Morris Chang’s Setbacks and Turning Points: The Chain of Events That Made TSMC Possible

Many developments are the result of a chain of chance events. First, Morris Chang was not admitted to MIT’s doctoral program. He was studying mechanical engineering at MIT at the time. Had he completed a doctorate in that field there, he might have taught and conducted research, or worked at an automobile manufacturer. In that case, there would of course have been no TSMC. Next, he moved to Stanford and switched to a doctorate in electrical engineering, then went to work at Texas Instruments, rising to a senior executive position. A turning point came when he failed to advance further at TI. Its senior leadership also did not consider his proposed semiconductor foundry model a viable direction. After a series of setbacks, he left TI. The next part of the story was Taiwan’s plan to develop its semiconductor industry. Sun Yun-suan invited Chang, who was born in Zhejiang and grew up in Nanjing, to Taiwan to lead the Industrial Technology Research Institute. At the age of 56, he founded TSMC. If any link in this chain had failed to fall into place, today’s TSMC might not exist. Had Chang intended to become an entrepreneur back then? Perhaps, if everything had gone smoothly, he would have become an executive at an automobile manufacturer or risen all the way to the top at TI. It was only through this succession of setbacks that turned into opportunities that we came to have today’s godfather of semiconductors and the unmatched TSMC.