Start-Up Spirit Emerges in Japan

Re:Start-Up Spirit Emerges in Japan by mathattack on Thursday December 26, 2013 @10:46AM (#6966567)

I really hope that this is true, but I'll believe it when I see some more IPOs. I'm a very big cultural fan of Japan, but they seem to struggle with technology entrepreneurship. There is a tradition of small business owners and apprenticeships, but relative to their size, they have very few breakout enterprise software firms. Perhaps it's because the large firms prefer to deal in their own networks?

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Re:Start-Up Spirit Emerges in Japan by mh_yam on Thursday December 26, 2013 @11:54AM (#6966824)

A lot of factors. An education system designed to produce worker-bees rather than independent thinkers. A stagnate economy (although this is improving) leading to high unemployment for young workers and people taking whatever job they can get. Social pressure to get into a prestigious university and eventually a well-established, large company. And for females, the pressure to get married before age 30.

Mind you--people in Japan are very smart. Science/math education is way better than in the US. But in the end, emphasis is on conformity and "not standing out too much" or "being different". This kills the spirit of innovation. I grew up in Japan but went to college in the US and work in NYC. Every time I go home, I feel like an outsider even though I spent 18 years of my life there.

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Re:Start-Up Spirit Emerges in Japan by mathattack on Thursday December 26, 2013 @03:15PM (#6967825)

And for females, the pressure to get married before age 30.

My understanding is the issue here isn't that women are supposed to get married, rather that they're supposed to drop out of the workforce immediately thereafter. With a country short of young workers, this is problematic.

Again I love the culture of Japan, but much of the inter-dependence that makes it fascinating also promotes working for large companies rather doing ones own thing.

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