In some ways, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou is a fascinatingly lucky man.  His company manufactures dozens of technological devices, from the iPhone to Dell computers at their various factories, so you know he’s doing well money-wise.  However, there’s also a slight problem with his company.  Foxconn is the company where workers have a nasty habit of killing themselves, to the tune of dozens in the last year.  Chairman Gou is the subject of an amazing in-depth profile in BusinessWeek.

“I should be honest with you,” he says.  “The first one, second one, and third one, I did not see this as a serious problem.  We had around 800,000 employees, and here [in Longhua] we are about 2.1 square kilometers.  At the moment, I’m feeling guilty. But at that moment, I didn’t think I should be taking full responsibility.”  After the fifth suicide, in March, Gou says, “I decided to do something different.”

Something different is a great way to describe Mr. Gou, who riffs on rival companies, bashes business schools, and even talks about how he made Steve Jobs give him his business card (presumably to knock Steve down to earth a bit).  It’s a really interesting interview with a very fortunate (yet unfortunate) man.  It’s always fun to see a CEO talk a little crazy from time to time.

Tags: Foxconn, Terry Gou, Taiwan, CEO of Foxconn, technology companies, the company that makes the iPhone, unusual people, CEOs, unusual companies, suicide-prone company

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]