YouSaid · the spoken record

Alan Yeung

lines on the record: 69
first: 2022-04-19
most recent: 2022-04-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And if after the election they all die down and everything back to let's work together and make it happen, we would be very happy. But that wasn't really the case. We know why, because there another election coming up with the biggest supporter of all, which is President Trump. So we live with that. The company has been very reserved, very conservative in terms of making statements. We did work with the incumbent. We had said nothing negative about the prior or the later administrations. And I think that remained to be the same. But I'll come back to you what you said about innovation center. Because that was my idea. We had talked about how to build up the capability and how to leverage all other places and location within Wisconsin. And that would be one of the ways that we tap into local.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tries to make economic sense given a couple consultants and advisors and other states have hired that I would just answer to that point by saying two things one nobody really had the crystal ball and the market changes dramatically in terms of supply and demand and it's very cyclical okay now When you go back to what we had said before, I still believe to date and five years from now there is a tremendous need for a TFTLCD fab in the United States, whether you can build it in Wisconsin because everybody after you sign the contract to come became a lot less supportive not because they don't want the investment because it became political and articles came out attacking us so that it may score a point or two might not be very”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That attack was rooted in the exact thing you said, which is that the market for LCDs was being overwhelmed by Chinese suppliers and no one could see the business case for an LCD factory in Wisconsin at higher labor rates without the supply of workers to staff such a factory. That was the criticism. This doesn't make economic sense given.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, that's not true. I'm not placing all these attributes or reasoning behind the election here, but the environment in terms of when you have a company coming in making an investment, whether it's $100 million or billion dollars, in this case $10 billion. Just put in perspective, it's $10,000 million. The kind of attack that we received almost from day one after the contract was signed was basically unprecedented.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But Alan, let me ask you a question. I get that. I believe that. Every politician wants to see a giant factory with 13,000 jobs in their backyard. Josh wrote the story where he visited all of Foxconn's innovation centers that were empty before the election, before Walker was voted out and Evers was voted in. And there was no factory. And I would tell you that maybe the people of Wisconsin were looking at promises that were made that were not delivered upon and said the guy who made us the promises, Scott Walker, didn't deliver. And we voted it a new person. And the election of Tony Evers is not Y Foxcon didn't build a factory because they were already not building a factory.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot of collaboration between Governor Walker and his administration with the company called Foxconn, and we appreciate that we're grateful for the support. But we also were very thankful for the bipartisanship that we encountered coming into not just Wisconsin, but the other states. And you both read my book. I have compliment a lot of that within Wisconsin, you know, going up and down the state route in I-94. You have the mayor and also the current executive of Milwaukee being there for us and also the current execut and the mayor in Kenosha, we're also very supportive.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Based on tremendous amount of support and subsidies within mainland China, and even the fox gone fab in southern China had a tough time competing, that would be the market side. But in the long term, it would absorb all the volume and the company had every intention to build both the Gen six and the Gen 10.5 fab. And I think we have shared it publicly that if the market condition is not ripe for a 10.5, we'll build Gen 6 fab first, and then we'll follow on the 10.5. The business environment, the investment climate change a lot in Wisconsin, partly because we did have a change of leadership within the governor's mansion. And that's not the entire reason, but a big chunk of that is because if you remember, there were”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am writing that second book, and it should come out sometime this year. The title of the book is Wisconsin Valley. Quite honestly, most people don't want to mention that or even the science park had changed his name back to Foxhorn Science Park. Long and short answer to that, Josh, is the business condition had changed, but also the investment climate had changed dramatically in Wisconsin. So I expand on that a little bit before in my public comment the last few weeks. I'll probably have a lot more to share in the second book. And if you do invite me to come back, I can tell you a bit more. The market plays in a global sense is that the Chinese manufacturers were flooding the market with a lot of the big panels because they have a lot of Gen 10.5 or even one of them maybe a Gen 11.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But you were there during the crucial period when the factory didn't get built. So could you give us, you must have some ideas about why that didn't happen, even if you hadn't written the second book yet, could you tell us why in your view there is not a factory in Wisconsin?”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The first chapters of the story and how that came about. And quite honestly, I think your reports over the year had talked about how political this endeavor or the project had become. It had never been intended to be political, but unfortunately once it gets into that high profile, it turned Very political and it became Bit of a football later, and I think that narrative, a lot of the stories will come in the second book in the follow-up.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I do appreciate you take the interest and did very extensive reporting on that. And I commend you for that. And a lot of the facts and data you share more completely and extensively than any other outlet or report organization. And that's a really great contribution and great discourse. Well, Josh did all the work. So congratulations to Josh. I appreciate the compliment. I just want to get back to this. You wrote an entire book about Fox on Wisconsin that ends before the thing happens. It's all about how the deal came to be, but it just doesn't address the fact that it was never executed. There's no factory. Why not address that in the book? Well, that would be the next book. And originally that would be one book, but it will just take way too long and also the book will be very thick. So right now, what I would like to do is to share.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think if you read the book and you did, and I thank you for that, it stopped right around the end of the year 2017. I think everybody, including myself, fully believed that the Gen 10.5 Fab would happen. And a great deal of work went in there. And until later on, that was the plan. And that was the intent. And we did have the plan. Oh, by the way, I want to thank the two of you and the Verge for covering the story so extensively not everybody actually had put in the time and effort to do that. And I also want to clarify that, I mean, up until this point, I have not talked to the media, definitely have not talked to the Verge. Oh, I know. We tried to talk to you a lot. You always said no. Yeah, well, we have very straight policy, especially given my role at the company and also my responsibility for the project.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hey, Josh, how are you? So, Alan, you Yeah, I wrote that book in the past year and a half, partly because I think there are a lot of untold stories that need to be told. And I want to share some of the interesting backstories and narratives so that people know a lot of great deal of work and tireless people and patriots work very hard to bring this investment into the United States and that brought the project to Wisconsin. So Josh and I covered this project extensively at the Verge the whole time. We've also both read the book. Here's what I want to tell you if you just read this book cover to cover you would end fully believing that there is a generation 10.5 LCD factory in southeastern Wisconsin. There is not a factory. What happened?”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was also very excited to talk to Alan. I felt throughout the course of our reporting that if Foxun was just a little bit more transparent, things would have gone a lot better for them throughout the region. But there was just kind of the brick wall and the insistence that they were building a factory that someone plainly was not there and is still not there. We should get into the interview. I will warn everyone that Alan is planning on two books. So the first one that he's just published is called Flying Eagle. It's all about how the deal came to be, the process of negotiating the deal. Many of the answers to the questions we asked are apparently coming in the next book. And Alan makes reference to it several times. Just a fair warning. It's going to come up a lot, but we did our best. A couple of notes before we start. This one's in the weeds because Josh and I are so deep in the story and obviously so is Alan. You're going to hear us talk a lot about LCD fabs. LCD fabs are LCD fabrication facilities. It's where you make liquid crystal displays.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. A lot of people really believed the promises. They did hire a lot of locals initially and they left good jobs to come be part of this manufacturing renaissance that they've been told was happening in Wisconsin, obviously, as a strong manufacturing history, and a lot of them wanted to see that begin anew in this sort of new industry for the United States.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's pretty good. At this point with this much distance, I'm like, that would have been a pretty fun summer, but you heard from employees and I heard from employees that they had really bought into this project, that they were going to revitalize Wisconsin. They felt very committed to not only the project, but the area, the region a lot of people from Wisconsin left jobs to join Foxconn. And at the end of it, they felt betrayed, I think, is the only correct word.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, that was one of the many Foxconn projects. It was supposed to be a smart city program in Racine with self-driving shuttles that were going to help people commute to the factory that did not exist. Foxconn just ended up buying some golf carts which were not self-driving and the employees just raced around an empty building.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whole Foxconn Debacle is not that it didn't happen, but that for years, Foxconn kept insisting that it was happening, that it was building an LCD factory when it obviously was not, that it was also doing all these other things, building innovation centers around the state, doing self-driving cars, doing AI. It seemed like for a period there, every couple of months, Foxconn was announcing some new project. The employees that did believe these promises came there and found that they really had very little to do. Some were asked to find out what Foxconn should do in Wisconsin. Others just watched Netflix in the office.”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The cyclical nature of the LCD business meant that we were foreseeably on the precipice of a bust. There was going to be a glut in these LCDs. We didn't really need another fabrication facility anywhere in the world, much less in Wisconsin. And then Foxconn has a history of sort of promising these giant projects that then don't materialize. So there were some obvious reasons this didn't make any sense. They turned out to be justified, you know, where we stand now, the project employs maybe a few hundred people. There is no LCD fabrication facility. Instead, there is a facility about 120th the size is empty. Local officials are trying to find tenants to do literally anything in it. The contract has been downsized. FoxCon is aiming for about 1400 people now. It is not materialized. It's not there. And maybe the most surprising and unusual thing about the”
2022-04-19 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · A former Foxconn executive tries to explain what went wrong in Wisconsin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT