Terry Gou

Terry Gou is one of those figures who built something so massive that most people interact with his work every single day without knowing his name — Foxconn assembles iPhones, PlayStations, and basically every major consumer gadget you can think of, making it the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer. Growing up in modest circumstances in Taiwan, Gou started the company in 1974 with a small loan and turned it into a global industrial empire employing over a million workers. He's a grinding, hard-nosed industrialist in the old-school mold — the kind of guy who allegedly sleeps four hours a night and demands the same pace from everyone around him. His political ambitions in Taiwan added another layer of unpredictability to an already outsized personality. Whatever you think of his labor practices or management style, the sheer scale of what he built from scratch is genuinely staggering.

Name (English)

Terry Gou

Name (Japanese)

郭台銘

Reading

かく・たいめい

Born

October 8, 1950 (age 75)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Tiger

Origin

Banqiao District, Taiwan

Occupation

entrepreneur / business magnate / computer scientist / politician

High school

New Taipei Municipal Banqiao Senior High School

University

Taipei University of Marine Technology

Motto

Private

• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/terrygou1018/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%AD%E5%8F%B0%E9%8A%98

Tags

• entrepreneur
• business magnate
• computer scientist

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.