Foxconn to staff: ‘Put down the drill and launch a start-up!’

Foxconn boss Terry Gou wants to let a hundred flowers blossom at the contract manufacturing giant, with new plans to support up to five spin-off companies every year in a bid to strengthen the firm by supporting entrepreneurship.

Chairman Gou, who has seen the company he founded 40 years ago grow into a multi-billion dollar business, is now looking for ways to take that growth to the next level, whilst also pondering the thorny issue of his succession.

His solution is to allow three to five subsidiaries each year become separate companies, which Foxconn will support with orders, according to Channel News Asia (here).

After three years, Foxconn orders will apparently drop below 50 per cent as the start-up is forced to cycle without its stabilisers.

The idea is to eventually create a loose association of diverse Foxconn-backed companies which can better compete with rivals across the globe, whilst also potentially grooming a successor.

"I want Hon Hai employees to have a chance to be bosses,” Gou apparently told reporters at a post Chinese New Year event on Friday.

The Taiwanese giant is also said to be launching a new project dubbed Dreams of Being Rich Come True, which aims to give business savvy youngsters help designing and developing moulds.

This philanthropic side to Foxconn and 64-year-old Gou is in stark contrast to the stories of staff suicides, periodic outbursts of rioting and allegations of labour rights abuses which often follow the controversial manufacturer. ®