This is a kind of an interesting survey that was done by Forbes:

Out of the 100 richest people in Korea, only 22 made their own fortune, as against 71 out of the 100 wealthiest Americans. Among the Korean companies whose founders started their own business since the 1980s, only two achieved sales of more than W1 trillion (US$1=W1,293) — Woongjin Coway, founded in 1989, and NHN, founded in 1999. This is the outcome of analysis of the 100 richest Koreans based on holdings of listed stocks and of the 100 richest Americans by the business magazine Forbes in March.

Park Sang-yong, the dean of the Graduate School of Business at Yonsei University, said, “It is more difficult in Korea than in the U.S. to foster small and medium-sized enterprises into conglomerates and accumulate wealth. This means our economic metabolism is not as vivacious or vigorous.”  [Chosun Ilbo]

Read the rest to see who Korea’s self made business leaders are.