Samsung seeks to reinvent itself in Silicon Valley

Sand Hill Road

Another theme that is developing at the conference is that technology innovation is no longer enough to bring success. It has become necessary to innovate at the business model level as well.

Sohn, declined to say how many people Samsung would employ at the Silicon Valley innovation center.  "Budget is not an issue but it is not something that depends on scale."

Overall Samsung expects to employ several thousand engineers in Silicon Valley by 2020, but only a small percentage of these would be in the innovation center. "It's not just looking at technology, it's looking at business models, collaborations and ecosystems.

Sohn argued that this sort of work could not be done at Samsung's traditional locations which were focused on manufacturing excellence. Sohn said that business model innovation still tends to originate in the United States and a few other locations around the world.

"We're putting it in Sand Hill Road. That's making a statement," said Sohn. Sand Hill Road is well known for its concentration of venture capital companies. Samsung already has an innovation center in Israel Sohn said. He also said that Cambridge in England could be a suitable location. Samsung now has about 300 staff in Cambridge through the acquisition of the handset connectivity/location development operation of CSR plc.

In terms of the total number of Samsung innovation centers around the world Sohn estimated it could be as few five. "There are not that many places around the world where truly innovative thinking is going on," he said.


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