At 54, he'd been fired from two companies and failed his PhD exam twice. He asked Intel, TI, Motorola, and Sony to invest in his next idea. All four said no. He built the company anyway. It's now worth over $2 trillion. His name is Morris Chang. He wanted to be a novelist. He grew up in China during three wars, moving six times before he turned 18. Fled to Hong Kong at six. Walked 50 days to reach Chongqing when the Japanese invaded. His childhood was, in his own words, "war, poverty, injustice." But he loved stories. He spent years dreaming about writing for a living. His father killed it in one sentence. "You'll go hungry." So he went to America instead. Harvard first. Then MIT. He typed other students' papers for $1.25 a page to pay for shrimp fried rice in Chinatown. He got his bachelor's and master's in mechanical engineering. Then he took the PhD qualifying exam. He failed. He took it again. Failed again. MIT's rules allowed only two attempts. His academic career was over at 24. He took a job at a small semiconductor company called Sylvania. Not because he loved chips. Because he needed a paycheck. Three years later his team got shut down. He moved to Texas Instruments. He turned a production line with almost zero yield into a working operation within months. TI noticed. They promoted him. Then promoted him again. Over 25 years he climbed to Senior VP of TI's entire global semiconductor business. Third most powerful person in the company. TI sent him to Stanford to finish the PhD that MIT wouldn't give him. This time he passed with flying colors. In the late 1970s, TI shifted away from semiconductors and into consumer electronics. Chang disagreed with the move. TI launched a personal computer called the TI-99/4. It was an embarrassing failure. Chang ran the consumer division. He took the blame. They moved him to a nothing role. Director of Quality and Productivity. His bonus was cut. His seniority was reduced. He described it himself: "put out to pasture." He resigned in 1983. He was 52. He took a job as president of General Instrument. That lasted about a year. The CEO wanted him to flip small companies. Chang wanted to build things. He was asked to leave. He was 54. Then Taiwan's government came calling. They wanted someone to build a semiconductor industry from scratch. Chang accepted. He left the country he'd lived in for 36 years. His idea was radical. A company that only makes chips for other companies. No competing with your own customers. A pure-play foundry. He asked Intel to invest. They said no. He asked TI. No. Motorola. No. AMD, Panasonic, Sony. All no. Only Philips, a Dutch electronics company, said yes. In February 1987, Morris Chang founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company with $220 million. He was 55. Then Intel's Andy Grove visited. He looked at the production quality. He placed an order. TSMC makes the chips inside your phone right now. It makes the majority of the world's advanced AI chips. Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD. They all depend on the company a 55-year-old built after failing twice and getting fired twice.
