese laborers working day and night. In other words: Gou's success at Foxconn is entirely the result of enjoying the dividends and growth of the mainland as the world's factory.
But all this, Gou Taiming forgot all after gaining power. After climbing the big tree of the United States, Gou Taiming clearly saw a phenomenon: the United States mobilizes European companies to decouple from China every day, allowing China to move factories to Southeast Asia and even India.
In order to further curry favor with the United States, Gou also began to cater to the United States, intending to move the factory out of China step by step. Gou's decision is tantamount to fueling the United States' "decoupling plan" against China.
Gou's idea is simple: while currying favor with the United States, he will use American support to complete the transformation from manufacturing to "intelligent manufacturing".
Thinking about doing it has always been Gou's character. With a plan, he moved quickly. His actions were divided into two steps: one was to cooperate with the United States, and the other was to gradually relocate the factory.
In 2013, Gou announced that he would build a high-tech factory worth $30 million, or about 200 million yuan, in central Pennsylvania. This part is the part that further cooperates with the United States.
In 2014, Gou announced that he would invest $1 billion in Indonesia. The year after, Gou announced again that he would invest about $5 billion over the next five years to build a large manufacturing plant in western India. He also said it would be one of the largest FDI deals in the history of Indian businesses. This part is the part of gradually relocating the factory.
After Gou showed his sincerity to his American big brother, he also actively cooperated with the US manufacturing return policy in 2017, that is, after former US President Trump took office, and he also invested 10 billion US dollars (about 67.3 billion yuan) in the United States in the name of Foxconn to establish an LCD panel production plant in Wisconsin, USA.
A day later, Wisconsin Governor Walker signed a memorandum of understanding with Gou. According to the memorandum, Wisconsin will give Foxconn financial assistance of up to $3 billion, or about 20.2 billion yuan, for 15 years, and sell at least 1,000 acres, equivalent to about 4 square kilometers, for this purpose.
After that, Gou became more and more arrogant, and he did not pay attention to the mainland in his eyes. At this time, Gou seemed to have forgotten that the US government has always said that words do not count.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before the $3 billion in financial aid promised by the United States to Gou was cut in half, and the plan ended in a fiasco. The latest news shows that after the bankruptcy of the plan, Foxconn still owes the local government $300 million in infrastructure debt.
There are only a few buildings on the Foxconn site in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin
What annoys Gou even more is that almost none of the projects he has been confident in in the United States, Canada, Indonesia, India and other places have succeeded.
But no amount of failure can stop Gou's American dream, and Gou is determined to follow the United States. Why? The answer has to do with Gou's essence of "taking interests as the dominant one". In Gou's eyes, the United States is the world's number one power, and China has no strength to compete with the United States. Under such circumstances, he who thinks he already has the strength will naturally stand for the United States.
After the United States began to suppress Chinese technology companies, Gou once again smashed the mainland's pot to cater to the United States. At the most critical moment, he gave Huawei a "falling stone", and the specific operation is: when many American suppliers chose to draw a line with Huawei, they cut off the foundry business of Foxconn and Huawei mobile phones in a way that caught Huawei off guard.
The following year, Gou withdrew his factories from the mainland, announcing more than 300,000 layoffs in the mainland, moving factories to India and Vietnam, which are more suitable for demographic dividends.
When Foxconn followed the United States to "stab" Huawei, it did not expect that the later Huawei not only quickly found BYD to replace Foxconn in the OEM business, but also broke through the blockade of the United States and made a breakthrough through independent research and development. Huawei's new series of mobile phones, such as the Kirin chip, have impressed the world.
Looking back, Foxconn took the initiative to cut off Huawei's mobile phone foundry business and followed Apple to India to invest and build factories, trying to transfer more production capacity to India. But he is facing chicken feathers in one place, and the latest news shows that a large number of unqualified products of the Apple 15 series mobile phones made in India have suffered the largest wave of returns in history.
Faced with such a result, Gou, who is bent on following his big brother in the United States, will definitely not be very happy in his heart. What makes him even more unhappy is that with the miscarriage of various projects out of the mainland, especially after the ouster of his idol Trump, his relations with the United States are not so good.
Gou and Trump
Gou and his Foxconn are just pawns in the United States, and this pawn is not yet favored. There are many reasons why Gou Taiming is no longer favored by his self-proclaimed "big brother" the United States, four of which are-
First, Gou's promises to the United States have not been fulfilled, especially Apple's promise to "replace workers with robots", which is completely bankrupt; His various projects in the United States and Canada have also failed, all of which have led the United States to doubt his true strength.
Second, Gou's inability to recruit workers at home has become a fact, a phenomenon that has prompted the United States to stop optimistic about them.
Third, Gou's own ungrateful nature, as well as his election disruption in Taiwan and the scandal of bribery, also make the United States unfavorable.
Fourth, Gou's Foxconn was "investigated" by official revelations on October 22, and was investigated by the tax department and the Ministry of Natural Resources respectively. Foxconn was investigated and basically proved that there were problems, which became one of the reasons why the United States was not optimistic about them.
The result of the United States' dislike of Gou Taiming and Foxconn: In 2023, Apple CEO Cook visited China, and his visit this time was not Foxconn, but the Luxshare Precision Factory in Jiashan, Zhejiang. At the scene, Cook also praised the automated process and environmentally friendly production concept of Luxshare Precision Factory, saying that it is a win-win for Apple and China's supply chain.
In an interview with the media, Cook also implicitly pointed at the problems of Indian manufacturing, cryptically saying that Apple is still highly dependent on and attaches importance to China's supply chain. He said that despite the continuous expansion of the global market, more than 95% of Apple products are still made in China.
The news is not big, but the amount of information is huge. This shows that Apple went around a few times and found that China's factories were the most reliable. Obviously, in the future, Apple will choose to cooperate more with Luxshare Precision. This kind of kind makes Gou, who previously relocated his factories to India and other places in order to cater to the United States and Apple, really uncomfortable.
Cook at Luxshare
At this point, Gou's American dream was finally shattered.
The lesson from Gou's story and the American story is that if capitalists really do not have a motherland, but only regard profit as the motherland, they will be like grass and trees without foundations, and even if they grow stronger, they will collapse one day.