
Tokyo vs. the Bay Area - fenomas
https://medium.com/@quanza/tokyo-vs-the-bay-area-db3d1523c3c4
======
smegel
> Tokyo is the world’s most livable city.

This is a really bizarre claim. Tokyo, like Japan is special in it's own
right, but it, like the rest of Japan, is very homogeneous, you are pretty
much getting the same thing everywhere (or slight variations thereof). And, as
a non-Japanese, much of what the natives can experience is somewhat closed to
outsiders, or simply doesn't appeal to them. And no, Tokyo doesn't list in the
actual ranked most livable cities list:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_most_liveable_cities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_most_liveable_cities)

> Tokyo has the most number of Michelin stars for a single city.

Because we all like to eat at Michelin starred restaurants...

This article reads like the author has misinterpreted his own personal
preferences as some gospel truth that should apply to everyone. Which really
isn't of much use to anyone.

~~~
long
> And no, Tokyo doesn't list in the actual ranked most livable cities list:
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_most_liveable_cities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_most_liveable_cities)

There are three surveys on that page. The last one, Monocle, does indeed put
Tokyo at number 1.

~~~
eitally
But Monocle is a magazine put out by and aimed at wealthy urban professionals
with mucho disposable income. Their priorities and idea of liveability is not
the same as other groups'.

~~~
long
That may be. But smegel's claim was that Tokyo does not appear on any rankings
list. And the evidence presented for this was a page which in fact had Tokyo
first on a rankings list.

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caser
Interesting read! I think the biggest advantage / disadvantage is the double-
edged sword of there just not being a lot of startups in Tokyo. It's really
easy to cut through the noise and stand out, but at the same time, there's not
as much of a high-quality community of people doing interesting things.

For anyone looking to experience the Tokyo startup community first-hand, we're
going there next month with Hacker Paradise (hackerparadise.org) and will be
throwing a number of events with the local tech scene.

~~~
Paulods
Caser i would be very interested in joining you for a drink. Currently me and
a friend are running a small event for the startup/tech community in Tokyo.
Check us out on slack/doorkeeper.

[http://techtokyo.herokuapp.com/](http://techtokyo.herokuapp.com/)
[https://techcrawl.doorkeeper.jp/](https://techcrawl.doorkeeper.jp/)

~~~
caser
We should definitely chat. Shoot us an email or Tweet at us @hackerparadise

~~~
Paulods
Will do now.

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nness
One detail worth mentioning, and a few other bloggers have touched on this as
well is that Japan, from a business perspective, can still be very xenophobic.
Kind of a cultural and racial version of the "not built here" problem. If it's
a problem for foreigner workers, it is likely a compounded problem once you
throw in the high-risk nature of start-ups and the extremely risk-adverse
cultural preferences.

------
wodenokoto
A lot of people like to talk about Tokyo as the next start-up city for some
reason.

I love Tokyo, but I imagine places like Shanghai or Shenzen to be much better.
Cheaper cost of living, better economic environment (that is, despite the
recent crack, China is still growing their economy tremendously)

When I went to an embassy networking event in Shanghai there were plenty of
people starting new business or new offices, but a networking event in Tokyo
for the same country could only muster people who worked for the big old
companies for a long time.

------
Htsthbjig
"eat some of the healthiest cuisine known to man, and hack away."

I love Japanese food, specially fish. But I don't know if the above statement
is true after Fukusima. I try not eating fish in Japan now just in case, is a
constant effort, because I like it so much.

"Tokyo is the world’s most livable city." Most people I know in Tokyo does not
live, they just work, and work. Lots of people there seeing their
families(kids if they could afford to have them) on weekends. Extremely
expensive place to live.

I prefer the German or Swiss model of work.

Japan is getting older and older, it is already a gerontocrazy, and very
nationalistic. There are more opportunities for young foreigners in the future
in Asia in places like Vietnam or Thailand.

Old people have something in common, they HATE change, and startups are
change.

I would recommend living in Japan for lots of things, but never for startups.
For me they are the antithesis of it(I worked there when I was younger).

~~~
shostack
Even where you can eat the fish, much of Japanese cuisine is far from healthy.
Fried this, insane sodium that, etc. not to say I don't absolutely love it, or
that they don't have plenty of healthy food, but let's not kid ourselves.

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joesmo
"Putting aside all other variables (changing skill-sets, technology trends,
etc.), if you’re financially responsible and even if none of the 15 startups
is a unicorn, at least one is bound to have a decent enough exit to pad a good
nest-egg."

What? So 1 in 15 startups makes a big enough exit for not only the executives,
but run of the mill engineers to have a good retirement? What universe is this
guy from? I want to live in that universe!

~~~
phamilton
Not really retirement, but 200k in equity payout for a senior engineer isn't
exactly rare.

I'd call 200k a "decent enough exit to pad a good nest-egg". It's not
fantastic, it's not going to create a nest-egg, but it will "pad" a good nest-
egg.

------
patio11
Lifestyle factors: Tokyo is a wonderful place to live and work. (Much, much
better than I had expected prior to moving there.)

Relevant to startup factors:

a) Unbelievably bad fundraising environment as compared to the Bay Area. The
absolute amount of money available is pretty large, but for a variety of
pipeline reasons, I would not assume it was easily accessible for a variety of
firms that would have an easy time accessing Meaningful Amounts of Money in
the Bay Area as of 2015 (or any time for the last 10 years, for that matter).

b) Talent market: with specific regards to foreign entrepreneurs hiring in
Tokyo, I often find that they have... interesting expectations. "Hey I'd like
to find a bilingual Japanese/English engineer who has startup-compatible risk
tolerances, is comfortable working in a bicultural environment under a minimum
amount of supervision, can solo-ship code in one or more modern programming
stacks, and is willing to work for $2.5k per month." I think if you also have
this expectation, you will not find the Tokyo labor market to be accommodating
of your desires.

Assuming one is reasonably clueful with regards to looking for folks who
actually exist... I think one would be a bit disappointed with regards to who
actually exists and it what quantity. It's a minor miracle that one can
reliably staff a team of 20 engineers to build a never-before-seen highly
scalable application out of nothing to do something which is actually
meaningful. You can accomplish this miracle in the Bay Area. It will be
expensive, but it is doable, and you'll be one of _hundreds of firms doing it
at the same time_. In Tokyo... you're going to find that individual pieces of
that 20-strong team are very, very hard to find. A CTO who has done it before?
An architecture lead who is both capable of making good choices and will also
happily actually touch an AWS account with their own two hands? An
intermediate Rails or Python developer who can both ship code and is willing
to work for you? Times five? _Every_ hire there is a fun adventure which might
end in "And then despite everyone's best efforts there was no engineer
available for hire and the company died ingloriously."

c) Ambient competence levels among Tokyo entrepreneurs and other people
associated with the startup ecosystem are... how to be charitable here...
lagging ambient competence levels in Silicon Valley. By at least a few cycles,
if not more. Stuff which is way-the-heck-below table stakes for e.g. a YC
startup which is N weeks old is treated here like PhD thesis level black
magic. (Specific example: "Your cost of customer acquisition is actually
highly sensitive to your conversion rate if you're using paid acquisition
sources." "That doesn't sound right." " _sigh_ Alright, let's go to the
whiteboard for a minute." _15 minutes later_ "WHOA.")

~~~
mguillemot
As a "bilingual Japanese/English engineer who has startup-compatible risk
tolerances, is comfortable working in a bicultural environment under a minimum
amount of supervision, can solo-ship code in one or more modern programming
stacks", I indeed have had to check on a few occasions whether the stated
salary was monthly or daily. Generally a good sign that the talk is not going
anywhere...

~~~
patio11
Yep. 桁が違う all over the place. (Translation for those who'd find it helpful:
("Not the expected number of digits." / "Off by an order of magnitude.")

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octref
I'm an undergrad in US and have thought about going to Japan to work after
graduation.

However, according to my Japanese teacher many people in Japan have to work
until 8pm or later on a regular basis, and sometimes overtime. Does anyone
have those kind of experience in Tokyo's tech industry?

~~~
brobinson
Our friend patio11 wrote a bit about it here:

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-
japan/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/)

~~~
unsignedint
One detail missing from their overtime situation is a lot of companies do not
practice interval between work hours. This basically means you can be forced
to work until 5AM and then expected to show up 9AM in the morning.

There seems to be some talk about the regulatory amendment to fix this, but
considering current "service overtime" already crossing legal limit, I don't
know how effective that will be.

~~~
brobinson
Yikes! Or a law will be enacted, but enforcement will be lax...

------
CamatHN
Ummm language? It's easy to underestimate communication because it is hard to
quantify but when you cannot express the value of a startup clearly or develop
deep relationships due to language barriers its going to affect your success.

~~~
fenomas
This was my first thought - I can't imagine how someone could feasibly start a
company here without being at least somewhat bilingual.

I've seen people found and run successful companies with only moderate
Japanese ability, but only when they'd already lived here a long time and had
lots of contacts. (And folks in that position will have their own opinions
about the startup climate...)

------
deciplex
FWIW, these guys (Gengo) show up on Glassdoor/Tokyo now and then with a role
description in English, but based on this blog post they seem to be looking
exclusively to pull Japanese engineers out of e.g. "Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic".
You'll find good engineers there of course, but you won't find them with a
listing on Glassdoor in English. It's good to know what their target is, since
I apparently wasted my time applying there about a year ago, and again earlier
this year, without even so much as a follow-up "thanks but no thanks" stock
email - just total radio silence.

(Anyway, Glassdoor is not very active in Tokyo.)

I wouldn't take what this author is saying to mean "Tokyo is attractive _for
engineers_ ". It basically is not, at least not compared to the Bay Area, or
really any tech-focused metro area in North America or Europe. Especially
considering Tokyo's large population (>35 million), it is not a global tech
hub by any stretch. Entrepreneurs might be a different story.

------
gergles
They forgot to mention the weather; Tokyo has seasons and an oppressive summer
with snow in the winter. The Bay Area's climate is much more moderate and
liveable, in my opinion.

~~~
ninjin
I agree that the summers are moist and rainy, followed by heat that can kill.
But I don't think you are right in describing the winters as snowy, in six
years I remember about four instances of snow. Also, it lasted for at most two
or three days. The Tokyo winter is horrible in that it is grey and windy, but
certainly not snowy.

~~~
shostack
Note for tour Sets visiting in August...don't think the cooling centers are
just for children and elderly. You WILL be using them. I'm from Chicago which
has hot and humid summers and nothing prepared me for that weather.

------
6t6t6
> World-class cuisine — ramen, sushi, yakitori, shabu shabu

This made me smile because, actually, ramen and yakitori (and sushi to some
extend) are considered cheap fast food here.

------
famouslabs
If you are looking for connections and opportunities in Japan, we are running
community of over 300+ members (319 to be exact as for now) from tech/startup
scene in Asia.

[http://focusasia.famouslabs.co](http://focusasia.famouslabs.co)

At least 40 of our members is from Japan (mostly Tokyo area).

------
aprdm
How about the VISA to get talent tech people in Japan? How does it work?

~~~
patio11
File this under "doable but not easy." If you need specific instructions,
they're often situation-specific and outside the scope of an HN comment. Email
me and I'll data-dump about it. (Offer open to any HNer at essentially any
time.)

The high percentage options are a) spouse of Japanese national, b) engineering
status of residence (need to be able to demonstrate approximately ~3 million
yen a year in income and an ongoing contract with one or more Japanese
companies, and it is highly to your advantage if they're established old-line
companies), and possibly, c) intra-company transfers (easiest to accomplish
for established startups with significant ex-Japan operations), and possibly
d) the new point-based immigration system.

~~~
caser
Is it that tough? As a freelancer, I'm sure it's not easy, but as a funded
company hiring engineers with college degrees, I thought it was relatively
straightforward either with the Engineering visa or by somehow classifying the
work under the Specialist in Humanities visa.

(btw will be back in Tokyo in September, would love to buy you coffee)

~~~
mikekchar
I believe it is easy to hire people with the Engineering visa. I was looking
into it recently, as I was considering hiring someone, but it looks like I
don't need to at the moment, so I haven't looked at the details closely. My
understanding is that the main issue you might have is a small capital
requirement and/or income to show that you can support the employee. I've
talked with people who have sponsored foreign English teachers and they have
told me that they had absolutely no difficulty (though this was several years
ago -- things might have changed).

I haven't actually read the fine article yet, but I'm not really sure what
would attract people to doing start ups in Japan. Hiring locals is difficult
because of the way the job system works -- people don't change jobs every few
years. It's quite a bit cheaper to live here than many other places in the
world, but it is culturally very different. I spent 5 years here teaching
English amongst many young (mostly American) colleagues. I wouldn't bring
people over here unless you are prepared to help them out a lot when they
inevitably get in trouble (shuddering recalling the experience of having to
help my colleague who punched a police officer). It's a big commitment. Also,
unless you have a lot of experience with Japanese culture yourself, it can be
a bit tricky to handle all of the business issues. For my business, I write
code and leave all the business issue to my Japanese wife (even though I am
quite fluent in Japanese). Without her and my accountant, I would be lost.

But, of course, Japan is an amazing place if you are the kind of person who
fits in here. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

------
throwaway2439
>There’s less competition for the “eccentric” — the bilingual, tech-talented,
sociable, engaging entrepreneur.

>There’s less competition for the “eccentric” — the bilingual, tech-talented,
sociable, engaging, white male entrepreneur.

Fixed that for the OP.

~~~
astrange
Well delete your tumblr account, because "white male" is not a useful concept
in Japan. They might assume what country you're from, but if you're not too
blonde, loud and fat they'll charitably assume you're French or Russian. And
it won't get you further than being black, African, Chinese or anything.

Japanese landlords are openly racist, though, and will ban whole categories of
people at will. They might have a problem with one tenant and just stop
accepting any Chinese person or sailor or whatever for a year.

