Source: Lishi Business Review Author: Tian Shanshan Riding the wave and reversing the trend, supporting the unstable building. In the chip industry dominated by male leaders, a Chinese female leader took command at a critical moment and led one of the most outstanding corporate transformations in Silicon Valley history. In 2014, Su Zifeng became the CEO of AMD. At this time, she had only been with the company for two years and had never been a CEO of any company before. AMD was in serious business crisis, with revenue down nearly 40%, CPU market share down more than two-thirds, and stock prices down 90% from their high point. Prior to her, AMD had changed CEOs four times in a row, but none had been able to change the loss situation. The CEO of its 50-year-old competitor Intel also said, "AMD will never come back again". Su Zifeng brought AMD back to life in just six years, and its stock price has grown more than 60-fold in the past decade, from $2 per share to around $160 today, reaching as high as $220 at its peak, and its market cap has surpassed that of its competitor Intel. As a result, Su Zifeng has been named Forbes' highest-earning female CEO for four consecutive years, named Fortune magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year" in 2021, and named Barron's"Best CEO" in the world. In addition, AMD is a formidable opponent to Nvidia. In early January 2019, AMD released the world's first 7nm graphics card ahead of Nvidia. In the CPU and GPU fields, although AMD's market share is in second place in the industry, it is the only manufacturer in the world that makes both CPU and GPU, and can make CPU and GPU on one chip. Su Zifeng is also known as the "Chip Queen". Ironically, she is a distant relative of Huang Renxun, the founder of Nvidia. Huang Renxun's mother is Su Zifeng's mother's aunt. Therefore, some people jokingly refer to the competition between these two companies as the "battle between cousin-in-law and niece-in-law". Why can Su Zifeng bring AMD back to life? Perhaps some answers can be found from her two remarks and her growth experience.

Milton Hershey is known as the "Henry Ford of the chocolate world". He created the world's number one chocolate company - Hershey. $Hershey (HSY.US)$ He also built a dreamy Hershey town, which is the prototype of the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

Hershey is a microcosm of the development of the American food industry, and it also carries the strong atmosphere of the American Dream.

Milton Hershey was deceived and impoverished by his father who was always thinking about getting rich quickly. His father also became a "persistent" "troublemaker" in his career. How did he escape the teasing of fate and create a true wealth myth?

From craftsmanship to mechanical precision, from a chocolate rolling machine to a priceless global brand, the hundred-year journey of Hershey chocolate is an epic of the American food industry's transformation from manual industry to large-scale industrial manufacturing. In the thriving Hershey in the United States, why did it fail in China?

Escaping the bondage of his father's fate.

In 1857, in a peaceful area of Pennsylvania, Fanny welcomed her first child, who later became known as Milton Hershey, the 'Henry Ford of the chocolate world.'

His father Henry, obsessed with getting rich every day, from oil to machinery... continued business attempts early on depleted their family property and farmland. Following the wandering Milton, who had already attended seven schools by the age of 13, but still remained illiterate.

Hershey's mother Fanny's siblings couldn't bear to watch, so they gave them a farm hoping they could live a stable life. However, driven by the dream of getting rich, Henry left home again, leaving Fanny to run the farm, supporting the children with income from selling eggs and brooms.

The hardships of life made Milton thin and pale, even having trouble affording school shoes, while his sister's life was forever stuck at the age of four due to a cold.

Fanny was determined not to let her son follow in his father's footsteps, hoping Milton would become a hardworking farmer or a down-to-earth entrepreneur. Henry, on the other hand, encouraged his son to become a writer, despite the teachers at the school thinking Milton was just wasting time. In the end, his mother convinced Milton to drop out in the fourth grade, believing that becoming a respected person is not just about studying.

His father, who wholeheartedly supported him becoming a writer, found Milton a job as a printing apprentice hoping to lay the foundation for his writing career. However, the job was tedious and the scolding from the boss became a daily occurrence. To escape this life, Milton deliberately damaged the machinery, forcing the boss to fire him.

At the age of 15, his mother helped Milton find a job as an apprentice in a confectionery shop. Candy had a long shelf life and high profits, she knew that Milton would eventually open his own shop, even paying extra money to the confectionery store to prevent Milton from doing things unrelated to candy.

However, his father criticized, saying, 'This is women's work with no future!'

Milton was obsessed with confectioners and learned how to make ice cream, caramel, and other candies. At the age of 19, Milton borrowed money from his aunt and started his own candy business in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, due to the economic depression in the United States and fluctuating raw material prices, he was unable to make a profit and had to close down.

Milton returned to his hometown and suddenly received a letter from his father. His father told him that Denver was full of opportunities and invited him to come and see for himself.

Despite the strong opposition from his mother and aunt, Milton set off. As soon as he arrived in Denver, he encountered an economic depression and almost got kidnapped to become a slave. Luckily, he managed to escape and started working in a candy store. Here, he discovered the ultimate secret of candy-making: using milk instead of paraffin to make candies, and adding vanilla and other spices, so that the caramel not only tasted good but also had a better shelf life.

With this valuable secret, he approached his aunt again to borrow money and open a store.

Learning from his previous experience, he conducted a thorough investigation in New York, understanding the preferences of suppliers and local customers, before embarking on the caramel business. New Yorkers quickly fell in love with this new flavor, but just as his business was thriving, his father came up with a 'new idea' once again.

Despite his father's previous business failures, Milton couldn't bear to refuse him, and unsurprisingly, he faced another failure.

He was almost mentally broken, bedridden, and had to hand over the store to his aunt and father to manage.

A few weeks later, my father brought another "new idea". Milton gave money again, because this time he was determined to get his father out of his business.

Milton, who was poorly managed, had to borrow money from relatives constantly until he no longer received any replies from them. The relatives all regarded Milton as the same as his father, and at 30 years old, he had to file for bankruptcy.

But just like his father had been searching for "new ideas" all his life, it seemed that Milton's life was destined to "open a confectionery store". He borrowed some money from a former accountant, rented a small room, and started making toffee again. A few months later, the toffee business allowed him to buy a small factory.

Faced with a shortage of staff and a huge funding gap, his mother and aunt appeared again. They didn't give up on him but hoped that he could figure it out for himself. His aunt helped him with a loan for large-scale production, but Milton's repayment deadline was only 90 days.

He started promoting the product in the streets and alleys, and found an importer from the United Kingdom. The other party said that if he could ship a large order to the United Kingdom, they would make the payment.

Without advance payment, without a contract, Milton wanted to give it a try.

A few weeks later, after Milton sent out the confectionery, he received a £500 check. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He finally paid off all his debts, and his toffee factory began to flourish.

Who would have thought that Milton would personally put an end to all this once again!

2 Chocolate.

In 1897, Milton decided to sell his 21-year-old caramel business for a price of 1 million US dollars.

He bought a deserted pasture in his hometown of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and started a new business - chocolate.

All this was because four years ago, at an exhibition in Chicago, he discovered a German-made chocolate rolling machine. In the 19th century, after Europeans solved the problem of solidifying cocoa, solid chocolate became a luxury item in the court. This equipment made him see the opportunity for chocolate to enter ordinary people's homes.

At that time, the United States had already replaced Europe as the new hegemon, and the consumption power of the rich on high-end snacks was growing.

In such an era full of opportunities, Milton's hometown, an ancient trading town, with its unique geographical location and abundant agricultural resources, provided a fertile soil for Hershey's rise. The fresh milk from the ranch and the high-quality production environment foreshadowed that this place would become the cradle of a sweet venture.

In 1899, after two years of unremitting efforts and countless experiments, Milton finally started a revolution in the world of chocolate. He innovatively added milk to chocolate and launched the brand-new Hershey's chocolate bar. This move not only changed the taste of chocolate, but also opened a new chapter in the popularization of chocolate.

Over 100 years ago, Milton established a complete chocolate industry chain with forward-thinking. From fresh milk supplied directly from the ranch to carefully selected cocoa beans, he became the pioneer of large-scale chocolate production in the world.

Milton turned fresh milk into delicious condensed milk, which allowed milk chocolate to be preserved for months without spoiling. Condensed milk is easier to pump than powdered milk, saving time in chocolate molding and significantly reducing costs.

Milton also hired nutrition experts and set strict hygiene standards. With unbeatable price advantages, Hershey quickly took the leading position in the market.

In 1912, Milton and his wife, Kitty, stood at the crossroads of fate. They held tickets for the Titanic, ready to board the 'unsinkable' giant ship. However, at the last moment, they unexpectedly canceled their trip.

They escaped the world-shocking disaster and allowed Hershey's story to continue.

In 1937, when World War II broke out, Milton received an emergency mission from the U.S. Army -- to produce a special chocolate called 'D Ration'. This chocolate not only had to taste good, but also had to withstand the test of real combat. After multiple rigorous tests, the military's orders came pouring in like snowflakes.

In 1941, before the outbreak of the Pearl Harbor attack, Hershey's chocolate orders had reached 0.6 million.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States entered the war and Hershey's production line began to operate day and night. In 1942 alone, 0.11 billion D Rations were produced. This chocolate was not only widely used in the U.S. military, but also exported to other Allied forces.

In order to meet the needs of soldiers in tropical regions during the Vietnam War, Hershey developed a 'tropical ration' that could withstand temperatures of at least one hour without melting at a temperature of 50 degrees celsius. In just 1944, the military ordered 52 million bars.

In the last few months of the war, Hershey's chocolate production reached as high as 25 million bars per week. Over the 5 years of US military involvement, up to 0.3 billion bars of chocolate were delivered to the US military. It even became a standard food on lunar spacecraft. However, over time, the status of pure chocolate in the military was gradually replaced by mixed energy bars.

In October 1945, Milton passed away at the age of 88 due to pneumonia. At the time of his passing, Hershey's company had grown to be the supplier of 90% of the chocolate in the USA.

3 Burmese Rosewood Tree Knot

In the life of a tree, there is a beautiful and expensive miracle - the tree knot. When the Burmese Rosewood tree is attacked by wind, rain, or pests, it tenaciously self-repairs, growing a hard and unique tree knot at the injured area, eventually transforming into a priceless material.

Like the tree knot of Burmese Rosewood, Milton, who experienced a turbulent and interrupted education, harbored a deep desire for family and knowledge like a burning flame in his heart. He eventually transformed his life struggles into strength and wealth.

Selling off the caramel business back then, buying the barren ranch, in addition to the passion for the chocolate business, there was also Milton's desire to compensate for his lost childhood.

In 1909, Hershey's chocolate firmly established itself in the United States, and Milton established the Hershey Industrial School in Hershey Town to educate orphans across America. It became the largest private school in the USA, with dormitories in beautiful villas, providing free board and education.

Free education and a warm home were exactly what he lacked in his childhood.

The Hershey couple, inspired by modern community concepts, meticulously crafted a sweet utopia. They freely expressed his childhood poetry and romance in this chocolate town.

He constructed roads, built department stores, banks, restaurants, men's and women's clubs, providing rich living facilities for the company's employees. The bell ringing from five churches, the sound of books from two schools, all narrate the harmony and vitality of this town.

Hershey Park, a joyful place with 11 roller coasters, is known as one of the largest amusement parks in the USA. Hershey Park, Hershey Gardens, the zoo, and the golf course are embedded in the town like emeralds, becoming a model of greening construction in American small towns.

The Hershey couple did not have their own children, and they donated all their wealth to the Hershey School through a fund. The school currently holds 70% of the voting rights of the Hershey company. The senior management of the company jokingly said that this world's sixth-largest food company is controlled by a group of children.

Post-Milton Era

In 1945, after Milton passed away, the Hershey company, like a giant ship without a leader, continued to sail through the wind and waves under the guidance of a professional team. Expanding its territory, frequent acquisitions, transforming from the chocolate kingdom to a giant in the food industry.

However, on the journey in the Chinese market, Hershey always seems to narrowly miss success.

In 1995, Hershey set foot on this ancient and mysterious land, but without complete industry chain support, nor the brand halo like in the United States. In the battlefield of numerous Chinese brands, Hershey lacks both a price advantage and a brand armor, facing a dilemma.

In 2014, Hershey, with ambition in mind, spent 3.5 billion yuan to acquire Shanghai Golden Monkey, attempting to break into the Chinese market. Dreaming of sharing a piece of the pie with brands like Mars, Ferrero, Nestle, and others.

But what awaited them was continuous losses.

In 2019, Hershey tried to turn things around with offline concept stores, but the sudden outbreak of the pandemic dealt them a heavy blow. In 2020, Hershey's global sales reached a high of 8.15 billion US dollars, but in China, sales plummeted by 46%. Faced with enormous pressure, Hershey had to lay off employees, reduce operations, and even rumors of pulling out of China emerged.

Although Hershey quickly denied it, it is undeniable that without a strong advantage in heavy industry, brand recognition, and the sentimental attachment of a Hershey town, Hershey's journey in China has indeed been difficult. It will require more effort for them to find new growth points in the land of China.

Editor/Somer