The future of Foxconn

At TechCrunch, John Biggs presents a series on the future of Foxconn, a major supplier for western consumer electronics companies such as Apple. Made infamous by a series of suicides, the truth is more complex, found in the statistics of China's economic rise and the countless human stories that add up to it. The firm's vast campus city is home to thousands of workers, many of them living in company dormitories. Just feeding them is a massive, industrial-scale operation in its own right. In Shenzhen, home of its HQ, the median age is under 25. And while conditions are in fact better than other firms like it, its sheer size makes its problems so much bigger.