By Cho Mu-hyun
The two founders of NHN, the company that runs Korea’s most widely used Web portal, Naver, eventually went their separate ways but are now facing off in the rapidly expanding mobile market.
Kim Beom-soo and Lee Hae-jin, who were CEOs of Han Games and Naver, respectively in 1999, merged their firms in 2000. The two Seoul University graduates and friends named the new company NHN in 2001, and together expanded to become the biggest Internet browser in Korea.
Things were great until 2007 when Kim left to do his own thing, while Lee as chairman led the company to become a large corporation.