⁍ Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee has died at 78.

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⁍ Lee transformed his father’s noodle-trading business into a $355 billion smartphone and chipmaking colossus.

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⁍ The second-generation leader’s mark on Korea Inc will endure, but so do scandals.

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– Lee Kun-hee, the ailing vice chairman of South Korea’s Samsung Group, has died. The 78-year-old “brought Samsung back from the brink of extinction and turned it into one of the world’s most successful and important companies,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in a statement, per the AP. Lee, the only son of Samsung founder Samsung Electronics founder Lee Kun-hee, led the conglomerate after his father’s death in 2008. He stepped down in 2008 after being convicted on bribery and tax evasion charges. A roundup of coverage: “Lee Kun-hee leaves behind an impressive, albeit deeply flawed, empire,” per Reuters. The Samsung chairman, who transformed his father’s noodle-trading business into a $355 billion smartphone and chipmaking colossus, has died. The second-generation leader’s mark on Korea Inc will endure, but so do scandals that threaten the family’s grip on power. To make an emphatic point about quality more than two decades ago, Lee set ablaze 150,000 of his company’s faulty mobile phones and fax machines in front of gathered employees. The bonfire embodied a relentless drive to remake Samsung into a renowned international brand alongside General Electric and Sony. It also underscored his abrasive and exacting management style, which included long meetings and pointed directives such as ‘change everything except your wife and children.'”