“We look forward to another success story with startups here in Daejon,” said President Park Geun-hye during a ceremony to launch yet another innovation center in Korea. While government support for Korean startups has been impressive, is it time for the politicians to take a step back? At some point the ecosystem must be allowed to develop of its own volition and startups surviving off the back of government handouts alone must…

In the past top Korean business men have used their position to escape jail, but in the recent presidential election ‘democratizing business’ in Korea was a major talking point, by both front-runners, amid a growing wave of discontent among the public that top business tycoons have been getting off lightly, despite clear cases of corruption.