so Samsung just agreed to hand out $26.6 billion in bonuses to its chip division workers this year. the average works out to about $340,000 per person. i had to sit with that for a minute.

the deal ties 10.5% of operating profit to bonuses going forward locked in for 10 years. workers pushed for 15%, settled for 10.5%, and it's still enough that JPMorgan says total performance pay hits roughly 12% of operating profit. the memory chip workers specifically could take home over $400k on top of their base. wild.

what got me is the context. this standoff was serious enough that South Korea's president, prime minister AND labor minister all had to step in. a strike would've cost the economy up to 1 trillion won a day. Samsung alone is nearly a quarter of all South Korean exports. that's how much weight this company carries.

stock jumped over 6% on the news, helped by $NVDA's results too. AI is making chip companies genuinely rich and the workers are finally getting a piece of it. is this the new normal for semis or is Samsung just a one-off? curious what you guys think