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I worked for Toshiba America. The story is the CEO at the time told his underlings "I cannot report such earnings to our shareholders". His executives then went

I worked for Toshiba America. The story is the CEO at the time told his underlings "I cannot report such earnings to our shareholders". His executives then went ahead and cooked the books. Beyond that, Toshiba was a company in crisis. They announced all sorts of forward looking partnerships via press releases and had powerpoints about them, but allocated ZERO budget to implement them. They ordered their existing units (seemingly hundreds of business units) to stay the course on obsolete and non-competitive products that were not generating revenue any longer. Their cloud and "chip to cloud" plans were Potemkin villages, devoid of tech or investment. Their PC division was non-competitive with flash storage, even though Toshiba's disk division INVENTED flash storage (and that was unpopular in that division--it went to market with much opposition, driven by ONE guy). Toshiba basically played fortress Japan, where they made handshake deals with other moribund Keiretsu would just cross sell to each other. They were being out innovated on all fronts, and were paralyzed to make the big changes, as the culture was one of never rocking the boat, and hanging on till retirement. The dream was to retire and perhaps be asked to consult back to the company. The same thing was going on with the other firms there, like Sony et al. Disruption, the cloud, open source and innovation just destroyed a firm with an amazing historical legacy.

jariel 6y ago
This is a really intriguing artefact of specific cultures. Clearly, there are benefits to 'Failure is Not Tolerated' cultures, it is interesting how people can pull rabbits out of hats when they have to. That said, if they are up against a real wall, they will be pulling the rabbits out their rears (ie fraud) and it will be a problem. But then you get a secondary effect: a kind of 'coverup cancer' which spreads through the social system, nobody willing to let it surface. The European CEO of Japanese Olympus has a pretty intriguing story about this. Uncanny stuff about the depth of the fraud, like being in an episode of Twilight Zone. The corruption is way, way more than just a few leaders - it's entire networks of systems and leaders, everyone covering for one another. I suspect there are vast systematic hidden problems in Japan. Germany has a little bit of this. For some cultures, it's hard to understand the actual value of 'Chapter 11'. It's really an amazing bit of commercial policy that bankruptcy protection. Someone needs to write a book on all the various ways we hide problems. The US Fed takes on Trillions of toxic assets. The Canadian economy prints money to new migrants buying homes as a form of 'spending the future now' in a giant Ponzi scheme. China makes up numbers willy nilly. Japanese hide it inside private networks. Etc..
- andykx 6y ago
  Japanese companies also avoid firing people as much as possible. Typically, when they want you to leave, they will demote you or move you to a generally unpleasant position. I can't find the source where I heard this, but it was an interview with several "average" Japanese people concerning Japanese work culture.
  - jariel 6y ago
    Yes 'window dressing' [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-illegal-japan-workers-are-sent-to-the-boredom-room.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-i...
  - ezconnect 6y ago
    In South Korea they will place your table in front of the bathroom and wait for you to quit. They are making it illegal now.
    - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
      Fine, if it doesn't stink.
- sn41 6y ago
  The Carlos Ghosn case highlights some of the points you raise about the arbitrariness and closed-box nature of Japanese nativism. I have worked for a Japanese client (big firm, I will not name them). I think it is a miracle that Japanese innovate at all. Their hierarchies are extra rigid, and promotions are more or less dependent on seniority. It was difficult to find any tech manager who was not around 60 years old. Peer-to-peer email from our firm to Japanese engineers was strictly forbidden. Except for the money involved, it was like a humorous game of Chinese whispers - a perfectly legitimate technical point raised will come back as completely illogical gibberish because it was been distorted by layers of management in between. Engineers at my (Indian) firm in 2001 were saying that Sony's days are numbered, and Samsung will eat their lunch. I refused to believe it since South Korea had just gone through a major crisis. 20 years later, it is patently clear that they were understating the trend. The often deserving worship of Japanese culture that many indulge in, leads to vast blind spots about Japan's cultural disadvantages.
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jariel 6y ago

This is a really intriguing artefact of specific cultures. Clearly, there are benefits to 'Failure is Not Tolerated' cultures, it is interesting how people can pull rabbits out of hats when they have to. That said, if they are up against a real wall, they will be pulling the rabbits out their rears (ie fraud) and it will be a problem. But then you get a secondary effect: a kind of 'coverup cancer' which spreads through the social system, nobody willing to let it surface. The European CEO of Japanese Olympus has a pretty intriguing story about this. Uncanny stuff about the depth of the fraud, like being in an episode of Twilight Zone. The corruption is way, way more than just a few leaders - it's entire networks of systems and leaders, everyone covering for one another. I suspect there are vast systematic hidden problems in Japan. Germany has a little bit of this. For some cultures, it's hard to understand the actual value of 'Chapter 11'. It's really an amazing bit of commercial policy that bankruptcy protection. Someone needs to write a book on all the various ways we hide problems. The US Fed takes on Trillions of toxic assets. The Canadian economy prints money to new migrants buying homes as a form of 'spending the future now' in a giant Ponzi scheme. China makes up numbers willy nilly. Japanese hide it inside private networks. Etc..

andykx 6y ago
Japanese companies also avoid firing people as much as possible. Typically, when they want you to leave, they will demote you or move you to a generally unpleasant position. I can't find the source where I heard this, but it was an interview with several "average" Japanese people concerning Japanese work culture.
- jariel 6y ago
  Yes 'window dressing' [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-illegal-japan-workers-are-sent-to-the-boredom-room.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-i...
- ezconnect 6y ago
  In South Korea they will place your table in front of the bathroom and wait for you to quit. They are making it illegal now.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    Fine, if it doesn't stink.
sn41 6y ago
The Carlos Ghosn case highlights some of the points you raise about the arbitrariness and closed-box nature of Japanese nativism. I have worked for a Japanese client (big firm, I will not name them). I think it is a miracle that Japanese innovate at all. Their hierarchies are extra rigid, and promotions are more or less dependent on seniority. It was difficult to find any tech manager who was not around 60 years old. Peer-to-peer email from our firm to Japanese engineers was strictly forbidden. Except for the money involved, it was like a humorous game of Chinese whispers - a perfectly legitimate technical point raised will come back as completely illogical gibberish because it was been distorted by layers of management in between. Engineers at my (Indian) firm in 2001 were saying that Sony's days are numbered, and Samsung will eat their lunch. I refused to believe it since South Korea had just gone through a major crisis. 20 years later, it is patently clear that they were understating the trend. The often deserving worship of Japanese culture that many indulge in, leads to vast blind spots about Japan's cultural disadvantages.

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