
Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old - kawera
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200211-why-are-so-many-old-companies-in-japan
======
Danieru
Do you remember Ship of Theseus? The thought experiment about if a ship which
has been fully rebuilt bit by bit is it still the same thing?

Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components
keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to
the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that
burning a building and rebuilding, would count as a new building.

Similar in Japan's family business the lineage can be preserved by adopting a
adult man capable of continuing the business. It needs not be common, but it
does serve to ensure family businesses will not end due to a failed marriage
or lack of kids. In the west this would just come across as giving your
business away to another person, yet in Japan it is considered a valid
continuation of the family.

I do not think this is the single biggest reason Japan has such old
businesses, but I think it is a key tool which has preserved many.

~~~
erikpukinskis
One of my favorite YouTube channels, Sampson Boat Co, is doing just that: a
young shipwright is rebuilding the classic sailing yacht Tally Ho piece by
piece, in a modest workshop by the sea up in Oregon. It will be all new by the
time he’s done, minus some hardware, but he has never lost continuity with the
original hull.

This is just how wooden boats are, whether you do it bit by bit, or as a big
project, eventually you replace just about all of it every 100 years or so.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-
_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-
_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA)

~~~
Xelbair
>This is just how wooden boats are, whether you do it bit by bit, or as a big
project, eventually you replace just about all of it every 100 years or so.

If you replace one specific part of the shit(Keel), it is by law a new ship.
It needs to be accredited again if it is to be used commercially.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
Reminds me of a story from a morning radio show. Guy calls in to say how he
"legally" stole a car. Steals expensive car, strips it, abandons frame. Frame
is collected and put up for auction. Thief buys bare frame and puts all the
stripped parts back on.

~~~
ansible
It is definitely car theft. This is just a way of getting a clean (-ish) title
for it afterwards. In the USA, it will still be a salvage title.

~~~
erikig
It is definitely car theft. But...if he claimed that he parked the car in this
neighborhood and came back to find it stripped he could conceivably get away
with it.

That's an interview I would like to listen to

~~~
ansible
> It is definitely car theft. But...if he claimed that he parked the car in
> this neighborhood and came back to find it stripped he could conceivably get
> away with it.

That sounds more like insurance fraud, actually. Which you can also get sued
for.

------
johnklos
(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
__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/j...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/08/21/commentary/japan-
commentary/japans-quality-bubble-explains-flat-lined-gdp)

~~~
umvi
Is it true Japanese companies pay software engineers peanuts compared to USA?
How much Japanese do you need to speak to get by?

~~~
asiachick
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/#potentialJo...](https://about.yahoo.co.jp/hr/job-
info/role/0005/#potentialJobAnchor06)

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.

------
bane
It's interesting about growing older. I don't know if this is a function of
aging or a change in how humanity recons time. When I was younger, a century
seemed like forever. Now it's just 1920 and we have film, music, audio, books
and so on from that time period readily available.

In many ways 1920 doesn't really seem _all_ that far away to me while 1860,
1870, 1880 (a century from when I was a child) seemed to be _forever_ ago.

When I look at film and photos from 1920 I see modern people, people I could
see meeting and having relatively modern conversations while when I look at
media from the mid 1800s I see ancestors who I share very little with.

~~~
kinkora
I can't remember where i heard this from (it was a podcast) but it was on an
economic theory that, if you exclude the internet & computer revolution,
humans has not progressed that much in the past 100 years and that we may have
entered a period of stagnant growth that may extend a century. Again, internet
& computer revolution aside, realistically saying the last "human leap" was
the invention of the combustion engine and prior to that, it was the discovery
of electricity.

So he proves this out by taking an example of what happens if you hit someone
on the head and assuming that person sleeps for a long time, how will he feel
out of place in the world. Here are the examples I remembered he used
(paraphrasing):

1\. If you take someone living in the 1700s, knock them on the head, and have
them wake up any time till the mid 1800s, to that person, life feels almost
the same even though 100s of years have passed. Sure, maybe there are more
buildings, more people, more horses, weapons are more or less the same, etc
but essentially life is still familiar.

2\. Now take someone living in, lets say 1850, knock them out and have them
wake up in 1880. Holy shit, suddenly the world is so much brighter and there
are "lights" everywhere. What witchcraft is this?? The world will look so
different from what he/she remembers them.

3\. Now take that same person living in 1880, hit them on the head again and
have him/her wake up 35 years later and it is 1915. HOLY DOUBLE CRAP, what is
this new fangle machine on wheels on the streets people are on and where have
all the horses gone?? Ok I need to go into the toilet and wash my face...OMG
WHAT IS THIS FLUSHING THING AND THIS METAL SPROUT CREATES MY OWN CLEAN
RIVER??? Walks to the city and wow, look at all these buildings looking like
mountains! And not only that, he/she looks up in the sky and sees gigantic
"metal birds"...WTF YOU CAN RIDE THEM AND NOW GET FROM LA TO NY in a couple of
hours?? The world will look completely magical to them.

Now here is the interesting thing - if you take someone from 1920s, hit them
on our head, and put them in 2020.. that economist surmises that life will
look pretty much the same to that person, not unlike scenario (1) where you
take someone from 1700s and put them in the 1800s. Vehicles might look a bit
more modern, buildings might look a bit more taller or "sleek-er", there are
way much more people but essentially, the world hasn't really change much. Oh,
there is this new computer & internet thing but that's it.

So yep, it is nothing to do with you. We just happen to live in a time where
we have yet to experience a "leap" in invention where life has become
completely magical to us. My guess will be, the day space tech becomes a
common place and attainable, that will be when the world looks magically
different to those of us living today and that generation will feel the same
leap as the inhabitants living from 1850~1920.

~~~
momentbruh
> Oh, there is this new computer & internet thing but that's it.

This sentence is doing an unbelievable amount of work. I don't think you
realize how strange it is that we have instant-speed trans-Atlantic
communication that can transmit massive amounts of data. Computers are
practically foreign objects to plenty of people born in the 60s, who grew up
as they were invented. You don't think someone from 1920, with no prior
exposure to them, would think that a smartphone is just a standard part of
everyday life?

Not to mention all the other massive changes to society that you ignored.
Commercial flights started in the 1920s and are now commonplace in everyday
life. Digital audio; televisions; massive changes to cars; ATMs and credit
cards. Can you imagine someone from the 1920s trying to operate a Dyson
AirBlade?

This is before accounting for the crazy rate of cultural change that would
shock someone from 100 years ago. Half the words used in daily conversation
wouldn't even make sense to someone from 1920.

~~~
fogetti
You could make transatlantic calls in the 1920s. Sure, it was not that fast or
capable as the internet, but the fundamental capability of connecting the
world together has been around for a century or so. So it's not that strange
as you try to make it to be.

~~~
momentbruh
You're being incredibly disingenuous; the very first transatlantic call was
made in 1927. To say that the "fundamental capability" of information
transmission was there is like saying that the fundamental capability of
travel or illumination existed with the horse or candle. You can't
simultaneously claim that the car's invention represents a dramatic paradigm
shift while the Internet doesn't.

------
tkgally
A few days ago, I went into a barbershop in Fujisawa, south of Tokyo, to have
my hair cut. When I entered, the sole barber was slumped on a sofa looking at
a computer screen. He didn't seem particularly happy to have a customer. The
shop was messy, a white cat wandered around, and I had to step over a live
turtle in a tank on the floor to get to the barber chair.

As the barber cut my hair, I asked him about the shop. He said that it was
ninety years old—the area had escaped bombing during the war—and that his
grandfather and father had run the shop before him.

If someone opened a similarly shambolic barbershop today, it would almost
certainly fail, as Japanese consumers are picky about appearances. But he said
he had a steady clientele, including customers who themselves were the second
or third generation in their families to get their hair cut there. He also
turned out to be pleasant to chat with, and I had no complaint about the
quality of the haircut.

The cost of the haircut was on the high side, and as he lives behind the shop
in a house he inherited he must have minimal overhead. He looked to be in his
forties. He should have no trouble keeping the shop running well past the
century mark.

~~~
bytematic
Is it part of the culture in japan that you take over the business of your
parents? I wonder if that negatively affects the quality of the business to
have children running it that don't particularly want to.

~~~
tkgally
It has traditionally been a part of the culture for businesses both small and
large. In the case of small shops like the barbershop I visited, an often-
reported issue in recent years is the reluctance of the younger generation to
take over their parents' shops; one result is an increase in empty stores in
once-bustling shopping areas. The declining birthrate also contributes to that
trend. Larger companies are also often passed down from parents to children;
it's no coincidence that the president of Toyota Motor is named Akio Toyoda.

In some cases, family succession helps to maintain quality and traditions and
to keep the company intact; in others, it can lead to inertia, internal
strife, and business failure.

------
cyberferret
Wow - that tea house has been operating for 900 years? I thought the previous
record was a Japanese temple building company that was around for 400+ years
before having to close during the global financial crisis a decade ago?!

There is that old adage in multi generational businesses that goes - "The
first generation kicks off the business, the second generation builds upon
what the first generation did, and the third generation squanders everything
the first two generations did". In my 40+ years of business consulting I have
actually seen this happen multiple times.

There must be something different about the Japanese cultural and
philosophical outlook of building a business and handing it over to the next
generation to carry on.

~~~
hnaccy
> I thought the previous record was a Japanese temple building company that
> was around for 400+ years before having to close during the global financial
> crisis a decade ago?!

You have the numbers mixed up, Kongō Gumi had been founded in 578 AD so its
run was over a millennia.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Japan's Kongō Gumi construction company has lasted over 1,400 years! To give a
perspective of the time period of its existence -

• It was started just right at the end of Kofun period when Japanese tribes
started political centralisation (578 AD).

• It has survived unification of Japan under Tokugawa shogunate (1603 - 1868).

• It has survived forced opening of Japan to the outside world by the western
forces (1854).

• It has survived World War I (1914 - 1918).

• It has survived World War II (1939-1945), ending in the near total
destruction of the country.

Yet, when Japan survived to become a Trillion dollar economy; Kongō Gumi Co.,
Ltd. was liquidated and acquired by Takamatsu Construction Group (2006).

What does it take to build a Business which lasts over 1000 years now? Would
humanity even last for next 1000 years with current geo-politics, inequality
and hatred?

~~~
cthalupa
>• It has survived World War II (1939-1945), ending in the near total
destruction of the country.

What part of WW2 resulted in near total destruction of the country? The two
atomic bombs were tragic, but the near total destruction of two cities is a
far cry from the near total destruction of a country.

------
bump64
Another point I want to mention is that Japan was never invaded on its own
territory by a foreign power and it wasn't ruled or politically influenced by
outsiders for many centuries. This helps a lot to build and preserve a
business.

On the contrary if you take the Balkans in Europe every few centuries the
ruling power changed. First was the Roman Empire, then the Byzantine Empire,
Bulgarian Empire, many other nations come to power for different periods, then
the Ottomans, the Soviet Union and in the present day most of the companies
and corporations in the Balkans are very proud if they have a history of 20-30
years (after the collapse of the Soviet Union)

~~~
mrleiter
It was hit by two atomic bombs.

~~~
74ls00
The Second World War is certainly the most tumultuous time in Japanese history
but it was still an era of relative stability when compared to civil wars,
revolutions, and invasions in most parts of the world E.g. the monarchy
prevails

~~~
anthonypasq
You originally argued about foreign invaders, and now youve switched to civil
war. which is it?

~~~
afjl
1) wrong guy

2) He's right. Japan post-WW2 endured foreign occupation yes, but without
significant internal turmoil. Other states that underwent massive change (e.g.
Russia: WW1->Civil War->2 Revolutions) had significant internal turmoil. This
helps explain why so many "old" businesses survived in Japan.

------
reustle
If I own a reasonably successful business, and want the prestige / vanity of
something like "Since 1953", could I buy a small / failing business in some
small town and merge the companies? Would my company now technically be
running since 1953?

I have companies in both Japan and the US. It's a fun though experiment at the
very least. I don't think I'd ever execute on something like this, but a
software development agency "since 1876" would be a great conversation
starter.

~~~
wodenokoto
Yes, this is exactly what the people behind Abercrombie & Fitch did.

They had an idea for a college brand of clothing and repurposed an old, dying
hunting brand in the company lineup to give the new brand authenticity and a
nice number to follow “est. “ in their branding.

~~~
ghaff
There was actually an intermediate incarnation. After closing its high-end
hunting/fishing store in Manhattan (gunsmiths on premise, fishing lures for a
particular type of fish on a particular stretch of Western river) and going
bankrupt, a Houston-based outfit made them a more generic "yuppie-ish" sort of
store with connections to hunting mostly as an image thing. Then they were
sold and developed into their current form.

------
chriscatoya
Interestingly, this feels related to the low levels of entrepreneurship (Japan
ranks 4th lowest in the world)

[https://bradchattergoon.com/japan-and-
entrepreneurship-e468a...](https://bradchattergoon.com/japan-and-
entrepreneurship-e468a6453bac)

These things are neither universally good nor bad: I do believe the Japanese
conception of duty (and how it diverges from an American sensibility) plays a
large role in the fact 33k businesses are over 100 years old. As an American
this many businesses is definitely an impressive number, but then again, 100
years ago the US was only 143 years old. We’re ~3 lifetimes (8 generations)
away from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. ️

~~~
huffmsa
The low level of entrepreneurialism isn't 1 to 1 with low innovation though.

I think you're right about the sense of duty, it leads people to turning their
innovation into something that can help their existing company versus taking
it and starting their own firm most of the time.

On the flipside, company management seems more accepting of occasionally
taking these radical ideas and rebuilding the whole business around them.
Nintendo is a good example.

~~~
chriscatoya
I generally agree, however I don’t think we should extrapolate trends in
Japanese corporate culture from gaming companies. The origin of most of them
are gambling syndicates (if you catch my drift) and I don’t think they would
reflect the mainstream mores.

------
echelon
Nintendo is one of them. They were founded in 1889 as a playing card company.
They even had a short stint running love hotels.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo)

------
divbzero
While many of the oldest businesses in Japan are hotels, some of the oldest in
Europe are breweries [1], e.g. Weihenstephan (1040) and Franziskaner (1397)
which both make excellent hefeweizens.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies)

------
distantaidenn
Fun fact: The oldest continuous company in Japan (and the world), Kongo Gumi,
was founded by a Korean immigrant.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi)

~~~
gumby
Another fun fact: the oldest monarchy in the world was also founded by a
Korean immigrant

[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/11/world/japan-
rediscovers-i...](https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/11/world/japan-rediscovers-
its-korean-past.html)

~~~
2038AD
As far as I can tell you've misread the article. The grandmother of one of the
emperors may have been Korean but the first (non-legendary) emperor was Jimmu
who was born in Japan. I'm also a little wary of that article since it says
"Yamato is the name of the family that founded Japan's imperial line" when
Yamato is the word used for the ethnic group to which most Japanese belong.
I'm wondering if there's a link here to the idea that Yamato people are mostly
descended from the ancient Yayoi who took Japan from the Jomon and were
probably from Korea (but not the ancestors of the modern Korean people).

~~~
samatman
Yamato is also the family name of the Japanese Imperial family.

These facts are directly related, through the Yamato region, from which the
Yamato family ruled for some centuries.

~~~
2038AD
Thanks

------
ChrisMarshallNY
Traditional Japanese companies (I worked for one for a quarter century) tend
to be quite risk-averse.

This does mean that they may not have massive spurts of growth, like Apple or
Microsoft, but it also means they can weather storms fairly well.

Remember that many Japanese companies had their assets turned to kindling in
WWII, and survived.

------
minikomi
Funny, just the other day I bought a hand warmer here in Japan and it
distinctly had 1923 as the age of the company on the box. I was struck by how
that's almost 100 years now. Highly recommend the pocket warmer by the way.

[http://www.hakkin.co.jp/](http://www.hakkin.co.jp/)

------
zepto
Beretta the Italian Gun manufacturer is almost 500 years old.

~~~
huffmsa
A lot of the firearms manufacturers are over a century old.

FN Herstal, Mossberg & Sons, Smith & Wesson, Winchester, Browning, Walther all
tick the 100+ year mark.

However, most of them trace their roots back to the industrial revolution, and
didn't make the transition from bespoke pieces to mass production like Beretta
did.

------
narag
I was surprised to learn that the place my father used to hang on is 232 years
old. It's in a crossroads, but not so frequented today, since they made the
beltway and took away parking space that was around.

In Spanish, with photos:

[http://puentechico1.blogspot.com/2020/01/restaurante-el-
paja...](http://puentechico1.blogspot.com/2020/01/restaurante-el-pajaro-
doscientos.html)

------
JoeAltmaier
The USA, not so many:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies_in_the_United_States)

------
illwrks
My wife's familys business has been up and running for well over 100 years.

As it was told to me... Her great great great grandfather had a small bank of
sorts, then he or perhaps his children, I forget the reason why, moved into
food. Primarily sourcing food for upscale restaurants. Her uncles and mother
run the business now, although they are in their late 60s so I doubt it will
stay going for another generation.

Her two brothers have their own careers, we live in the other side of the
world and her cousin lives in the US.

It is a strange combination of having smaller families, career aspirations and
globalisation which makes it less appealing I guess.

------
thereyougo
I think this article can bring new context for the whole situation:

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/13/business/econom...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/13/business/economy-
business/economy-seen-hurting-thousands-japans-zombie-firms-legally-dodge-
bankruptcy/#.XkaavlMzbfY)

------
epicgiga
It'd be nice if they'd be a bit more precise with their terms.

Company, firm, and business have specific meanings.

Given BBC is UK based, a company would mean a separate legal entity to its
members (a 'corporation' in US).

A firm means a group of people in business together, either a company of more
than one member or a general partnership.

And a business is the true catch-all.

I doubt these businesses going back hundreds of years are incorporated
entities. Back in the day those took an act of the state to form. The first KK
in the country (Inc. equivalent for those in US, or Ltd. for UK) was only
formed in 1873.

And I doubt businesses have been general partnerships continuously for
hundreds of years -- since these desolve automatically when the membership
changes e.g. by a death.

Especially to journalists, these details should matter.

------
tgflynn
I find it a bit surprising that a culture with so much Buddhist influence
should place so much emphasis on preservation since Buddhism emphasizes the
transitory nature of all things.

~~~
Nasrudith
Why does it emphasize it in the first place? Human discomfort with it and
emphasis is often selected by survival bias essentially. Not to mention the
syncretism of Japan it has observed and joked to have local festivals at
Shinto Shrines, weddings at Christian Churches, and funerals in Buddhist
Temples.

------
tkyjonathan
This is very impressive. The average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 is
15 years.

------
ptah
looking at recent threads about disastrous upgrades e.g. mac os catalina, i
would say we need some of this culture in software companies

------
davidivadavid
Only a century old? Easy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies)

~~~
diffeomorphism
You entirely missed the point that there is _33k_ of them. Your list does not
even have 1000.

~~~
davidivadavid
What makes you think I missed that point? I was making a playful remark about
the fact Japan also has companies that are _far older_ than 100 years old,
which I find impressive and interesting. If I was trying to come up with a
longer list, I would have said so. I wasn't, so I didn't.

