Amid various issues such as’half the property donation’ and’the controversy on the evaluation of employees in the company’, Chairman Kim Bum-soo opened his mouth for the first time.
On the 25th, Kakao Chairman Kim Beom-soo (pictured) held a meeting with employees in the company,’Brian Talk After’. The meeting was organized to share ideas with executives and employees regarding the donation by Chairman Kim, who revealed his plans to donate private property. Chairman Kim and nine employees from affiliates attended the meeting held at the Kakao Pangyo Office that day. The rest of the executives and employees watched the conference broadcast in real time through’Kakao TV’.
Chairman Kim picked Bill Gates as a role model. He said, “When I saw a picture of the founder of Microsoft at Bill Gates that he would create an operating system (OS), I thought for the first time that I should start a business, too. When I watched Gates create a foundation, I thought,’Entrepreneur can also make a foundation,’ and benchmarked it.” Said.
He added, “U.S. IT businessmen basically pledged to do the Giving Pledge (a pledge to donate half of their assets) is spreading in Silicon Valley like a culture,” he said. “I thought this was an environment that could spread to Korea if I could do it well.” . He added, “It’s okay in terms of big donations, but I hope you don’t take me as a hero or something like this to save Korea.”
Chairman Kim said, “Unlike the chaebol, I think that this is the role that IT industry people who are self-made and do not intend to pass on to their children,” he said. “I don’t have money, and I want to spend money to solve social problems.” .
On this day, the employees who attended the online and offline conference presented various ideas for solving social problems. There were also various fields such as cultural property retrieval, job difficulties, startup support, cultural property retrieval, and environmental protection. However, Chairman Kim also suggested that he wants to focus on ideas that he likes and can do well.
In a similar vein, regarding the social activity plan for the retrieval of cultural properties, Chairman Kim said, “I don’t know if it will change later, but the past is not an area of great interest to me.” “I am interested in the educational gap or artificial intelligence (AI) talent.” At the conference that day, many opinions were presented that the social problem that Kakao can solve as an IT company is’digital education’.
Recently, he said, “I think it’s a warning light,” regarding the fact that a person suspected of being an employee of Kakao posted a will on an anonymous bulletin board. “We’re all troubled people, so we can’t be a perfect organization,” he said. “I want to ask you to be considerate and trust each other.”
Chairman Kim said, “If there is trust, we are not afraid of conflict. A company that oppresses us uncomfortablely should try not to do so, and it should be an environment where we can talk to my colleagues, my boss, and my CEO, not to inform the outside world.” Said. He added, “I still believe that the company has the will to solve the problem and has a basic mindset. If you do not have that will, I would like to advise you to leave.”
He also mentioned the issue of evaluation compensation. Chairman Kim said, “Because Kakao has a pretty strong ability to create added value, of course, I want to become a company with the most rewards in our industry, and I think it is. There are shortcomings, but there are some differences.” .
He said, “In the long term and straightforward, compared to Naver, Naver’s annual salary and incentives have been (similarly) out of line with Naver’s high operating profit. Fortunately, however, Kakao has more stock options than Naver. Overall, who is more likely to have more stock options than Naver. I want to balance it through an objective comparison.”
Reporter Mingi Koo [email protected]