Samsung engineers like Lee are defecting to rival SK Hynix after the latter announced a $476,000 bonus fueled by record profits from HBM chips powering Nvidia's AI accelerators. Samsung's foundry division workers receive only $135,000, sparking demoralization. Lee's entire 30-person team applied to SK Hynix in July.

The bonus gap stems from SK Hynix's 10% profit-sharing (mostly cash) versus Samsung's division-tied 10.5% (mostly vesting stock). A union survey shows 81.5% of foundry workers plan to leave within two years; over 200 already departed since April. SK Hynix added 2,152 employees in H1 2026, targeting Samsung talent.

The AI boom flipped the market: SK Hynix now leads HBM supply after Samsung downsized its team in 2019. Both plan $2 trillion investments by 2040, but South Korea faces a 54,000 worker shortage by 2031. Courts are intervening—Samsung won an injunction blocking two ex-employees from joining SK Hynix for 18 months.

Samsung's unique foundry-memory integration is at risk. For HBM4, the base logic chip requires advanced foundry processes Samsung runs in-house, while SK Hynix outsources to TSMC. Losing foundry engineers could cripple collaboration, giving SK Hynix—now hiring foundry talent—an edge in next-gen HBM research.