Joe Chen, President of MediaTek, graduated from the Institute of Electronics Engineering of NYCU (Chiao Tung Campus) and was awarded the first Outstanding Alumni of NYCU in 2022. How does Chen bring out such good performances in MediaTek facing all the rapid technological changes and development at the time? In this interview, he raised three major issues for strategic thinking, which are not only applicable to corporate decision-making but also suitable for contemplating the direction of one’s life, as mentioned below:
On Seizing the Trend: Figuring out the Forces Behind the Technology
I think these 20 to 30 years have been the most peaceful and fastest-growing years for human society. The division of labor and technological development in the age of globalization has enhanced the efficiency of human society, boosting the global GDP from US$33 trillion to US$86 trillion in the past 2 to 3 decades. Technology has changed our lives, and we are honored to be a part of this industry.
MediaTek is a technology company, thus the idea of technology is our core issue: what types of technologies shall we develop? Are these technologies useful to human beings? Are these plans feasible? These are all valid concerns when considering our technology strategy.
In my opinion, before investing in any technology, we must first think about what applications it can bring. On the issue of development, technology and application are diametrically opposed forces. Just like tying a shoelace, it is a process of pulling and pushing. Take the PC industry as an example; technology has been driving computing power to increase for decades. While working on improving CPU efficiency, the engineer does not have to wonder what applications will be provided by the rise in computing power since they believes that suitable applications will appear as technology and computing power advance. As a result, as the CPU becomes faster and quicker, the software in the program becomes slower and slower as a growing amount of software is loaded onto the same system.
Communication is also a power that pushes the development of a technological society. While human beings have infinite needs for communication and the internet, Engineers don’t have to think about the applications of the 5G network before its invention, nor do they have to think about what applications a 5G network can be put into. As long as you can build a network that’s fast enough, there will be a bunch of smart people (and most of them are young) who will figure out how to use it.
Sometimes people in the field of technology might overthink. There are two kinds of uncertainties we often have to face in making technology: one is the failure to create certain technology due to technical difficulties that cannot be overcome, such as millimeter waves; the other is the doubt about the applications of the invented technology. There are times when we may wonder whether the technology is useful or not. In the former case, NYCU and MediaTek have many excellent engineers who can cope with the situation. In the latter case, I always tell my colleagues that the demand for computing and communication technologies is unlimited; as long as technologies can be created, we should believe that they would find their place in the world.
Of course, this is not the case for some technologies, which develop too fast to find suitable applications in the industries. Yet if we can understand the power behind different technologies and the real business value behind them, we will be able to maintain the right mindset when facing the challenges of uncertainty in the future.
Customer Stickiness: An Ecosystem to Generate Recurring Revenue
The second topic I would like to address here is creating an ecosystem of one’s own. As a tech company, if you can make your technology more approachable, it can enhance customer stickiness or can raise the cost for customers to switch to another competitor’s platform. All of these things can be called ecosystems in a broader sense. Can IC design companies or fabs like TSMC build their ecosystems? The answer has to be found out by the companies themselves.
The third issue is service. The so-called customer-oriented industries are all about good service. Companies should think about how to transform their service into a business that can receive revenue through monthly subscriptions. They may think about why customers are willing to subscribe and pay money to companies like Chunghwa Telecom or Netflix. While Microsoft is also promoting a subscription system, we as people in the industry must figure out what are the incentives for consumers to make buyouts and subscriptions.
Just as cloud computing has led to the emergence of cross-platform services and a subscription-based economy, many technologies are complementary to each other, and technology companies must keep an eye on the changes and interactions of different technologies, and how to drive new applications or solve the problems of human society. In my opinion, all technologies will eventually find their suitable application scenarios, only these scenarios can be large or small; some are for niche markets, and some technologies are well-designed and can become widespread mainstream applications.
Winning the Competition: The Importance of the Right Time, Place, and People
The industry has changed a lot in the past few years, and MediaTek has been doing well in the past two to three years, which is the result of everyone’s efforts. Opportunities are for those who are ready. I always share with my colleagues in the company that gaining competitiveness is nothing but three things: the right time, right place, and the right people.
“The right time” means the trend of the industry. It cannot be changed, but you can observe which direction the industrial trend is heading. “The right place” indicates the field one chooses; as the trend is changing all the time, it is important to figure out the reason for one’s own choices. As you choose one field over another, there are always different opportunities, risks, investments, and rewards, all relating to what kind of company you want to become. Lastly, “the right people”, for me, is a rather simple factor. In MediaTek, which is a company of a certain scale, any project involves thousands of people. Furthermore, How to get these thousands of people to work in the same direction, maximize their effectiveness, and show the power of a team, is the exact value of “the right people”.
Competition is all about the right time, place, and people, all of which are indispensable. In the future, technology development will accelerate in the future, and there are still many untapped potential. We hope to collaborate to pave a wider and more expansive path for Taiwan’s semiconductor or high-tech industries.
(This article is extracted from the November 2022 issue of Chiao Tung Yosheng Magazine, and the full text is originally taken from the speech of the “Chiao Tung University Advanced Manager Training Program”.)