The Rise of Seoul: Dr. Je Woo Kim on National Transformation

Summary

Host Joe Pardavila interviews Dr. Je Woo Kim about his book, The Rise of Seoul: South Korea’s Journey from Rags to Riches, and the country’s transformation over roughly six decades.

Kim explains that Korea was divided after World War II, when U.S. and Soviet forces entered the peninsula to disarm Japan. The split was initially intended to be temporary, but Cold War tensions hardened it into a communist North and a democratic, capitalist South. He contrasts the opportunities and merit-based advancement available in South Korea with life in North Korea, where, he says, the regime constrains people’s abilities and creativity.

Kim recalls growing up in rural South Korea without electricity or a reliable water system. His family used kerosene lamps, and electricity did not reach his home until he was in middle school in the 1970s. He later studied at KAIST, where Samsung offered him a scholarship for his PhD and a job after graduation. At the time, he says, Samsung was a relatively small local company focused on semiconductors and home appliances.

He traces the mobile industry’s development from car phones and pagers to digital phones and smartphones. Kim says Samsung’s ambition to become an industry leader, along with its strength in memory chips, helped it expand into mobile. He contrasts Apple’s integration of its software and applications with Samsung’s hardware-focused vertical integration. Samsung already made key components, including displays and memory, giving it cost and supply-chain advantages. The company first tried Microsoft’s mobile software before adopting Android.

Kim argues that South Korea’s rise was neither inevitable nor unique to the country. He compares economic activity to Brownian motion: people and organizations move in different directions until leadership provides a clear goal and aligns their efforts. In his view, focused vision, education, research investment, meritocracy, planning, and execution form a framework that other countries and organizations could also use. He points to the government’s “Let’s live well” message and the construction of a major expressway despite public opposition as examples of leaders sustaining a vision through resistance.

He also challenges the idea that South Korea’s main strength is its cultural influence through K-pop and television dramas. Kim says its deeper foundation is manufacturing: a broad domestic value chain and infrastructure that support industries ranging from semiconductors to aircraft and defense systems. Cultural influence, he argues, has grown alongside that industrial base.

Kim says the book’s account of the six-decade transformation remains a useful milestone, while acknowledging that developments such as the AI boom have changed the industrial landscape since 2024.

Presenters and Contributors

• Joe Pardavila — Host
• Dr. Je Woo Kim — Guest, engineer and author of The Rise of Seoul