12/14/2025
In a tale that has become part of modern Korean legend, Chung Ju-yung’s rise began with a desperate act of youthful ambition.
As a teenager in rural Kangwon Province, he sold one of his father’s cows without permission to buy a train ticket to Seoul, driven by an unshakable belief that opportunity lay beyond the mountains of his village.
In the capital, he worked any job he could find, eventually opening a small repair shop that would become the seed of a future empire.
Through grit, frugality, and bold risk-taking, Chung founded Hyundai, transforming it from a modest workshop into one of the world’s most formidable conglomerates, spanning construction, automobiles, shipbuilding, and heavy industry.
Decades later, at the height of his success, he returned to his boyhood village in a symbolic gesture that stunned the nation: he delivered 1001 cows a thousand to repay his father’s long-ago loss, and one extra to “erase the interest,” as he famously put it.
The moment cemented his legacy not just as a titan of industry, but as a man who never forgot the humble beginnings that shaped him.
