Samsung originally launched in 1938 as a modest grocery trading store in Korea, dealing primarily in dried Korean fish, locally grown noodles, and various agricultural products.

A closer look

Samsung originally launched in 1938 as a modest grocery trading store in Korea, dealing primarily in dried Korean fish, locally grown noodles, and various agricultural products. The multinational conglomerate that now manufactures your sleek smartphones, massive flat-screen televisions, and smart refrigerators started out by shipping dehydrated seafood to China. It is incredibly jarring to realize that the arch-nemesis of Apple and the titan of modern consumer electronics spent its formative decades just trying to move bulk orders of dried fish. They violently pivoted through textiles, insurance, and sugar refining before finally settling on semiconductors, showing that pure, chaotic corporate desperation is often the secret ingredient to becoming a multi-billion dollar tech giant that simultaneously makes military hardware and washing machines