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Point taken, but to clarify I was saying "plot a way forward for Japan to become a tech powerhouse, when a company like Rakuten is about the pinnacle of what th

Point taken, but to clarify I was saying "plot a way forward for Japan to become a tech powerhouse, when a company like Rakuten is about the pinnacle of what they can achieve as far as technology companies go". And you can't really just say "they can do X, Y, and Z" if X, Y, and Z are things that are totally unrealistic to expect Japan corporate culture to do. Even Rakuten is considered "weird" to the point of apostasy among Japanese corporations, and I promise you would not find it particularly enriching to work there either from a creativity standpoint or even just for basic work/life balance. It's just difficult to imagine how a world-class tech company can rise up from Japanese business culture, at least on time scales that don't span decades. (For me, anyway, YMMV I guess.)

nihonde 10y ago
Cookpad also seems to be a nice brain trust of capable coders. It's perplexing to me that Japan isn't better at software. It's practically nerd nation with tons of super talented designers. It feels like it should be easy to push Japan over the tipping point, but who knows why it hasn't happened yet.
- burfog 10y ago
  Programming isn't just web sites and phone apps!!! Japan is the source of the world's most popular operating system, iTRON. Never heard of iTRON? Ah, well, it's probably in your microwave or anti-lock brakes or thermostat or coffeemaker or ...
  - nihonde 10y ago
    I don't know anything about real-time embedded OSes, and I'm definitely interested in learning more. I found this so far: http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/itron.html http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/itron.html I have to say that the horrendous UI of Japanese consumer electronics in the 1980's and 90's seems quite closely linked to Japan's slide from the top of that market. Seven years ago, when I first visited Japan, everyone used a clamshell phone with a godawful LCD interface. Today, everyone has an iPhone or iPhone clone (aka Korean or Chinese Android device). Even today, mobile carriers usually have a "Japanese Only" section on their website for the nationalists who insist on buying Japanese, and, sadly, those phones are very underwhelming by any reasonable standard in 2016.
  - imtringued 10y ago
    Hardware requires a big upfront investment. You can write a phone app at home and companies can test the waters with a cheap MVP.
- Zakiazigazi 10y ago
  Cookpad used to have a lot of foreigners and was considered to be one of the best places to work. From what I heard that has changed about two years ago, now most of the foreigners are gone and what's left is a fairly normal Japanese company with all the cultural aspects that that entails. To me the average level of developers at most companies I know is just heart-breaking, many times they don't seem to be thinking on the right abstraction levels and instead treat development as something you just persevere through by pure exercise of will (which is of course exactly what you are rewarded for: put in long hours, results don't actually matter as long as you try your best, onboarding/training is limited to manners, how to clean the whiteboard and how to water the plants (not joking), your university education/diploma is considered worthless, hence why lots of people suddenly become "software engineers" with a law degree or a biology degree or an english major degree because tech jobs generally pay better). In the end in my opinion the prevalent culture/values are just not very conducive to becoming better at software (although it kind of works in hardware and on the outside definitely appears to work in services).

nihonde 10y ago

Cookpad also seems to be a nice brain trust of capable coders. It's perplexing to me that Japan isn't better at software. It's practically nerd nation with tons of super talented designers. It feels like it should be easy to push Japan over the tipping point, but who knows why it hasn't happened yet.

burfog 10y ago
Programming isn't just web sites and phone apps!!! Japan is the source of the world's most popular operating system, iTRON. Never heard of iTRON? Ah, well, it's probably in your microwave or anti-lock brakes or thermostat or coffeemaker or ...
- nihonde 10y ago
  I don't know anything about real-time embedded OSes, and I'm definitely interested in learning more. I found this so far: http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/itron.html http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/itron.html I have to say that the horrendous UI of Japanese consumer electronics in the 1980's and 90's seems quite closely linked to Japan's slide from the top of that market. Seven years ago, when I first visited Japan, everyone used a clamshell phone with a godawful LCD interface. Today, everyone has an iPhone or iPhone clone (aka Korean or Chinese Android device). Even today, mobile carriers usually have a "Japanese Only" section on their website for the nationalists who insist on buying Japanese, and, sadly, those phones are very underwhelming by any reasonable standard in 2016.
- imtringued 10y ago
  Hardware requires a big upfront investment. You can write a phone app at home and companies can test the waters with a cheap MVP.
Zakiazigazi 10y ago
Cookpad used to have a lot of foreigners and was considered to be one of the best places to work. From what I heard that has changed about two years ago, now most of the foreigners are gone and what's left is a fairly normal Japanese company with all the cultural aspects that that entails. To me the average level of developers at most companies I know is just heart-breaking, many times they don't seem to be thinking on the right abstraction levels and instead treat development as something you just persevere through by pure exercise of will (which is of course exactly what you are rewarded for: put in long hours, results don't actually matter as long as you try your best, onboarding/training is limited to manners, how to clean the whiteboard and how to water the plants (not joking), your university education/diploma is considered worthless, hence why lots of people suddenly become "software engineers" with a law degree or a biology degree or an english major degree because tech jobs generally pay better). In the end in my opinion the prevalent culture/values are just not very conducive to becoming better at software (although it kind of works in hardware and on the outside definitely appears to work in services).