Last 50 years they were legendary in terms of hardware innovation but are slowly fading away and being eclipsed by US and China. Why haven't they been able to transition to a software/product hub like Singapore, India etc?
Culture involution
Hardware? Or was it just memory chips into the 80s? I guess the Walkman could have been stylistically like the iPhone of the 80s but I don’t recall it being economically and societally transformational. I also don’t really think about Singapore and India either when China is the elephant in the room.
You don't think the Walkman was transformational? With no Walkman there's no iPod. With no iPod there's no iPhone. Sony had a huge impact on the consumer electronics world for a long time.
They were the leaders in all types of electronics (TV, cameras, robotics, VHS, communication equipment etc) that had a huge impact on the world, in addition to automotive sector of course. They are are now nowhere in the autonomous vehicles space despite being leaders in robotics and cars historically.
Risk as well, startups are founded upon an original risky proposition — Japanese tech culture tends to be risk averse. Also Silicon Valley is perfectly setup for startups to thrive. Universities like cal and Stanford provide an influx of technical talent, the laws around startups in the Bay Area are friendly. Combine that with startup friendly banks like svb and lawyers willing to work on equity. Investors are also willing to put millions behind ideas they believe in. This area really creates an environment willing to take on risk. Other areas have tried to emulate Sv but it’s hard to get all that — especially start it, if that isn’t already the culture of the area.
Yeah, definitely SV is unique ecosystem that is impossible to compete with without state support (China). But Japan is not even an important overseas center for major US companies (Singapore, India, Israel etc have become hubs)
At my role I deal with internal teams from all over and Japanese teams are the most difficult engagements. The reason is language barrier. India has English with accent but still good English and articulated very well. China tries hard and resorts to written etc to get the point across, and it works. Europeans are good at articulating in English so no worries there. Haven’t worked much with South America and Africa so can’t comment. In japan it’s shameful if you are not the best in whatever so they don’t even try to communicate In hardware and robotics collaboration is less and a tented team can work hard and finally come out with the product and then teams of user experience and marketing will make sure the product is global. For software that’s not possible since it needs faster and more number of iterations where the product teams are talking outside of their comfort zone with partners, vendors, customers etc
they like to smell their own farts.
Maybe the low interest rates and greener pastures elsewhere? Some of the best techies I know are Japanese. Lost decade overlapped with software tech boom?
Japanese consider engineering to be a low status job fit for poor performing graduates. Good graduates become doctors or lawyers.
Isn’t that true even in the US tho? Doctors 👨🏿⚕️ and lawyers make more than software engineers
No. I'm pretty sure a 30-year-old software engineer's net worth(total asset minus total debt such as student loans) is far more than 30 year old doctor or lawyer.
Demographics & Immigration
Immifration rules are horrible.
Their business culture is quite top down. Not exactly the entrepreneurial recipe for success.
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