Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

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Japanese people are very talented, but that also means they oftentimes can't understand the value of inventions and technology. Read up on how Toshiba treated NAND flash's inventor, Fujio Masuoka[1][2]; Toshiba and Japan at-large can't realize a golden egg if their lives depended on it.

This combined with an introverted national culture that encourages the various companies fight each other (eg: Toshiba vs. Sony vs. Panasonic) rather than stand together and face the global market, and Japan has lost nearly every single thing they once achieved the top spot in. Government corruption, as was the case here, is icing on the cake.

I say again: Nothing of value was lost here; any value Toshiba had they already threw away decades ago.

Also, I'm Japanese. I call dibs when it comes to (justifiably!) trash talking my heritage.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujio_Masuoka

[2]: Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention of NOR flash in 1984, and then NAND flash at the IEEE 1987 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco. Toshiba commercially launched NAND flash memory in 1987. Toshiba gave Masuoka a few hundred dollar bonus for the invention, and later tried to demote him. But it was American company Intel which made billions of dollars in sales on related technology. Toshiba press department told Forbes that it was Intel that invented flash memory.

> Toshiba press department told Forbes that it was Intel that invented flash memory.

What? Why?

The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. Just show up put in long hours & do what your superiors want. The storage executives DID NOT WANT a new technology. They were content with spinning disks. Do not rock the boat, put in your 20 years quietly, retire & maybe come back with a get a consulting job there if lucky.

The Keiretsu based structure bred complacency & selling average products to each other.

As innovation technology in Silicon Valley skyrocketed, Toshiba made slideware & agreements that offered no tangible value.

They would talk about the cloud, sign agreements with IBM but have zero real budget for implementation.

Instead they would focus on continuing to build and sell non competitive solutions that meant divisions were ordered to keep making non competitive products built by thousands of engineers at a loss.

The board cooking the books sealed their fate.

> The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out. Just show up put in long hours & do what your superiors want. The storage executives DID NOT WANT a new technology. They were content with spinning disks. Do not rock the boat, put in your 20 years quietly, retire & maybe come back with a get a consulting job there if lucky.

This sort of culture could explain why Sony still sells $1000 digital Walkmen and luxury Android devices with a headphone jack.

>The culture at Toshiba was don’t stand out.

That applies to all of Japan, not just Toshiba.

"Nails that stick out will be hammered in." (出る杭は打たれる。)[1] is an age old saying in Japan; those who stand out or are otherwise different from the masses will be forced into compliance.

This cultural tradition has stifled many Japanese attempts at innovating, because doing something new is different from the status quo.

[1]: https://jisho.org/search/%E5%87%BA%E3%82%8B%E6%9D%AD%E3%81%A...

>an introverted national culture that encourages the various companies fight each other (eg: Toshiba vs. Sony vs. Panasonic) rather than stand together and face the global market

Huh? Since when do American companies like Google and Apple stand together instead of fighting with each other? Are we in the same universe? Competing companies don't stand together in any capitalistic society I'm aware of.

>Japanese people are very talented, but that also means they oftentimes can't understand the value of inventions and technology.

As another comment pointed out, the exact same thing has happened many, many times at American companies: Xerox PARC and the GUI are the poster child here.

>Also, I'm Japanese. I call dibs when it comes to (justifiably!) trash talking my heritage.

I'm an American living in Japan. I've noticed that it's very common for Japanese people to think that something about their country or culture (especially negative things) is unique to Japan, when in fact it's much the same in countries and cultures all around the world. A common example is how many really seem to think Japan is the only place in the world with 4 seasons (!), but there are many other more substantive things.

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