Name Chong Lee | ||
Chong Mong Lee (born 1928) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He founded Diamond Multimedia in 1982.
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Early life
Lee was born near Seoul in 1928 to a father who traded Chinese herbal medicine. He was the youngest of five children. Leaving school at 12 because the fees were unaffordable, Lee spent his "teenage years repairing fishing boats, mixing and slicing Chinese herbs and cleaning a pawnshop." Despite working, he was able to study and sit for the national college entrance exam, earning a place in university. He graduated and won a Korean government sponsored scholarship to study for a Master's in library science at Vanderbilt University.
After his studies in the States, Lee took over the pharmacy shop his brothers had built after his older brother died of a heart attack.
Diamond Multimedia
He emigrated to the US in 1970 and ran an export business, selling golf balls to Japan. He founded Diamond Multimedia in 1982 but initially was not successful. The company lost millions and Lee suffered personal setbacks including losing a home and marriage, leading him to contemplate suicide while pointing a gun to his head.
Lee would shift the focus of his company to multimedia. An engineer at his company, Hyung Hwe Huh, developed a graphics accelerator that won over Gateway, a new client that would mark the start of a rapid expansion. Diamond was ranked the 17th fastest growing private company in the US in 1993 and had a public offering in 1995.
Philanthropy
Lee contributed $15 million in 1997 to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.