Startup and venture capital culture: America vs. Japan
Recently my professor was quoted in an article from Forbes: Starting Up Start-Ups In Japan: Obstacles abound; new U.S. ambassador expected to highlight importance of venture culture. Another interesting article is also linked to on that page: Searching For Entrepreneurship in Japan.
I am not an expert on this subject, but in my 7+ years in Japan I have talked to [...]
Product design and manufacturing in a global world: Japan vs America - MacBook Air
Recently I came across this article which sheds a bit of light on Japanese manufacturing methodology vs Apple’s. I think it’s far easier for the Japanese engineers to critique the crappy Taiwanese construction rather than to create their own new device from scratch. But it’s too bad though that Apple doesn’t have a bit more [...]
Japan #2 social network Gree worth $1.2 billion? Are you kidding?
Some of you may have heard of Gree, Japan’s #2 social networking site (SNS). (No, I don’t know how they chose the name! Is it a Japanese-English version of “Glee”? Maybe someone knows?) About 4 or 5 years ago I joined after getting invitations from a number of my friends, who were also using the [...]
Thoughts on the success of Yahoo and Google in Japan…
Recently I was forwarded this article from TechCrunch: Why Yahoo Japan is Worth Nearly as Much as Yahoo. It is worth a read, but I’d like to add a few thoughts. Here is my experience with Yahoo Japan, since having moved to Tokyo in 2001.
1) YahooBB
YahooBB took off because it was simply cheaper than [...]