December 19, 2006 9:11

Holiday extravagance at Samsung

Okay, so I said I wasn't going to be posting much. But this is too good not to share:

I got a DHL Express Letter the other day sent straight from "Samsung Main Building" in Seoul. What could be so important that the Korean electronics giant would spend $30 or $40 to get to me? (According to the DHL website, it would cost me $44.10 to send such a letter to Korea; I'm willing to allow that Samsung gets some sort of bulk discount.)

Why it was a holiday card, signed by Samsung CEO Jong-Yong Yun, whom I met last year at the Fortune Global Forum in Beijing. I truly do appreciate the sentiment. But it's interesting to see that, for all the impressive changes that Samsung and other Korean corporations have gone through since the country's financial crisis almost a decade ago, the whole idea of frugality doesn't seem to have really hit home. Glad I'm not a Samsung shareholder. Oh, wait--I imagine that, by way of one of the international funds in my 401(k), I am. This is an outrage!