7 ms·

End of an era for electronics giant Toshiba

95 points by ZeljkoS 3y ago

Dalewyn 3y ago
Toshiba's crash from grace is the poster boy of everything that is wrong with Japan. Lest we forget, Toshiba invented NAND flash only for them and Japan (namely the patent office) to throw it out the window for the likes of Intel and Sandisk to pick it up and create an entire industry. There is perhaps no better time to say that, nothing of value was lost here.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  Toshiba's crash from grace is the poster boy of everything that is wrong with Japan. Might need to elaborate a little ? Such a sweeping statement.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    Japanese people are very talented, but that also means they oftentimes can't understand the value of inventions and technology. Read up on how Toshiba treated NAND flash's inventor, Fujio Masuoka[1][2]; Toshiba and Japan at-large can't realize a golden egg if their lives depended on it. This combined with an introverted national culture that encourages the various companies fight each other (eg: Toshiba vs. Sony vs. Panasonic) rather than stand together and face the global market, and Japan has lost nearly every single thing they once achieved the top spot in. Government corruption, as was the case here, is icing on the cake. I say again: Nothing of value was lost here; any value Toshiba had they already threw away decades ago. Also, I'm Japanese. I call dibs when it comes to (justifiably!) trash talking my heritage. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujio_Masuoka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujio_Masuoka [2]: Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention of NOR flash in 1984, and then NAND flash at the IEEE 1987 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco. Toshiba commercially launched NAND flash memory in 1987. Toshiba gave Masuoka a few hundred dollar bonus for the invention, and later tried to demote him. But it was American company Intel which made billions of dollars in sales on related technology. Toshiba press department told Forbes that it was Intel that invented flash memory.
    - Tade0 3y ago
      > Toshiba press department told Forbes that it was Intel that invented flash memory. What? Why?
      - IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
        The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. Just show up put in long hours & do what your superiors want. The storage executives DID NOT WANT a new technology. They were content with spinning disks. Do not rock the boat, put in your 20 years quietly, retire & maybe come back with a get a consulting job there if lucky. The Keiretsu based structure bred complacency & selling average products to each other. As innovation technology in Silicon Valley skyrocketed, Toshiba made slideware & agreements that offered no tangible value. They would talk about the cloud, sign agreements with IBM but have zero real budget for implementation. Instead they would focus on continuing to build and sell non competitive solutions that meant divisions were ordered to keep making non competitive products built by thousands of engineers at a loss. The board cooking the books sealed their fate.
        nonbirithm 3y ago
        > The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. Just show up put in long hours & do what your superiors want. The storage executives DID NOT WANT a new technology. They were content with spinning disks. Do not rock the boat, put in your 20 years quietly, retire & maybe come back with a get a consulting job there if lucky. This sort of culture could explain why Sony still sells $1000 digital Walkmen and luxury Android devices with a headphone jack.
        Dalewyn 3y ago
        >The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. That applies to all of Japan, not just Toshiba. "Nails that stick out will be hammered in." (出る杭は打たれる。)[1] is an age old saying in Japan; those who stand out or are otherwise different from the masses will be forced into compliance. This cultural tradition has stifled many Japanese attempts at innovating, because doing something new is different from the status quo. [1]: https://jisho.org/search/%E5%87%BA%E3%82%8B%E6%9D%AD%E3%81%AF%E6%89%93%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B https://jisho.org/search/%E5%87%BA%E3%82%8B%E6%9D%AD%E3%81%A...
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Toshiba invented NAND flash only for them and Japan (namely the patent office) to throw it out the window for the likes of Intel and Sandisk to pick it up and create an entire industry. And Kodak invented the digital camera only for Canon and Nikon to steal their lunch. And Xerox invented the GUI and let Apple steal their lunch. And GM invented the EV1, the world's first mass produced EV and then let Tesla and BYD steal their lunch. And IBM invented the PC and ... you get the point already. Same with HP, SUN, SGI, Cisco, Blackberry, Nokia, Intel, etc insert your favorite $EXAMPLE here. Google is also on a similar path. It's not a country problem, it's a "big and old company problem", which has fossilized and lacks future vision so stays conservative and slowly atrophies.
  - toyg 3y ago
    I agree, but with the addition that Japanese society is so structurally imbalanced towards "big and old companies" that the problem is significantly amplified.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      That's not just a Japan problem, but a 'most of the industrialized world' problem: Germany, Italy, France, Canada, etc. They all had wealthy growing industries back in the days when coal, steel and fossil fuel vehicle manufacturing was hot, but failed to create, or invest and expand into the new ones, mainly IT, also known here as 'tech'. Only the US has managed to avoid this trap "thanks" to its lack of industry unions and social policies, coupled with a free market economy, start-up friendly tax system, and strong VC culture focused on disrupting existing players by throwing big money at new risky ideas. While the VC investment culture and focus on disrupting existing players is non existent in most other countries, coupled with the stronger social policies and unions, like in Europe for example, means there's a lot of political pressure (and lobbying!) to support the existing big old established players that contribute to the economy and employ tens of thousands of workers, to keep the status quo, no matter how antiquated and stagnating they are, instead of letting the free market run its course and letting them slowly whither die and focus instead on creating new businesses and industries in their place. This is also compounded in some of the countries I listed above by the ageing demographics who's retirement prospects are tied to the old declining industries(like in Germany), meaning their votes, government policies and financial aid will focus on keeping those old declining industries on life support for as long as possible, instead of focusing on supporting newer industries instead at the expense of the older ones. It's what the people vote for. Exceptions would be Singapore, Switzerland, and some of the UK-Ireland, Nordic and BeNeLux countries that have a strong education system focused on research and innovation and a business friendly tax and legal system for VC investors and who's population isn't too invested and entrenched in old declining industries.
- mobilio 3y ago
  Same happens also with 1.8" HDDs. They created it but don't know how to market it. At same time Steve Jobs and his right hands was at Japan manufacturers so they can see about their technology. And someone shows to them that disk... they was finally found missing component for an iPod.
- 1n3nt0r 3y ago
  Certainly accounting scandals are bad. I am sure there are shenanigans being done by quite a few Japanese companies. That said, activist investors, the root cause, are a plague. Generally they want to boost short term profit at the expense of the longer-term. They are generally not interested in investing in the future rather cost cutting. Certainly most large companies could do with more efficient allocation of spending, but the US / western drive for short-term shareholder value is anathema to the good of the company longer term.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    This is specifically Japanese management styles and social culture at play. The meme of "western short-term corporate thinking" doesn't apply here. Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, is flourishing under new western management after they were freed from Toshiba and Japan's ineptitude.
    - fomine3 3y ago
      Toshiba's Flash memory division had been fine even under Toshiba and as Kioxia too. Why Toshiba sold it is because they need money, to fill nuclear division's loss. Rather, they are now in danger due to current Flash memory market situation.
  - IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
    Corruption by senior management doomed the company to continue down a path of failure. Toshiba desired to not cause change and market disruption was hated by Japanese business culture. Eventually inaction & fear led to destruction. Quite sad really.
atleastoptimal 3y ago
Is everything that happened to Japan going to happen to China?
- nixass 3y ago
  Given the fact China's GDP is non-transparent and artificially inflated it will be much more spectacular fall
  - the-dude 3y ago
    Japan's problems were caused by non-transparency and inflated markets through state-directed investment banks. Not so much different.
    - avidphantasm 3y ago
      And yet, I’d rather live in Japan—-with all of its state-directed investments—-than the US (if not for language and distance from family). If I didn’t have a kid and was offered a job in Japan, I’d move their tomorrow.
      - AniseAbyss 3y ago
        [dead]
      - shortrounddev2 3y ago
        Personally japanese work culture sounds like my personal definition of hell
        bamboozled 3y ago
        You'll never be expected to follow the culture in the same way if you're not a native Japanese. If a company hires you, they're not hiring you to be like everyone else.
  - elzbardico 3y ago
billpg 3y ago
Bye Tosh.
soundarana 3y ago
They still make good hard drives.
- 1n3nt0r 3y ago
  hard drives, memory & other silicon, batteries, a wide range of consumer appliances, and industrial equipment.
  - erie 3y ago
    One of my regrets, throwing away my Toshiba T1100 Plus, for a PC.
- mark-r 3y ago
  I have a Toshiba hard drive in my pc and it's been very reliable. The only problem I have with it is that it goes to sleep after some inactivity, and takes forever to wake back up - and Windows locks up while it waits.
- treprinum 3y ago
  Just got 2 of their 20TB NAS drives. Previous 14 & 16TB still hold strong.
atgreen 3y ago
This makes me sad. They funded a lot of GNU toolchain in the late 90s / early 00s, directly and indirectly, and I have a lot of good memories working with the people there.
tjpnz 3y ago
The best laptop I ever owned was from Toshiba. Fantastic performance for what I paid, quiet and seemingly indestructible based on what it went through. When it came time to upgrade I learned that Toshiba had exited the market entirely and that everyone else had switched to making shit tier garbage designed for Windows 8. At that point I bought a Macbook Pro but I can't say I was ever thrilled by it, or that my feelings have changed with each successive iteration. Go well Toshiba, you'll be missed.
jongjong 3y ago
Sad. When I was young, I worked every weekend for 6 months straight during a hot summer washing boats and was able to save up just enough money to buy an entry level Toshiba laptop. I didn't even think I could afford a laptop at the time and was saving up for a desktop machine so it was a pleasant surprise when I saw it in the shop at such good price. It was a great purchase. Lasted me years. I self-taught myself coding on that machine. I owned a few Toshiba laptops since. It was my go-to brand. After they started disappearing from shops, I ended up going with HP, then Dell then Asus. None of them were quite the same standard as Toshiba.
jacquesm 3y ago
It's not the end for Toshiba, it's just the end of their presence on the stock market. And that's fine, companies can be 'taken private' again just as they can IPO. Being publicly traded is sometimes a plus and sometimes it works against you. Not every large company is stock exchange listed, nor should they be.
- nine_k 3y ago
  I think that Dell Computers was taken back private, and it's doing strong. Not being beholden to show growth every quarter, no matter what long-term consequences it may have, should be liberating and beneficial.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    Being taken private does not mean Not being beholden to show growth every quarter, in fact often then private equity takes a Tech company private the impetus return value to the new owners is even higher than if it was still public The pattern of Private Equity take over is clear 1. Buy out public stock 2. Extreme Cost Cutting to make the company profitable by sacrificing Engineering and Customer Service 3. Massive Increase in prices to make the company profitable by sacrificing long term market share for short term profits 4. Sell the company again (or in pieces) before it goes bankrupt due to 1 and 2. This has happened time and time again.
    - eli 3y ago
      That certainly happens but it’s not the only way to go private or even the only playbook for PE
      - phpisthebest 3y ago
        I have been through it many times as a customer of tech companies, I would say the outline I posted above it the most common pattern I have experienced So much so that today if one of my vendors gets bought out by PE we immediately start planning a migration of that technology Most recent example is Broadcom who uses a PE-like playbook, we are now evaluating what can replace vSphere...
hellectronic 3y ago
My first Laptop was from Toshiba. Worked with it for 7 years, Windows and Linux without problems.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
Related earlier: Toshiba to be delisted after 74 years, faces future with new owners https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38701053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38701053
ziotom78 3y ago
My wife's Toshiba laptop was bought in 2005 and still works. It's a 32-bit machine with just 1–2 GB of memory, but I put a SSD a few years ago and with this setup Linux runs fine. I still use it sometimes, as it's the smallest laptop we have in our house and it's handy to use it while in bed for browsing and checking mail.

95 points by ZeljkoS 3y ago

Toshiba's crash from grace is the poster boy of everything that is wrong with Japan. Lest we forget, Toshiba invented NAND flash only for them and Japan (namely the patent office) to throw it out the window for the likes of Intel and Sandisk to pick it up and create an entire industry. There is perhaps no better time to say that, nothing of value was lost here.

bamboozled 3y ago
Toshiba's crash from grace is the poster boy of everything that is wrong with Japan. Might need to elaborate a little ? Such a sweeping statement.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Japanese people are very talented, but that also means they oftentimes can't understand the value of inventions and technology. Read up on how Toshiba treated NAND flash's inventor, Fujio Masuoka[1][2]; Toshiba and Japan at-large can't realize a golden egg if their lives depended on it. This combined with an introverted national culture that encourages the various companies fight each other (eg: Toshiba vs. Sony vs. Panasonic) rather than stand together and face the global market, and Japan has lost nearly every single thing they once achieved the top spot in. Government corruption, as was the case here, is icing on the cake. I say again: Nothing of value was lost here; any value Toshiba had they already threw away decades ago. Also, I'm Japanese. I call dibs when it comes to (justifiably!) trash talking my heritage. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujio_Masuoka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujio_Masuoka [2]: Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention of NOR flash in 1984, and then NAND flash at the IEEE 1987 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco. Toshiba commercially launched NAND flash memory in 1987. Toshiba gave Masuoka a few hundred dollar bonus for the invention, and later tried to demote him. But it was American company Intel which made billions of dollars in sales on related technology. Toshiba press department told Forbes that it was Intel that invented flash memory.
  - Tade0 3y ago
    > Toshiba press department told Forbes that it was Intel that invented flash memory. What? Why?
    - IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
      The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. Just show up put in long hours & do what your superiors want. The storage executives DID NOT WANT a new technology. They were content with spinning disks. Do not rock the boat, put in your 20 years quietly, retire & maybe come back with a get a consulting job there if lucky. The Keiretsu based structure bred complacency & selling average products to each other. As innovation technology in Silicon Valley skyrocketed, Toshiba made slideware & agreements that offered no tangible value. They would talk about the cloud, sign agreements with IBM but have zero real budget for implementation. Instead they would focus on continuing to build and sell non competitive solutions that meant divisions were ordered to keep making non competitive products built by thousands of engineers at a loss. The board cooking the books sealed their fate.
      - nonbirithm 3y ago
        > The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. Just show up put in long hours & do what your superiors want. The storage executives DID NOT WANT a new technology. They were content with spinning disks. Do not rock the boat, put in your 20 years quietly, retire & maybe come back with a get a consulting job there if lucky. This sort of culture could explain why Sony still sells $1000 digital Walkmen and luxury Android devices with a headphone jack.
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        >The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. That applies to all of Japan, not just Toshiba. "Nails that stick out will be hammered in." (出る杭は打たれる。)[1] is an age old saying in Japan; those who stand out or are otherwise different from the masses will be forced into compliance. This cultural tradition has stifled many Japanese attempts at innovating, because doing something new is different from the status quo. [1]: https://jisho.org/search/%E5%87%BA%E3%82%8B%E6%9D%AD%E3%81%AF%E6%89%93%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8C%E3%82%8B https://jisho.org/search/%E5%87%BA%E3%82%8B%E6%9D%AD%E3%81%A...
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Toshiba invented NAND flash only for them and Japan (namely the patent office) to throw it out the window for the likes of Intel and Sandisk to pick it up and create an entire industry. And Kodak invented the digital camera only for Canon and Nikon to steal their lunch. And Xerox invented the GUI and let Apple steal their lunch. And GM invented the EV1, the world's first mass produced EV and then let Tesla and BYD steal their lunch. And IBM invented the PC and ... you get the point already. Same with HP, SUN, SGI, Cisco, Blackberry, Nokia, Intel, etc insert your favorite $EXAMPLE here. Google is also on a similar path. It's not a country problem, it's a "big and old company problem", which has fossilized and lacks future vision so stays conservative and slowly atrophies.
- toyg 3y ago
  I agree, but with the addition that Japanese society is so structurally imbalanced towards "big and old companies" that the problem is significantly amplified.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    That's not just a Japan problem, but a 'most of the industrialized world' problem: Germany, Italy, France, Canada, etc. They all had wealthy growing industries back in the days when coal, steel and fossil fuel vehicle manufacturing was hot, but failed to create, or invest and expand into the new ones, mainly IT, also known here as 'tech'. Only the US has managed to avoid this trap "thanks" to its lack of industry unions and social policies, coupled with a free market economy, start-up friendly tax system, and strong VC culture focused on disrupting existing players by throwing big money at new risky ideas. While the VC investment culture and focus on disrupting existing players is non existent in most other countries, coupled with the stronger social policies and unions, like in Europe for example, means there's a lot of political pressure (and lobbying!) to support the existing big old established players that contribute to the economy and employ tens of thousands of workers, to keep the status quo, no matter how antiquated and stagnating they are, instead of letting the free market run its course and letting them slowly whither die and focus instead on creating new businesses and industries in their place. This is also compounded in some of the countries I listed above by the ageing demographics who's retirement prospects are tied to the old declining industries(like in Germany), meaning their votes, government policies and financial aid will focus on keeping those old declining industries on life support for as long as possible, instead of focusing on supporting newer industries instead at the expense of the older ones. It's what the people vote for. Exceptions would be Singapore, Switzerland, and some of the UK-Ireland, Nordic and BeNeLux countries that have a strong education system focused on research and innovation and a business friendly tax and legal system for VC investors and who's population isn't too invested and entrenched in old declining industries.
mobilio 3y ago
Same happens also with 1.8" HDDs. They created it but don't know how to market it. At same time Steve Jobs and his right hands was at Japan manufacturers so they can see about their technology. And someone shows to them that disk... they was finally found missing component for an iPod.
1n3nt0r 3y ago
Certainly accounting scandals are bad. I am sure there are shenanigans being done by quite a few Japanese companies. That said, activist investors, the root cause, are a plague. Generally they want to boost short term profit at the expense of the longer-term. They are generally not interested in investing in the future rather cost cutting. Certainly most large companies could do with more efficient allocation of spending, but the US / western drive for short-term shareholder value is anathema to the good of the company longer term.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  This is specifically Japanese management styles and social culture at play. The meme of "western short-term corporate thinking" doesn't apply here. Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, is flourishing under new western management after they were freed from Toshiba and Japan's ineptitude.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Toshiba's Flash memory division had been fine even under Toshiba and as Kioxia too. Why Toshiba sold it is because they need money, to fill nuclear division's loss. Rather, they are now in danger due to current Flash memory market situation.
- IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
  Corruption by senior management doomed the company to continue down a path of failure. Toshiba desired to not cause change and market disruption was hated by Japanese business culture. Eventually inaction & fear led to destruction. Quite sad really.

atleastoptimal 3y ago

Is everything that happened to Japan going to happen to China?

nixass 3y ago
Given the fact China's GDP is non-transparent and artificially inflated it will be much more spectacular fall
- the-dude 3y ago
  Japan's problems were caused by non-transparency and inflated markets through state-directed investment banks. Not so much different.
  - avidphantasm 3y ago
    And yet, I’d rather live in Japan—-with all of its state-directed investments—-than the US (if not for language and distance from family). If I didn’t have a kid and was offered a job in Japan, I’d move their tomorrow.
    - AniseAbyss 3y ago
      [dead]
    - shortrounddev2 3y ago
      Personally japanese work culture sounds like my personal definition of hell
      - bamboozled 3y ago
        You'll never be expected to follow the culture in the same way if you're not a native Japanese. If a company hires you, they're not hiring you to be like everyone else.
- elzbardico 3y ago

billpg 3y ago

Bye Tosh.

soundarana 3y ago

They still make good hard drives.

1n3nt0r 3y ago
hard drives, memory & other silicon, batteries, a wide range of consumer appliances, and industrial equipment.
- erie 3y ago
  One of my regrets, throwing away my Toshiba T1100 Plus, for a PC.
mark-r 3y ago
I have a Toshiba hard drive in my pc and it's been very reliable. The only problem I have with it is that it goes to sleep after some inactivity, and takes forever to wake back up - and Windows locks up while it waits.
treprinum 3y ago
Just got 2 of their 20TB NAS drives. Previous 14 & 16TB still hold strong.

atgreen 3y ago

This makes me sad. They funded a lot of GNU toolchain in the late 90s / early 00s, directly and indirectly, and I have a lot of good memories working with the people there.

tjpnz 3y ago

The best laptop I ever owned was from Toshiba. Fantastic performance for what I paid, quiet and seemingly indestructible based on what it went through. When it came time to upgrade I learned that Toshiba had exited the market entirely and that everyone else had switched to making shit tier garbage designed for Windows 8. At that point I bought a Macbook Pro but I can't say I was ever thrilled by it, or that my feelings have changed with each successive iteration. Go well Toshiba, you'll be missed.

jongjong 3y ago

Sad. When I was young, I worked every weekend for 6 months straight during a hot summer washing boats and was able to save up just enough money to buy an entry level Toshiba laptop. I didn't even think I could afford a laptop at the time and was saving up for a desktop machine so it was a pleasant surprise when I saw it in the shop at such good price. It was a great purchase. Lasted me years. I self-taught myself coding on that machine. I owned a few Toshiba laptops since. It was my go-to brand. After they started disappearing from shops, I ended up going with HP, then Dell then Asus. None of them were quite the same standard as Toshiba.

jacquesm 3y ago

It's not the end for Toshiba, it's just the end of their presence on the stock market. And that's fine, companies can be 'taken private' again just as they can IPO. Being publicly traded is sometimes a plus and sometimes it works against you. Not every large company is stock exchange listed, nor should they be.

nine_k 3y ago
I think that Dell Computers was taken back private, and it's doing strong. Not being beholden to show growth every quarter, no matter what long-term consequences it may have, should be liberating and beneficial.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  Being taken private does not mean Not being beholden to show growth every quarter, in fact often then private equity takes a Tech company private the impetus return value to the new owners is even higher than if it was still public The pattern of Private Equity take over is clear 1. Buy out public stock 2. Extreme Cost Cutting to make the company profitable by sacrificing Engineering and Customer Service 3. Massive Increase in prices to make the company profitable by sacrificing long term market share for short term profits 4. Sell the company again (or in pieces) before it goes bankrupt due to 1 and 2. This has happened time and time again.
  - eli 3y ago
    That certainly happens but it’s not the only way to go private or even the only playbook for PE
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      I have been through it many times as a customer of tech companies, I would say the outline I posted above it the most common pattern I have experienced So much so that today if one of my vendors gets bought out by PE we immediately start planning a migration of that technology Most recent example is Broadcom who uses a PE-like playbook, we are now evaluating what can replace vSphere...

hellectronic 3y ago

My first Laptop was from Toshiba. Worked with it for 7 years, Windows and Linux without problems.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

Related earlier: Toshiba to be delisted after 74 years, faces future with new owners https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38701053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38701053

ziotom78 3y ago

My wife's Toshiba laptop was bought in 2005 and still works. It's a 32-bit machine with just 1–2 GB of memory, but I put a SSD a few years ago and with this setup Linux runs fine. I still use it sometimes, as it's the smallest laptop we have in our house and it's handy to use it while in bed for browsing and checking mail.