Terry Gou is the chairman of Hon Hai Precision, the owners of Foxconn. He’s also an insensitive asshat. At the company year-end party at the Taipei Zoo he said: “I have a headache how to manage one million animals.” HILARIOUS!
Foxconn does have one million employees at their mega-factories/city/ghettos, where they manufacture 40 per cent of the gadgets people have in the world, including iPhones, iPads, Xboxes and Sony whatevers. In a recent New York Times report, those factories also cook “an average of three tons of pork and 13 tons of rice a day” for their “one million animals”.
His company has apologised in a press note and argued that Gou’s remarks were taken out of context by the media:
Gou is aware that the media reports are misleading and offensive and he apologises to anyone who feels offended. However, Gou did not deliberately slander the workers as some media described.
So wait, if he didn’t “slander” the workers, why does he apologise? He could just have denied it, right? And how can this phrase be taken out of context?
In any case, it’s good to know that these guys have such a high concept of the people working for them. I’m sure this attitude helps towards their well being. [AFP]