How Does Willy Shih Size Up a Foxconn Plant?

Willy Shih says he sizes up a plant from first principles: once Foxconn was not going to build a glass plant across the street in Wisconsin, an LCD factory there was not going to exist.

A panel factory needs a stable floor, so the site has to include the structural steel and the concrete that hold it still. After an earlier Decoder conversation, residents went to the town zoning hearings, sent him the plans, and asked whether this would be a panel factory. He told them it would not. The drawings did not have enough concrete for one.

The Verge had already used him as a source on what it takes to build an LCD plant anywhere, not only in Wisconsin. The missing concrete was the tell.