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This was one of the better articles on the subject of the entrepreneurship problem in Japan, probably because it is one of the rare cases where the piece was wr
by hkmurakami 13y ago
This was one of the better articles on the subject of the entrepreneurship problem in Japan, probably because it is one of the rare cases where the piece was written by someone who personally wet his feet in the scene there (as opposed to journalists or bloggers, who are complete outsiders).
That being said, the discussion is largely a repetition of what we've heard many times before (Though the parts about long sales cycles and the non-entrepreneurial VC was interesting, since these are the only two parts that came from the author's own personal experiences). There's a limit to how much astute insight can be drawn from Japanese Americans (which he must be) like the author or myself, because in the end, we are outsiders and will never be completely immersed or invested in understanding the intricacies of the socio-cultural issues that pervade the scene there.
I've of course thought about these issues in Japan myself, and my current assessment is that the best talent in the country have so much to lose and so little to gain by leaving their larger company posts and creating their own thing. The incentives and rewards are completely different than just 40 years ago, where there was very little to lose by being brash and taking outsized risks, both inside and outside large companies.
- epaladin 13y agoI imagine it was much different before (and during?) the bubble. There are amazing stories of entrepreneurship from that time- with things like the founding and fantastic growth of 7-11 Japan, and Softbank. These companies are huge now, but getting them off the ground involved a large amount of risk and a group of people that accepted that. Masayoshi Son (of Softbank) is still seen as a maverick even now despite his well-established success; if he was just starting out now I imagine he would have a harder time than he did in 1981.
- hkmurakami 13y agoSoftbank's success is a bit of a red herring. They have basically never been profitable, but have made enormous gains in their investments in things like Yahoo! Japan and Chinese internet businesses. By the time the real estate bubble was truly underway, people were by in large comfortable with the huge companies throwing money at their feet to join their firm (stories of college recruiting are downright ridiculous -- they go way beyond the wining and dining of new grads by consulting and finance firms in the states). The truly ridiculous wave of entrepreneurship was in the post-war era, where the country had very little in its possession and everything to gain by trying very new things.