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(Slightly, but not completely sarcastic) They've learned plenty from the United States, but they haven't learned that in order to succeed, others must fail. Th

(Slightly, but not completely sarcastic) They've learned plenty from the United States, but they haven't learned that in order to succeed, others must fail. They should be trying harder to make these businesses succeed hard or fail. After all, life isn't about living - it's about how much we can accumulate at the cost of others. They should also learn the Unites Statesian way of "going out of business" for the purpose of selling the old company's assets to a newly create company for pennies on the dollar while defaulting on debt and loans. Heck - many Hollywood companies do this from one film to the next! Gah! These Japanese people are amateurs!

exhaze 7y ago
PS Happy to answers any questions about Tokyo life as an engineer/entrepreneur, just reply to my comment. I get where you're coming from, but you can make the same one-sided joke post about Americans. Having done both... - started YC backed startup while in SF and worked at Uber for 4 years - in Tokyo for the past 2 years I honestly think that the outcomes here in Tokyo are much better than in SF. Yes, incomes are lower, but your QAPP (quality-adjusted purchasing power) is significantly higher, at all income levels - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/08/21/commentary/japan-commentary/japans-quality-bubble-explains-flat-lined-gdp https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/08/21/commentary/j...
- umvi 7y ago
  Is it true Japanese companies pay software engineers peanuts compared to USA? How much Japanese do you need to speak to get by?
  - wst_ 7y ago
    Depends on a company, as everywhere else. Some companies are willing to pay 10M+ annually which is more than enough to live peacefully in not so cheap area.
  - asiachick 7y ago
    In general, yes. There are exceptions but in general Japanese tech companies pay very poorly. For example, Yahoo Japan (still more popular than Google Japan AFAIK) pays collage grads $36k a year starting salary. I think USA Google Interns get ~3x that. https://about.yahoo.co.jp/hr/job-info/role/0005/#potentialJobAnchor06 https://about.yahoo.co.jp/hr/job-info/role/0005/#potentialJo... I know it's just one data point but it's not far from the average. For Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Canon, Nikon, NEC, Rakuten, etc it will definitely be in the same ballpark. You can probably get 2x that if you have 10 years experience but if you're over 35 you're considered too old to code by many companies. There are exceptions like maybe Mercari as they are doing well. And western companies, Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, pay well. I have no idea if this is why but I'm guessing one reason is they have a captive market. If your only language is Japanese you can't work anywhere else in the world.
- oblio 7y ago
  > I get where you're coming from, but you can make the same one-sided joke post about Americans. He _IS_ joking about Americans :-)))
- novok 7y ago
  What kind of company move did you make to tokyo? Work at Google and then do a transfer or a Japanese startup?
- kalium_xyz 7y ago
  Having a hard time finding clients currently as a digital agency in Tokyo targeting foreign companies, any ideas on what to try next?
ehnto 7y ago
Oh boy did I have a comment brewing for you, before I realized you were being sarcastic! There is something refreshing about the feeling of permanence I got when I was in Japan. There is so much old infrastructure that's still working, because it's maintained. In the west, we assume we'll be replacing pretty much everything within 5-10 years so why bother with upkeep, and who cares if it doesn't even function that well when you built it.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Pretty negative? Water and sewage infrastructure can last 100 years in the USA. The company that makes commercial pumps for cities is still around, and called upon to recreate 80-year-old pumps to replace ones still in use under New York streets. Our electrical grid is unparalleled in the world. Our phone/internet. These things are not so wonderful in other countries (when they even have them at all). What infrastructure, exactly, in the US is not functioning well?
  - ilikeathechacha 7y ago
    https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/condition18.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/condition18.cfm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/asce-gi... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis Politicians like cutting ribbons in their district. They do not like investing in maintenance, and operators are left to scrape together budgets to make things work. They often make bad calls because they’re forced to. This has been known for several decades. The electrical grid in San Jose failed dramatically because someone, yet to be identified, hit a substation off 101 with a rifle. Power engineers constantly warn about incoming failures if we don’t invest in security and maintenance, and power grid security has recently become a Homeland Security concern. The power grid in California has evolved into literally killing people, and they have to turn it off when it’s windy. Yeah. Unparalleled. Your mildly xenophobic subtext of knocking power grids in non-American contexts is noted, but throwing stones and all. I struggle to imagine a scenario where all of this is news to you.
christiansakai 7y ago
In Japan there are plenty of old and young people working arubaito (part time) in the service industry. If you go to Disneyland for example, you can see obaachans (grandma) bringing food from the kitchen to the dining area. Japan as a country is also hi tech. But it seems that they are not worried about the effect of automation and people losing jobs. There are plenty of jobs that machines still can’t do and the Japanese appreciate handcrafts. A lof of Japanese knives are still handmade. Candies, gifts, a lot of them are handmade. Granted. Japan is the nation where it is mostly relatively closed compared to other far east Asian nation. They won’t give citizenship easily (around 10 to 20 years), they don’t take influx of immigrants, and they care about Japanese more other than non Japanese. All of this is motivated by the preservation of culture and the Japanese way. Japan would rather have their island sink than opening doors to more immigrants to avoid Eternal September that is plaguing the US and Europe. More conformity meaning easier for the government in terms of economy, policy, etc. Less troublemakers, less lawyers and lawsuits, less crime. But in order to achieve social conformity Japan doesn’t have to be like China where they monitor and watch everything. Conformity is ingrained in every minds and hearts of the Japanese. That is the Japanese way.
- cthalupa 7y ago
  >Granted. Japan is the nation where it is mostly relatively closed compared to other far east Asian nation. They won’t give citizenship easily (around 10 to 20 years), they don’t take influx of immigrants, and they care about Japanese more other than non Japanese. All of this is motivated by the preservation of culture and the Japanese way. Japan would rather have their island sink than opening doors to more immigrants to avoid Eternal September that is plaguing the US and Europe. You should tell the Japanese lawmakers this ;) Skilled immigration is now done on a point based system where most white collar working professionals could quality to residency with little effort. Japanese naturalization is now a 5-10 year process, not 10-20. This is in line with the US process. The slowing birth rates have resulted in Japan opening up significantly more to immigration and naturalization of these immigrants.
monadic2 7y ago
I was never brought up with the national myth of failure but it does explain a lot about how the United States works. Does this imply the need for revolution to fix things? Maybe we could get Japan to liberate us.
hindsightbias 7y ago
Disruption can’t be successful unless people are losing their jobs, pensions or housing. There has to be a cost for progress.

exhaze 7y ago

PS Happy to answers any questions about Tokyo life as an engineer/entrepreneur, just reply to my comment. I get where you're coming from, but you can make the same one-sided joke post about Americans. Having done both... - started YC backed startup while in SF and worked at Uber for 4 years - in Tokyo for the past 2 years I honestly think that the outcomes here in Tokyo are much better than in SF. Yes, incomes are lower, but your QAPP (quality-adjusted purchasing power) is significantly higher, at all income levels - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/08/21/commentary/japan-commentary/japans-quality-bubble-explains-flat-lined-gdp https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/08/21/commentary/j...

umvi 7y ago
Is it true Japanese companies pay software engineers peanuts compared to USA? How much Japanese do you need to speak to get by?
- wst_ 7y ago
  Depends on a company, as everywhere else. Some companies are willing to pay 10M+ annually which is more than enough to live peacefully in not so cheap area.
- asiachick 7y ago
  In general, yes. There are exceptions but in general Japanese tech companies pay very poorly. For example, Yahoo Japan (still more popular than Google Japan AFAIK) pays collage grads $36k a year starting salary. I think USA Google Interns get ~3x that. https://about.yahoo.co.jp/hr/job-info/role/0005/#potentialJobAnchor06 https://about.yahoo.co.jp/hr/job-info/role/0005/#potentialJo... I know it's just one data point but it's not far from the average. For Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Canon, Nikon, NEC, Rakuten, etc it will definitely be in the same ballpark. You can probably get 2x that if you have 10 years experience but if you're over 35 you're considered too old to code by many companies. There are exceptions like maybe Mercari as they are doing well. And western companies, Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, pay well. I have no idea if this is why but I'm guessing one reason is they have a captive market. If your only language is Japanese you can't work anywhere else in the world.
oblio 7y ago
> I get where you're coming from, but you can make the same one-sided joke post about Americans. He _IS_ joking about Americans :-)))
novok 7y ago
What kind of company move did you make to tokyo? Work at Google and then do a transfer or a Japanese startup?
kalium_xyz 7y ago
Having a hard time finding clients currently as a digital agency in Tokyo targeting foreign companies, any ideas on what to try next?

ehnto 7y ago

Oh boy did I have a comment brewing for you, before I realized you were being sarcastic! There is something refreshing about the feeling of permanence I got when I was in Japan. There is so much old infrastructure that's still working, because it's maintained. In the west, we assume we'll be replacing pretty much everything within 5-10 years so why bother with upkeep, and who cares if it doesn't even function that well when you built it.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Pretty negative? Water and sewage infrastructure can last 100 years in the USA. The company that makes commercial pumps for cities is still around, and called upon to recreate 80-year-old pumps to replace ones still in use under New York streets. Our electrical grid is unparalleled in the world. Our phone/internet. These things are not so wonderful in other countries (when they even have them at all). What infrastructure, exactly, in the US is not functioning well?
- ilikeathechacha 7y ago
  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/condition18.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/condition18.cfm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/asce-gi... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis Politicians like cutting ribbons in their district. They do not like investing in maintenance, and operators are left to scrape together budgets to make things work. They often make bad calls because they’re forced to. This has been known for several decades. The electrical grid in San Jose failed dramatically because someone, yet to be identified, hit a substation off 101 with a rifle. Power engineers constantly warn about incoming failures if we don’t invest in security and maintenance, and power grid security has recently become a Homeland Security concern. The power grid in California has evolved into literally killing people, and they have to turn it off when it’s windy. Yeah. Unparalleled. Your mildly xenophobic subtext of knocking power grids in non-American contexts is noted, but throwing stones and all. I struggle to imagine a scenario where all of this is news to you.

christiansakai 7y ago

In Japan there are plenty of old and young people working arubaito (part time) in the service industry. If you go to Disneyland for example, you can see obaachans (grandma) bringing food from the kitchen to the dining area. Japan as a country is also hi tech. But it seems that they are not worried about the effect of automation and people losing jobs. There are plenty of jobs that machines still can’t do and the Japanese appreciate handcrafts. A lof of Japanese knives are still handmade. Candies, gifts, a lot of them are handmade. Granted. Japan is the nation where it is mostly relatively closed compared to other far east Asian nation. They won’t give citizenship easily (around 10 to 20 years), they don’t take influx of immigrants, and they care about Japanese more other than non Japanese. All of this is motivated by the preservation of culture and the Japanese way. Japan would rather have their island sink than opening doors to more immigrants to avoid Eternal September that is plaguing the US and Europe. More conformity meaning easier for the government in terms of economy, policy, etc. Less troublemakers, less lawyers and lawsuits, less crime. But in order to achieve social conformity Japan doesn’t have to be like China where they monitor and watch everything. Conformity is ingrained in every minds and hearts of the Japanese. That is the Japanese way.

cthalupa 7y ago
>Granted. Japan is the nation where it is mostly relatively closed compared to other far east Asian nation. They won’t give citizenship easily (around 10 to 20 years), they don’t take influx of immigrants, and they care about Japanese more other than non Japanese. All of this is motivated by the preservation of culture and the Japanese way. Japan would rather have their island sink than opening doors to more immigrants to avoid Eternal September that is plaguing the US and Europe. You should tell the Japanese lawmakers this ;) Skilled immigration is now done on a point based system where most white collar working professionals could quality to residency with little effort. Japanese naturalization is now a 5-10 year process, not 10-20. This is in line with the US process. The slowing birth rates have resulted in Japan opening up significantly more to immigration and naturalization of these immigrants.

monadic2 7y ago

I was never brought up with the national myth of failure but it does explain a lot about how the United States works. Does this imply the need for revolution to fix things? Maybe we could get Japan to liberate us.

hindsightbias 7y ago

Disruption can’t be successful unless people are losing their jobs, pensions or housing. There has to be a cost for progress.