In 1993, Lee Kun-hee told his executives Samsung was making mediocre products and that needed to stop and he wasn't wrong.
What followed was a full rebuild. Manufacturing standards, design philosophy, global distribution. Samsung went from budget electronics to the world's largest chip and smartphone producer.
Net worth at peak: $20B . But the number undersells the impact. He didn't just build a company, rather he built a chunk of South Korea's economy with it.