

In Japan, Young Face Generational Roadblocks - gamble
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/asia/28generation.html

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harisenbon
The part about Horie was kind of interesting.

He was really seen as someone to rock the boat, and as someone who could
really turn around the stodgering top-down society that is Japan. It's
probably safe to say that most of the youth of the country were rooting for
him, and the new economic growth that he would most likely bring to Japan.

Then he f-ed up, and got caught up in stock fraud. I know that he's still
appealing the decision, but the evidence against him was pretty huge, and the
backlash was rather dire.

Up until that point, all the proponents of Horie were saying "Look! This young
guy is brilliant, making tons of money, and can change the way Japan
operates!" When he got arrested, that changed to "Look! This young guy broke
the law, was making tons of money, and pretty much guaranteed that the youth
of Japan will forever be trapped beneath their senile overlords." (Ok, that
last part might just be me)

sorry, it seems I'm still a little peeved about the whole thing.

Yesterday I was talking with the (rather young) CEO of a automotive-
electronics startup and he was saying that Japan's industry is slowly dying
because of a lack of desire to innovate. He said "In order to succeed in the
Japanese market, you can't introduce something new because it'll get shot
down. You need to go abroad, do your research, make demos, make it work, then
bring it back to Japan and say 'Look what we're doing abroad!' ".

I hope this country does great things (because I don't have anywhere else to
go), but I really worry about the future of a country that doesn't value its
youth to such a degree that they lose all motivation.

~~~
donw
This reflects my experience in Japan; overall, people here are _terrified_ of
change. Even within most companies, the tiniest of changes need to be
communicated and agreed upon by every separate group, before anything can
actually happen.

~~~
cdavid
While this is true, I think Japanese culture mostly just makes this more
obvious. A big part of it is based on perception (in western culture, change
is much more accepted generally, and people tend to show/believe they change
much more than they actually do).

For example, what happened during the Meiji area is pretty unique in world
history AFAIK, and that was a gigantic change. My experience in Japan is that
people are less willing to change things, but are much more willing to change
once they agreed on the nature of the change (that's part of what makes
Japanese company still efficient today: people are willing to sacrifice a lot
for something else than their own self if they believe it worths it).

There is no question that Japan is facing huge challenges as of today - but I
would not bet on Japanese society not being able to deal with it once they
really have no choice. Also, the young people the article refers too are
actually between 25 up to 40 years old (people entering the job market after
the bubble in mid 90ies), so mathematically, old people who benefitted from
the pre-bubble system will be less and less influential

~~~
bane
What's the old corporate training line American's get before doing business in
Japan? Something like "In Japan it can take forever to come to a decision, but
once made, it's executed at a frightening pace."

~~~
donw
Oh no it's not. The Japanese are, and I'm generalizing quite heavily here, not
good at getting going, or at going quickly once they get moving.

What they are really, shockingly, amazingly good at, is doing things well once
they do get moving.

Over here, quality matters more than anything else, and it shows everywhere --
even the 'dollar-store' (100 yen shop goods) have shockingly good quality.

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patio11
This is largely directionally accurate. (Especially for young ladies --
curious that the NYT missed that angle, one would have assumed they would be
all over it.)

On the plus side, persistent market inefficiencies are a gift from God if
you're prepared to exploit them. (Where else can you find Californian
purchasing power at engineering wages which would be skimpy in small town
Iowa?)

~~~
gojomo
Can you clarify that last sentence a bit? (I think you mean, things are enough
cheaper in Japan that a skimpy salary still has great purchasing-power-
parity... but I thought as a highly-urbanized country, Japan had relatively
high prices for everything from real estate to food. I could easily be
mistaken, and would love to hear examples of what _is_ cheaper there, and
where.)

~~~
patio11
Japan is a rich nation, by any measure you want. Japanese twenty-something
engineers are not rich people. You can take their labor and use it to sell to
_other_ Japanese people, like their parents or the beneficiaries of
Californian-public-employee-esque sweet retirement deals.

(See also: Demand Media, which does the same equation except it substitutes
"stay-at-home moms" for 20-something Japanese engineers.)

Most persistent market mispricings of labor should be profitably exploitable.

~~~
borism
how long more do you think it will take for young japanese to realize they're
"profitably exploitable"?

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jimminy
I feel the US is in roughly the same boat.We have more freedoms, but our whole
system puts pressure on promoting higher education, while simultaneously
providing no promise that there will be a way to recoup the debt load. Our
mentalities, of protecting a gentrifying population, are stifling future
generations access to the same privilege that prior generations had.

My personal view on the situation, is that we need to step back and look at
what this system of higher education has done. And then start focusing on
vocational training, in HS, apprenticeships, and on the job skill training.

~~~
loewenskind
>We have more freedoms

Such as?

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jhamburger
It seems that we might look back in history and see the rise and fall of Japan
in a single generation. Culturally, founder CEOs are given the utmost respect,
while hired CEOs are looked at almost as figureheads. By the time Japan really
started to decline in the 90s, most of the entrepreneurs who rebuilt industry
after the war were gone- leaving their companies rudderless. The political
sphere is even worse, corruption and cronyism abound. Japan, the unstoppable
juggernaut, is now ruled by old men lining their pockets.

Surely there are lessons to be learned here.

~~~
wladimir
It's probably more extreme in Japan, but you could say a similar thing is
happening all over the western world right now, a decade later.

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wallflower
Deru kugi wa utareru

Cross-reference with "An Innovator Leaving Japan"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325704>

<http://synaptify.com/?p=613728>

OT: Ikiru "To Life" (a 1952 film about one man and Japan's human crushing
bureaucracy) is one of Kurosawa's best

<http://www.acepilots.com/discussions/ikiru.html>

~~~
gchucky
Just as a little tidbit, the phrase "deru kui wa utareru" (kui = kugi),
「出る杭は打たれる」 means "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down".

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rubinelli
I think I understand now why the "otaku" cultural industry is so vibrant. A
bright, working-class high schooler knows he can't become a president at Sony
or Misubishi, but if he's good enough, he can write the next YuYu Hakusho or
Naruto. He can start by publishing an indie doujinshi with a group of friends.
That's how some of the best-paid manga writers in Japan began.

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xiaoma
Direct link to bypass log in page:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/asia/28generation.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/asia/28generation.html?partner=rss&emc=rss)

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stcredzero
_A nation that produced Sony, Toyota and Honda has failed in recent decades to
nurture young entrepreneurs_

Why did those companies succeed?

~~~
ovi256
Because they had a very much blank slate after the war, when the old order was
not only toppled, but ashamed and humiliated, and the old good-old-boys
networks were destroyed or at least weakened.

Furthermore, the nation was hungry, not literally, but hungry for success, so
they worked extra hard. The success of post-war Japan is built on the 16-hour
workdays of countless salarymen. Those peculiar post-war conditions are long
gone.

~~~
koops
Oh, yes, literally too. There were more people in Japan (return of imperial
forces and families) and less food. Millions were hungry, and some starved to
death.

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rorrr
This looks like an amazing opportunity to start a company and hire talented
young people.

~~~
harisenbon
See the comment above by rshigeta and my reply as to why that will be a lot
harder than you think.

I wish it wasn't, but a society based entirely on social connections that is
resistant to change is a hard place for an outsider to start a company.

~~~
msabalau
Would there be an opportunity to hire undervalued local talent if you were
export focused, and didn't care about the local market?

