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There was a really awesome deep history of TSMC on the Acquired podcast

https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc

> David: This may be the craziest part about the whole TSMC founding story. I'm 99.9% sure, Ben, you do not know this. Do you know what the pre-money valuation was on TSMC?

> Ben: No, I couldn't find that anywhere.

> David: It was $0. Morris Chang got no equity. Zero.

> Ben: So 100% of the company was owned by the investors?

> David: Fifty percent by the government and the other 50% were owned by the investors. Morris got nothing.

> Ben: And just got to keep his salary.

> David: He was a government employee.

> Ben: Wow.

> David: There by the grace of the government.

> Ben: Oh my God.

> David: Isn't that unbelievable? This is so the opposite of Silicon Valley.

I wonder if there are few things going on here. If TSMC was a success then he would be well enough rewarded and not everyone wants to be a billionaire. Then there is the reduced influence from having no equity. I guess if Chang was dependent on government support and confident in his ability to influence government then having some equity makes little difference?

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