[Op-Ed] Megastudy Chairman Son Jooeun Fosters a Healthy Market Ecosystem Through Creative Destruction

Megastudy’s share of the high school online education market rose from 20% in 2015 to 69% in 2022, expanding equal educational opportunities

Megapass made high-quality lectures available affordably to large numbers of consumers, shifting the market from supplier-centered to consumer-centered

Established the Yoon Min Creative Investment Foundation with a personal contribution of 30 billion won, setting an example for the free market economy by returning profits to society

Without question, the person whose forward-looking insight overturned the paradigm of the private education market is Chairman Jooeun Son. By introducing the innovative business model of online lectures through “Megastudy,” he helped realize equality of educational opportunity beyond the constraints of time and space. His path demonstrates not merely success in the education market that he built with his own efforts, but also the qualities of a “creative destroyer” who foresaw expansion into a new market.

The myth of Jooeun Son was cemented with Megastudy’s listing in 2004 and its rapid growth thereafter. As the contactless market grew more quickly after COVID-19, Megastudy Education’s share of the high school online education market rose from 20% in 2015 to 69% in 2022, producing the effect of providing equal educational opportunities anywhere in the country. These statistical achievements show just how powerful innovation can be as a driver of growth within the order of a free market economy.

His success stemmed from deep insight into the “digital transformation of educational content.” In particular, through the “Megapass” product launched in 2016, he overcame the limitations of traditional offline cram schools and built a system that provided high-quality lectures affordably to large numbers of consumers. This is an example of maximizing market efficiency by reorganizing a supplier-centered market into a consumer-centered one.

Chairman Son’s entrepreneurial spirit extends beyond the pursuit of profit to social responsibility. He contributed 30 billion won of his personal wealth to establish the “Yoon Min Creative Investment Foundation,” investing in young entrepreneurs and contributing to the development of the startup ecosystem. The foundation operates programs such as the “Youth Challenge School,” which provides education aimed at fostering entrepreneurship among teenagers. By returning the profits it helped generate back to the market, it creates a virtuous cycle and serves as an example of how corporate activity can nurture the potential of future generations in a free market economy.

Chairman Son has long expressed a deep sense of social indebtedness, recognizing that the wealth he accumulated came from South Korea’s “private education bubble.” His management philosophy, “Study hard and give to others,” is not merely a slogan; it emphasizes the ethical responsibility of entrepreneurs that the pursuit of private profit should contribute to the public good. In this way, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is established not as regulation that undermines market order, but as a core value that ensures the sustainability of the free market economy.

The growth Chairman Jooeun Son achieved through Megastudy exemplifies the creative destruction described by economist Joseph Schumpeter. “Creative destruction” refers to the essential process of capitalism in which the old structure—the “offline cram school-centered private education market”—is destroyed by innovative entrepreneurship, while a new structure—the “online lecture-based market”—is continuously created.

In this way, he contributed to creating a healthy market ecosystem in which corporate profits are reinvested as the driving force of new innovation. Ultimately, believing that entrepreneurship was the answer to the question, “How should one live?”, he chose a life as a contributor amid the great wave of changing times. His entrepreneurial spirit embodies the ideal form of the free market economy: creating the highest value through competition and innovation, then returning those benefits to society and the market to produce an even greater virtuous cycle.

In the end, Chairman Son’s entrepreneurship completes a “value chain” in which profits are created through market innovation and then returned through startup support and social contribution, investing in equal educational opportunity and the development of future generations. In this way, Chairman Jooeun Son’s entrepreneurial story shows that the true value of business and the ideal of the free market economy can be realized only when corporate activity contributes not only to individual success but also to the development and prosperity of society as a whole.

Jiyoon Jung, Intern Researcher, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [칼럼] 메가스터디 손주은 회장, 창조적 파괴로 건강한 시장 생태계 조성

Author: Ji-yoon Jung

Date: 2025-12-09

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&idx=28402