CEO and Founder of TSMC, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company)
台積電張忠謀和阿里巴巴蔡崇信同台 談到地緣政治左右為難 對領導人的建議 彩蛋是NBA...【國際360】20240524@全球大視野Global_Vision
影片主題：分散化世界中的領導：台積電的張忠謀和阿里巴巴集團的蔡崇信｜亞洲協會紐約中心Title: Leadership in a Fragmenting ...
About Morris Chang
Morris Chang, founder of TSMC, has spoken extensively in recent interviews and public appearances about the state of the semiconductor industry, geopolitical tensions, and the challenges facing major chip companies. In a February 2025 interview, Chang discussed Intel's struggles, saying that former CEO Pat Gelsinger's strategy appeared to focus on the foundry business rather than AI, and that in hindsight Intel "perhaps should have focused on AI." He also commented on Intel's CEO selection process, stating that "whoever speaks well, they adopt their strategy — I think this is not a good practice." Regarding Samsung, Chang described its past pursuit of the memory business as a "deadly mix of ambition and temptation," and said that collaborating with Samsung is like dealing with "an unknown devil." He also revealed that in 2013 he had approached Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about becoming TSMC's CEO, but that Huang declined, and noted that TSMC could not have allowed Huang to retain his 7.5% stake in Nvidia due to potential conflicts of interest. Chang has also addressed the broader geopolitical landscape affecting the semiconductor supply chain. In a 2024 speech at MIT, he argued that "deviations from free-market, free-trade globalization — industrial policy, subsidization, and reshoring — will make the world chip industry less efficient and less resilient," while acknowledging that "national security considerations, of course, override everything." In a separate discussion with Alibaba's Joe Tsai, Chang said that the "immediate purpose of decoupling is to slow China down — especially in chips — and I think it's doing that," but added that "ultimately I believe it will be harmful to everybody, because the world would progress faster if we all worked together." He has also expressed concern about the risk of hot conflict between the world's two largest economies, stating that he hopes they "don't somehow accidentally or by purpose get into a hot conflict."
Transcript (29 segments)
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Host0:04
Good afternoon. Welcome, everyone. I am deeply honored to be on this stage today with two extraordinary icons.
Dr. Morris Chang and Joe Tsai have both founded and created extraordinary companies: Alibaba and TSMC. Today, their combined market capitalization exceeds 625 billion dollars.
Outstanding. I think we can start the conversation with you, Dr. Chang. You were born in China, lived in Hong Kong, but were educated in the U.S. at MIT and Stanford. For those of us who haven't had the pleasure of reading your wonderful biography, tell us what the vision was for founding TSMC in Taiwan.
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Morris Chang1:01
When I founded TSMC, I had been in the semiconductor industry for a long time, almost 30 years. I worked at Texas Instruments, starting at a company called Sylvania in its semiconductor division. In 1958, I went to Texas Instruments when I was 27.
At that time, I already had a bachelor's and master's degree. About two or three years after I joined Texas Instruments, they appreciated me and sent me to Stanford to obtain a PhD, with full pay, covering all tuition and fees. It was a great opportunity. I went to Stanford and earned my PhD, and of course, I had to return the favor by committing to work at Texas Instruments for at least five years. In the end, I worked an extra 20 years, totaling 25 years at Texas Instruments.
Nevertheless, Texas Instruments started to decline for various reasons, not my fault. They moved into different businesses that were more successful compared to the semiconductor business, so they lost focus. They shifted to consumer products like calculators, electronic watches, and eventually, disastrously, the home computer business. Because of all these reasons, Texas Instruments declined. By the early 1980s, the U.S. was losing its competitive advantage in chip manufacturing.
Around that time, there was an episode where I was president of another company, but that didn't work out for me either. Then the Taiwanese government asked me to become the director of the Industrial Technology Research Institute. During my time there, the government also wanted me to start a semiconductor company. Given my semiconductor experience, I decided to do it. I decided to start a semiconductor company in Taiwan, which was then 1985.
Starting a standard integrated device manufacturer would mean competing directly with Texas Instruments, Intel, and Japanese companies, so I didn't use the standard business model of doing everything from design to manufacturing to sales and marketing. I looked at the whole picture and decided Taiwan had a competitive advantage. I won't go into what that advantage was then, but perhaps later. We could only be competitive in one part of the value chain: chip manufacturing. So we created a new business model: being a pure foundry, just wafer manufacturing.
We succeeded. We started raising funds in 1985 and officially began operations in 1987. For 36 years, we have been very successful, becoming the largest manufacturing company. I'm not sure how our revenue compares with all other semiconductor companies, but we are at the top. TSMC's revenue will be around 60 to 70 billion dollars.
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Host8:30
I think Dr. Chang is being quite modest. It seems like it's quite a large company in the world. Congratulations. Joe, do you have a similar story? You are Canadian-Taiwanese but also educated in the U.S., right? You went to Lawrenceville, Yale, Yale Law, then went into law. Before going into private equity, how did you get into Alibaba? How did you start this new company with Jack Ma?
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Joe Tsai8:58
I realized I took the wrong path studying law instead of chips or computer science. I was born in Taiwan and grew up there until I was 13, then my parents sent me to school in the U.S. In fact, Dr. Chang reminded me today that one of the first people he met when he arrived in Taiwan was my father, who was a lawyer representing Texas Instruments. Small world. He also reminded me that I had an uncle who worked at Intel and Motorola and had many chip patents. Dr. Chang tried to hire my uncle Roger but couldn't make a deal. You can imagine growing up in Taiwan, Dr. Chang was a role model and iconic figure, so I am deeply honored to be on stage with him.
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Host10:19
Great. Of course, you should tell your story. The question is, how did you go from private equity with a legal background to starting this company with Jack?
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Joe Tsai10:43
Lawyers don't make any decisions; they just advise people. I wanted to be in a role where I could actually make decisions, which is why I went into private equity. Moving from a legal background into private equity was quite natural because lawyers deal with documents and M&A transactions. I was lucky to meet Jack Ma in 1999 through a friend from Taiwan. I went to his apartment on the second floor in a building called Lakeside Gardens. It was full of bright-eyed, passionate young people focused on Jack. The rest is history.
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Host11:50
Incredible. I think it's safe to say that everyone we talk to these days, especially large CEOs around the world, is most concerned about the U.S.-China decoupling and the bifurcation of the two countries. Where do you think this is going? Joe, I'll start with you.
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Joe Tsai12:13
There are a few reasons driving decoupling. Governments around the world, not just the U.S. and China, are concerned about security, national security, and digital security. When you go to Europe, people talk about digital sovereignty and ensuring the privacy of citizens and data. For these reasons, supply chains are now decoupling. In the digital world, we are seeing a lot of bifurcation.
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Host13:01
Morris, what are your thoughts on this?
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Morris Chang13:06
The best book I've read on this phenomenon is probably Graham Allison's. I forget the title, but the subtitle was 'The Thucydides Trap.' It's a situation where an established power, the U.S., faces a rising power, China. Allison, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, taught a course for five years studying examples of the Thucydides Trap over 500 years. They found about 18 examples of established versus rising powers. In 12 of those cases, it resulted in war. In six cases, it did not. The recent six non-war cases include the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S., which was just a Cold War. Now you talk about decoupling. We can see that phenomenon. Our only hope is that it doesn't lead to worse consequences.
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Host15:27
Dr. Chang, regarding this, have you seen technological innovation and new developments in the region being affected by this bifurcation and decoupling?
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Morris Chang15:49
Decoupling will ultimately slow everyone down. Its direct purpose is to slow China down. In the chip sector, decoupling is happening. I don't know about other sectors. It is working to slow China down. Ultimately, it might be harmful to everyone. If we worked together, we might progress faster.
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Host16:57
Joe, recently investor confidence in the Asian region has been quite challenged. What do you think we should consider to ensure we don't lose that dynamism, and how can we regain investor confidence in the region?
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Joe Tsai17:12
Asia is a big place, but many Asian cultures are very similar. People are hardworking, and these economies have provided a very high level of education. For investors, you should ask yourself, do you want to bet against hardworking, educated people? Asia is still a dynamic place. We've seen a slowdown in China, but there are many hardworking people researching new technologies. China is currently the largest manufacturing country in the world, and I still think it will be a manufacturing powerhouse in the future. It may not yet be making the most advanced chips, but that takes time to master. Just in terms of demographics, China has about 800 million workers, of which 200 million are highly educated and skilled, plus a vocational school system. I think Asia will continue to be very dynamic because culturally, people are hardworking, entrepreneurial, and focused on education.
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Host19:10
Dr. Chang, you said in your book that one reason you moved to Taiwan, besides the government, was that you found a wealth of talent there. Tell me your thoughts on Asian education versus American education.
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Morris Chang19:32
There is a wealth of talent here, specifically in manufacturing talent. In manufacturing, you don't need too many geniuses or innovative thinkers. You need some, but not many. You need many discipline experts who understand their industry, maintenance people, production supervisors, and production engineers. In Taiwan, there are many vocational schools for those who didn't have the opportunity to go to university. After high school, there is a joint entrance exam, and only about 30% of high school graduates can go to comprehensive universities. The rest can go to three- or five-year vocational schools to learn special skills, which allows them to find good jobs. That is an advantage of the Taiwanese education system.
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Host21:30
Joe, what are your thoughts on education?
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Joe Tsai21:36
Two points. American schools, from boarding high schools to universities and master's programs, are still the aspiration for most people in the world. Parents still want to send their children to the U.S. for education because the system fosters intellectual freedom. Geniuses can truly excel beyond their peers. American universities are very good at cultivating elites from all over the world. If you look at the heads of major U.S. tech companies, they come from around the world and are beneficiaries of American higher education. But these are the CEOs. What about the rest? The kids who go to liberal arts colleges and end up as Uber drivers. What we discussed at lunch is that the U.S. doesn't have a vocational school program. China and Taiwan have vocational school programs. In China, there are about 10 million university graduates a year, but also 5 to 6 million vocational school graduates who essentially gave up on university after middle school. They go on a career path, and when you have a manufacturing economy, it's convenient to have a population that doesn't all aspire to work on large language models and computer science but can work on the shop floor. That's a key difference.
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Morris Chang23:58
I agree with Joe. The U.S. has the best top-tier educational institutions, like the Ivy League and MIT, which are second to none in the world. At that level of education...
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Host24:26
As someone in the legal field, I'd say Yale Law School is a very theoretical school, and students come out unable to pass the bar exam, while Harvard Law is more like a business school.
At lunch, we discussed the importance of communication for understanding differences between countries and perhaps converging ideas. Dr. Chang, what advice would you have for other American leaders or CEOs on how to better understand and work with China and Asia?
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Morris Chang25:17
You're asking me? I would certainly advise them to communicate more. Honestly, if we really want to talk, unfortunately, particularly if they are already top players in business or government, it's not very useful to give them advice on how to cooperate.