Guangzhou

Strategic Concepts & Mechanics

Identity & CultureSeven Months That Divide a Life

Strategic PatternTechnological Inflection Points Level the Field

Identity & CultureProducts of Tradition Yet Disloyal Subjects

Identity & CultureSetback Culture Not Failure Culture

Cornerstone MoveFix the Process on the Factory Floor First

Cornerstone MoveFury Into Reverse-Logic Career Bets

Competitive AdvantageWartime Childhood as Resilience Forge

Signature MoveOne Week Maximum on Psychological Setbacks

Signature MoveNever Accept the Chinese Overseas Default Path

Operating PrincipleMaster Professors Make Profound Things Simple

Signature MoveSeek the Youngest Hungriest Company

Decision FrameworkOne Dollar More Changed Everything

Cornerstone MoveSelf-Teach Past the Experts Then Publish

Strategic PatternSemiconductor Optimism as Naming Doctrine

Signature MoveSponge Year Before Specialization

Signature MoveThirteen-Hour Meeting as Onboarding Ritual

Relationship LeverageFoxconn's Loss-Leader-to-Lock-In Playbook

Risk DoctrineTacit Knowledge as Accidental Export

Competitive AdvantageApple Squeeze: Invaluable Experience Over Margin

Identity & CultureVerbal Jujitsu Procurement Culture

Signature MoveDesign the Impossible Then Manufacture the Impossible

Signature MoveFifty Business Class Seats Daily to Shenzhen

Operating PrincipleZero Inventory as Theological Doctrine

Strategic PatternUnconstrained Design Not Cost Arbitrage

Cornerstone MoveSecret $275 Billion Kowtow to Keep the Machine Running

Signature MoveSilk Tie Competitions to Train Negotiators

Cornerstone MoveScrew It, iTunes for Windows

Cornerstone MoveBuy the Machines, Own the Factory Floor Without Owning a Factory

Signature MoveDrive Off the Cliff to Prove the Brakes Don't Work

Cornerstone MoveTrain Everyone Then Pit Them Against Each Other

Risk DoctrineRule By Law as Corporate Leash

Decision FrameworkBig Potato Small Potato: Positional Power Over Fairness

Primary Evidence

"Before I turned eighteen, I had already fled disaster three times, lived in six cities (Ningbo, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Chongqing, Shanghai), and changed schools ten times. I had experienced gunfire (Hong Kong) and bombings (Guangzhou, Chongqing), and crossed battle lines (from Shanghai to Chongqing). I had a carefree childhood (Hong Kong), and also tasted the impassioned life of a middle school student during the War of Resistance (Chongqing); still more, I tasted the sorrow of leaving home and country, not knowing when I would return (from Hong Kong to the United States)."

Source:Autobiography of Morris Chang: Volume 1, 1931-1964

"In 1980, Shenzhen was a fishing village of fewer than 70,000 people. But as a special economic zone just across the harbor from Hong Kong, Shenzhen and the area around it underwent a metamorphosis. “By the late 1980s, the entire 104-mile route from Hong Kong to Guangzhou was lined on both sides with factories,” according to the late Ezra Vogel, a Harvard scholar and the biographer of Deng Xiaoping. By 1990 the city of Shenzhen had a population of 1.7 million; in the early 2000s, it had grown to around 7 million. In just twenty-five years, Shenzhen’s population grew a hundredfold."

Source:Apple in China

Appears In Volumes

Autobiography of Morris Chang: Volume 1, 1931-1964 Apple in China