Reborn Tycoon Rise

After staying in New York for a few more days, Xu Zhi flew to Texas, the largest state in the southern United States.

The headquarters of Texas Instruments is here. Midea has expanded rapidly in recent years, and its sales of arcade machines, home consoles, and Gameboy products are increasing day by day. In addition to bringing a large number of orders to local foundry companies in Xiangjiang, the core chips still have to be outsourced. TI remains one of Midea's largest suppliers.

When a major customer came to visit, Texas Instruments was naturally cautious. After communicating with Midea, it sent the company's executive vice president Zhang Zhongmou to receive it.

Zhang Zhongmou was born in Ningbo. At the age of 18, he entered Harvard University as the only Chinese. At the age of 27, he entered Texas Instruments. He was also the first Chinese employee in the entire company at that time. Fifteen years later, in 1972, Zhang Zhongmou became the vice president of Texas Instruments. The president is the third most powerful person in Texas Instruments, after the chairman and president. At this time, Texas Instruments ranked among the top three in the world in the field of industrial semiconductors, with more than 60,000 employees, half of whom were managed by Zhang Zhongmou.

"Mr. Xu, welcome to Texas Instruments." At TI's headquarters in Dallas, Zhang Zhongmou personally came to the airport to pick him up.

Xu Zhi smiled and said: "Mr. Zhang, you have to come to the airport in person for your trouble."

"Customers are our first wealth." Zhang Zhongmou said with a smile: "This is a sentence I saw at the front desk on the first day I entered the company. I still have such a small sign in my office. Mr. Xu is our moral character. One of Yi’s biggest clients, for the sake of wealth, this little hard work is nothing!”

"Mr. Zhang is so direct." Xu Zhi said. Generally speaking, companies are just for making money, but in public places, a group of people will always say that they are for customer service and technological development. Such directness, in the electronic field , this was the first time Xu Zhi encountered it.

Deyi's arrangement is still very official. Xu Zhi's visit this time is ostensibly to negotiate the cooperation between Midea and Deyi in the next few years. However, He Guoyuan can usually handle this kind of thing. In fact, the real purpose is to negotiate for Zhang Zhongmou. this person.

At the hotel arranged by Deyi, Xu Zhi and his party enjoyed a very sumptuous dinner with Zhang Zhongmou and some of Deyi's senior executives. In order to take care of the guests from the East, Deyi specially invited several top chefs from Asia.

After lunch, Xu Zhi and Zhang Zhongmou started a real conversation in the supporting study room of the presidential suite.

"Mr. Zhang, what do you think of the current development of Japanese semiconductors?" Xu Zhi asked casually.

"Japan?" Zhang Zhongmou thought for a while and said: "Over the years, Japanese companies have continued to occupy the market of American companies with low cost, from the textile industry at the beginning to the steel and automobile industries, and now the semiconductor industry of their Japanese counterparts. The industry is beginning to enter the U.S. market.”

Xu Zhixiao asked: "What can Mr. Zhang do? Now Deyi is also facing this kind of crisis!"

"For the time being, there is no way." Zhang Zhongmou said negatively: "This is the product of normal competition in the market. Some Japanese semiconductor companies have much lower cost control. This is caused by the cultures of the two nations. They want to control costs. To be lower than Japanese companies, we must require American employees to be as hard-working as Japanese employees, and we must also eliminate interference from labor unions. This is absolutely impossible. There are only two ways to solve this problem:

First, increase research and development. The cost of Japan's 16KB chips is low, so we will produce 32 or 64KB products to ensure high profits.

Second, persuade the U.S. Congress to intervene administratively. "

"Mr. Zhang did hit the point, but these methods are too risky." Xu Zhi explained: "The union issue in the United States involves the country. If it can be changed, several major automobile companies will not be going bankrupt now.

It is equally difficult to convince the U.S. Congress. Unless the industry in the United States is about to go bankrupt, Congress is unlikely to introduce such a policy.

As for research and development, or the use of advanced technology, it can indeed solve the problem in the short term, but the research and development capabilities of Japanese companies are not weak, and no one can guarantee that research and development will be fruitful. It is said that TI's board of directors recently rejected the fourth proposal proposed by Mr. Zhang Generation semiconductor factory plan? "

Zhang Zhongmou nodded and said: "Yes, now the company is obviously more optimistic about the market in the field of consumer electronics."

Xia Bai, the current president of Texas Instruments, is very optimistic about consumer electronics products and intends to transform some industries of Texas Instruments. In the semiconductor field, Intel was the dominant player a few years ago, and Japanese companies are gradually catching up. Price wars have already begun. Blood flowed, and Zhang Zhongmou's proposal to vigorously enter the semiconductor manufacturing field was naturally rejected by the board of directors.

"From the perspective of company profitability, the consumer electronics market is indeed larger." Xu Zhi nodded and said, Midea's own business is like this. With its game consoles, Midea has been ranked 382nd among the world's top 500 companies by Forbes. , although it is just a valuation, the real situation is similar, and the profit can even rank among the top 100 in the world.

Xu Zhi continued: "But as long as a company intends to develop in the long term, the development, research, development and investment of some core technologies are inevitable. Otherwise, even if it makes short-term profits, it will inevitably be eliminated in the long run.

It is almost impossible for American semiconductor companies to be lower in cost than Japanese companies. However, 20 years ago, Japan's textile industry and garment manufacturing industry once dominated the United States. But now, in addition to the garment industry, Several Japanese brands have almost no trace of Japanese companies. "

Zhang Zhongmou also understood and said: "Mr. Xu means that Japanese companies beat the United States in terms of cost, but will be defeated by other countries in terms of cost?"

"Yes, that's what I mean." Xu Zhidao said: "If you want to win back the game, you can't rely on the United States. The only way is to treat others in their own way and use the lower labor costs of other Asian countries. will succeed.”

Zhang Zhongmou added: "However, the semiconductor industry is different from the clothing industry. The requirements for technical content are very high. I am afraid it will be difficult to succeed in non-Japanese regions in Asia."

"It's just difficult, but not absolute." Xu Zhi said with a smile: "Talent can be cultivated, but culture cannot. The workers and management model in the United States are relatively extensive, and many Asian countries are the same as Japan. They just lack technology. Once the technology is available, It will definitely be able to reach the level of Japanese companies in terms of cost, or even lower!”

Zhang Zhongmou nodded and asked, "Mr. Xu, do you want us, Deyi, to invest in semiconductor factories in Asia?"

"What does Deyi's matter have to do with me!" Xu Zhi said with a smile: "Midea Company intends to enter the semiconductor manufacturing field, and I hope Mr. Zhang can join Midea Company!"