Hope you enjoyed the video! Let me know what topic you'd like to see next! Also, here are the links to the articles I mentioned at the beginning of the video if y'all are interested. www.japan.go.jp/technology/innovation/ www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/rebooting-japans-high-tech-sector www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-21992700 www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/tech/japan-tech-startups/index.html](www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/tech/japan-tech-startups/index.html www.mercurynews.com/2012/10/12/japans-once-mighty-tech-industry-has-fallen-far-behind-silicon-valley/ ua-cam.com/video/9Y-YJEtxHeo/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/8j6cueDgjIU/v-deo.html
this software is second class atitude is prevalent in india as well ,they are payed really less in companies like TCS,Infosys and horrible work culture.
I'm currently reading a book about late Nintendo's CEO Satoru Iwata's thoughts, and I was quite surprised by how much he seemed to reflect on the fact that he was a software engineer at first, and how it made him see things differently than other people around him. Now I understand better why he was thinking that way and why this was so important to him. Thanks for this video, it was quite instructive.
Ever since the Wii was launched, it became pretty obvious that Software came first at Nintendo. Hardware facilitated the Software, not the other way around.
Dude she's missing the fact Japanese invented the best thing since nuclear energy!!! Blockchain technology that will make EVERYTHING HONEST AND FAIR, UN-CHEATABLE....BITCOIN, SATOSHI NAKAMOTO
I lived in Japan for 2 years and I was shocked to find that many places still use Fax machines. They won't take emails and will only take documents via fax. I was also shocked that many shops don't take credit cards and only cash. I felt like I was living in the 90s at times.
@@减压 Then they should allow both fax and email. If they are doing it because of the old people, it's just going to get worse as Japan's population is getting older still.
I think one of the reasons why Japan will never change it because it is so hard for them to change the status quo. I recently worked for Panasonic here in the Philippines and to be honest I don't want to work for any Japanese company again. I saw first hand how they cheat their sales figures and they make this annual sales projections that were dubious and, to be honest, fictitious just to please their senior managers and they've been doing this every year prior to my employment. I asked myself, if these Japanese guys are practicing it over here, it means they are practicing it globally, too. And because their culture is male dominated, everyone is like trying to be the Alpha male in the room. Tsk tsk. I'm an outsider who got hired because their Chairman made a worldwide announcement that they will hire people from the outside to help upgrade their current talent pool (the status quo)... I was already a seasoned manager in marketing and sales and also a sales country manager for two tech companies.. prior to working with Panasonic. Being an outsider, I was not welcomed even with Filipinos who are working there since their college days. And you know what happened? We got bullied and got insulted by the long time employees and managers. And adding insult to injury... my resume and my employment contract was left seen by the public inside Panasonic... they were angry that we have higher salaries... so I guess instead being angry with management they vented their anger towards the newbies... In the end, after a year or two we resigned our post and left the company for good. i only stayed for half a year. I really had a bad experience.
@@snuscaboose1942 they're the only country willing to help my home country of Uganda so stfu without them our llive here would be worse and we are greatful to them.
Soooo true! As an American living in Japan for 2 years, my friend said that their culture of collectivity/harmony doesn’t encourage wild creativity. No one likes to disagree with you, challenge your ideas, etc. She also noticed that it’s so shameful to switch jobs in Japan-so of course, you can’t get fresh new perspectives as quickly as in America where people change companies often. She loved visiting the country as a tourist, but trying to work there in tech was stifling. It was also frustrating how outdated all of their apps and software are 😅 People like idolizing the japanese for being technologically advanced, but man, their websites and social media platforms are like a time capsule of 2005.
Great post. Mayuko is emerging as an important voice in Japanese software development. As a tech analyst in Japan during the 1999 IT Bubble, I can offer a couple of perspectives on why Japan never really tried replicating Silicon Valley. The first perspective is from a very long-term perspective on Japanese history. The narrative goes like this, "Just leave us alone. Admiral Perry and the Black Ships were a wake-up call to the need to develop our own modern military industrial complex so that we can defend our country from invasion. Despite setbacks in WW2, we successfully developed our own modern military industrial complex in the 1980's. Now, leave us alone again." The second perspective is economic. Japanese society never grasped the importance of Joseph Schumpeter's concept of Creative Destruction. Given that it takes hundreds or thousands of failed businesses to produce one Amazon or Google or Facebook, Silicon Valley embraces business failure as a learning experience. Meanwhile, Japan's tradition of life-long incremental improvement deems failure as an irredeemable personality trait.
@@jellyfishi_ Moral and ethics? Overworking people and paying low wages is not moral or ethical. Let's just agree that they are different but there is no need to put one down over the other.
@@HSfox no no, u need to look back a bit, the employee "wanted" to work hard, and they dont even spend that much anyway, why bother getting a high wages if u'r not using it, and its shown at japan's deflation rate, ppl wanna work but don't wanna spend.
@@yudhobaskoro8033 and you don't think that they are saving and not spending because that is what low wages for decades has caused to do? If i know that i will always get paid little, I would have to adapt and be frugal and if things change it would take me a while to realize that there is a shift when making high wages, that i have enough savings and that the higher wages won't disappear, if that happened maybe then people will spend more.
I totally understand what you mean. I worked 5 years in Singapore (even in US companies) as a dev before coming to the US. My childhood friend, who also works in tech, in Singapore asked me "What? You are still coding?" That pretty much sums it up. Being a dev is only meant to be a transitionary step to a manager, where the real money is, in Singapore. I think Singapore tech is more hierarchical and places less emphasis on software engineering than even Japan.
@@yongshengtay8016 My former Intern at Redmond Microsoft, who is from Singapore like me, returned to Singapore to form a startup. He couldn't find a Singaporean as his chief dev as most Singaporeans prefer to be managers. He had to hire a Japanese Software Developer instead. 😂
I don't understand why a project manager would make more than a software developer. I mean the developers are the ones creating the app, not the project manager. An app can be done without a project manager ... the developer can manage his/her own time and project.
@@goldlilys Unfortunately in Asia, individual contributors are treated like kids who can't get anything done without an adult holding a whip in plain sight. It is a hierarchical organization imported from the manufacturing days where workers were often uneducated and unprofessional. The system hasn't been adapted to deal with professional Software Engineering since the mentality is geared towards manufacturing and hardware.
I think in Asia (especially in Japan, Korea, China and increasingly Vietnam), the prevailing wisdom is that the semiconductor industry is the primary avenue towards tech innovation and then software innovation will come as a result. In other words, the major players in hardware/semiconductor like Huawei, Samsung, Sony, ASUS, HTC etc all walked so that LINE, Mercari, TikTok, Alibaba, and Naver could all run if that makes sense.
None of the companies other than Samsung are prominent in the semiconductor industry which remains dominated by US companies and with a few exceptions (e.g. Intel) isn't even considered technology any more giving its maturity.
@@laurenth1467 True, but it's a foundry i.e. doesn't own the IP it merely takes the masks from design companies such as Apple and manufactures the chips using mainly US designed and manufactured wafer processing equipment.
One quibble: I don't think it takes a long time for things to change in Japan. I think it takes a long time for things to get to a crisis point that forces Japan to make big changes quickly. If you look back in history Japan has very often made revolutionary changes to itself; this has happened many, many times in our ancestral homeland's long history - but Japan does tend to drag its feet for a very long time until that crisis forces change. I'm not sure Japan is yet at that crisis moment. But I do think it is possible for Japan to change rapidly when the time finally does come.
Exactly, like overwork. They never even mention it until someone jumps off the roof of the company and it gets enough media buzz for them to start acting like they're going to do something and then once everyone forgets everything goes back to normal and all changes are thrown out the window.
You are absolutely right about Japan's _exceptional_ ability to change itself quickly. The most famous instance of this happening was in fact mentioned by Mayuko in this very video, it's the Meiji Reformation. Japan went from an agriculture-based Medieval society to an industry-based capitalistic powerhouse in the span of less than 30 years. As far as I know, that's the fastest and most profound change any country has ever had.
@@mouadchaiabi Yeah I was thinking of the Meiji Restoration and also the post-war transformation, as well as many prior changes such as the revolutionary restructuring of Japanese government during the Hideyoshi/Tokugawa transition which created a highly decentralized Japanese state which had many modern features not typically associated with feudalism in the West (some historians believe this may be partly why Japan was able to modernize so quickly). Japanese are very traditional yet oddly willing to accept rapid and sweeping changes in tradition when there comes a kind of national consensus it's (finally) time to make that change.
OMG this is so true. I do product design (ui/ux and visual) here in Japan.. and the biggest challenge for me is that not alot of people understand web tech - specially the key decision makers. It’s really frustrating. Ughhhh
Was watching a podcast of people living in Japan and they said websites are still stuck in the 90s design where they cram as much info as possible on the screen
I can summarize the stagnation in one short phrase: stubborn old people. Japan is a strictly hierarchical society and status quo is everything. Conformity and groupthink are not only the norm, but you will be cast aside if you don't participate. This has been a huge point of contention for me while living in Japan. And what's worse, the humanitarian side of things in Japan are gravely lacking. There is this sociological notion of uchi (inside) and soto (outside) which equates in a hyper-focused in-group/out-group bias. This has lead to vast sweeping cases of discrimination and apathy vis-a-vis individual suffering. Your opinion will never be heard, and in the rare occasion it is, it will only be because some stubborn old person took ownership of your idea when their stubborn old boss lauded it in the boardroom.
That is harmony unlike that of America where everyone is fighting each other, ready to cut others throat. This way you don't need extra rules by government. Society manages to hold everyone in line.
@@mdjey2 this backfires badly because it leaves little room for error for young people living in Japan. When a status quo isn't sustainable, everyone is beholden to leadership to do something about it and until that happens go along with the status quo. That isn't healthy.
America focuses on software whereas Japan focuses on hardware. We have Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant, and Siri, etc... Every American website has a complex algorithm, and I can go on and on... But in Japan, they don't have any of that; they focus more on the automatic toilets, the vending machines, and the conveyor belt sushi restaurants. It all boils down to hardware vs software. So in a way, we're both technologically ahead of each other, just in different avenues of tech.
Amazingly informative about Japanese Mindset. The making of Silicon valley is the dearning courage to take initiative and not being afraid to fail and learn from failure. With every success story in Silicon valley there are 10 unsuccessful stories.
Even though not many Japanese do not know about this, Japan is one of the most difficult countries for foreigners to reside due to strict visa requirement for PR or long stay visas which is part of the reason why Japan is homogenous country. US, European countries, AUS etc have attracted skilled migrants across the globe which has not been seen in Japan. Success of Tech industries could also depend if there is more support from the government not only financially but also by changing governmental regulations / policies.
I (foreigner) grew up in Japan and I 100% agree. Many Japanese schools and workplaces have very strict formal and informal rules about who is welcome. My school was full of mixed-race kids who weren't allowed to go to their local public school (members of my own family included). I love Japan, but there's no easy future there for many foreigners, and I'm sure that scares top tech talent away. I don't know if welcoming migrants is the answer to Japan's tech problem, but I believe they'd see more innovation if the government made it easier to hire talent from other countries.
I moved in 2019 with a student VISA (language school) because I wanted some language grasp before working in Tokyo. After that was really easy get a sponsorship from a workplace and in my experience almost (to be honest I may have seen 1 workplace that couldn't) every workplaces can/want sponsorship you. If someone can't get a sponsorship for a very specific reason (one is not having a degree), that person can always self sponsorship themselves quite easily, having a JLPT N4 is the major requirement, which is quite basic and doable in 1y of studies. Isn't a idicllic scenario but can be achieved with some effort.
@@JS2123-m9x all the job postings I've come across say JLPT 2 is the bare minimum for most non teaching careers, even in Tokyo. It's tough, but we gotta make these people change and realize they're behind in the world now.
@@AssadJawaid A lot of dev roles do not require high Japanese. Often don't even require any, since the teams are multicultural. This could be true for other roles as well, for example I work as Senior Product Designer and have a barely functional N3. I agree on openness and the importance of English (outside Japan as well, mind you) but is *very* important that foreigners that want to work and live in Japan are willing to learn the native language of the society they chose to be in. The reasons are several and not just the 2-3 years of gap in development, and this comes from a product designer, where product design (digital, at least) is easily 10 years behind USA&EU.
Japans problem is the culture. It is an extreme nationalistic country. They would be better off, if they would open their barriers. But it's so deeply embedded in the culture, it is not going to happen.
Loved to see your insight on this! I spent so much time in college asking myself if I wanted to work for a tech company here in California, but I also became very invested in Japan too. So now I'm working for a company in Tokyo, but the reality of tech in Japan was a tough pill to swallow. Hopefully the opportunities I'm looking for will come up.
From my experience at a Japanese tech company, people usually worked much slower than the US (hence all the overtime) and had a lot of difficulty making decisions, which led to a series of endless meetings. Work culture's gotta change.
There are not many choices. They dont have as big market as the US tech giants. Every piece of software built in Japan is for Japanese market. And 1/3 of Japanese people, the elderly, would never try a new software product. When you make a bad decision, it's harder to recover than its US counterparts.
I don't know, low productivity and paralysis epidemic by meetings is a common problem elsewhere too, it has been becoming an issue in USA and Europe just the same in major companies, where everything needs a meeting, and engineers end up spending half the time in meetings. This is unproductive, people get to listen at length about things that concern others but not them, and usually they have nothing to contribute. This kind of communication would work best with preparation and conclusion in written form, where others can just skim it when they want, and where then only people invite themselves who have something relevant to contribute to the topic. Engineering activity requires deep engagement with complex matter and doesn't really forgive mistakes, and a meeting disrupts that and wastes a good amount of time after to get back into the groove of things.
@@SianaGearz Truly insightful comment. You have absolutely hit the nail on the head. The disruption to thought processes and general engagement in an engineering task is painful when you have to sit through a long drawn out meeting, where it is clear people are still deciding things they should decided before the meeting. Trying to explain this to a non engineer is difficult at best. It is virtually impossible in a culture where people will think you think you are special if you don't attend because of the time limits you have and the slow to crawl the meeting causes to your work. Then people get a chip on their shoulder that you think you are special (when you merely have your priorities straight). So... you attend...
I've been living in Japan 5+ years (you interview 2 people I know!) and found this video very insightful! I didn't think so much of the divide between hardware vs software as to the cause of technological stagnation, but in retrospective it's definitely true! There are so many other reasons, but many of them even circle back to this again, like culture of overwork; it's known the more hours you work, the more productive you are in mechanical tasks (making physical things) BUT the less productive you are in creative tasks (like software)
I really enjoyed this! It makes me exciting about working in tech and the kinds of problems we can tackle on a higher, macro level. Makes me feel hopeful and excited, especially after a day of making sure some buttons line up correctly...
My database science teacher at my university told me (in 2012) that japan is more than 50 years behind western countries in database development. It made since sense most japanese people never touched a computer before, but relied heavily on mobile phones already in the 90s, and even before that, companies never considered setting up a database system. It was so bad that my computational physics course, the teacher literally how to show how to turn on a computer.
+1 on Part 3 - Software as second class. Particularly UI design. A lot of Japanese tech products tend to fanciful, intentionally impenetrable interfaces that are intended to look "futuristic" or "complex." Contrast this to Apple, which tends to be more Design-first. UI, and even more, UX is everything.
Just imagine if Japan put in all the craftsmanship into software development what awesome software we could have! The gaming industry seems to be doing fine still and I wonder why
Actually, even the gaming industry is kinda falling behind compared to Western counterpart. I live in south east asia, and I grew up with basically Japanese games (like consoles and stuff). But nowadays, like Mayuko said, Japanese games and entertainment products in general, are increasingly disappearing from my life. They don't see values in PC gaming, their games kinda follow the same formula over and over again, and they don't see values in entertainment services like Spotify, or Netflix, and so on. Many of their gaming companies stubbornly cling to the console gaming market, and make their games console exclusive (which makes sense now, seeing how they value hardware higher than software). Only in recent years, that some of their biggest game companies tested the waters that is PC gaming market, and saw how valuable the market is. Even then, I found their pricing strategies still weirdly expensive compared to Western companies, like I actually feel that they don't see PC market is worthwhile if they cannot charge an arm and leg for their games. That's why they lose their competitive edge, while more and more companies around the world actually create more accessible and wildly creative games.
@@bm1259 But that's what I was talking about. It's an HD remaster of an old game, not even a remake. But they are still charging as if it's a new game. Meanwhile, Shin Megami Tensei V is coming only on Switch. I think in these Japanese companies mindset, the games are created to support the consoles sales. It's not just a "platform" for them. Console sales is the "objective", idk. I can give another example. You see, there are a lot of spiritual successors of Final Fantasy Tactics in Steam right now. Compare the prices, Japanese games like Octopath Traveller costs like $60 while most other games are like $30 . And do we need to mention games like DOA, Tekken, with their crazy DLC schemes. Idk, man. I think it's also because these Japanese games are all created by big corporations, hence the crazy pricing. Wish there could be more smaller Japanese companies out there to bring some competition.
@@coolfer2 Yeah and another thing is that whos going to try and bring other the smaller stuff anyway. Smaller companies probably arent going to pay for things like localization and translations
@@coolfer2 What?? Japan's gaming has been going strong, even making their own innovative genre like souls games. Nintendo switch has sold pretty nicely, even way better than Xbox, and some of the games there are selling like hotcakes. SE Asia have shit currencies (except for Singapore), which is why no consoles nor games can perform well there. I think it is a poor indicator if you wanna bring up Japan's falling in term of entertainment industry (which is false). You mentioned that Japan games used to be popular in your country back in 90s and early 2000s. That was because those games could be pirated sooo easily and sold very cheaply. Western gaming (especially US) also stagnate in term of innovation. It is just another COD game and shit AC games every fukin year.
I am a system engineer in Japan and working for a Japanese company and all your guesses are TRUE!!! I like my job itself but I’m barely surviving in the toxic work culture! What’s the working environment like in American IT companies?
In US, I've been in both sides of the coin in software, places where you're worked to death and places where you're a first class citizen and treated as such. The one thing though is you're probably going to get paid well otherwise you can easily jump ship, and many people do. I think that keeps management a bit on their toes when they try to take advantage of software people, sure they can demand a lot of work but they have to pay up.
In the U.S., it really depends on a few factors: things like size of the company (i.e. 10 employees vs 1000), location (i.e. Silicon Valley vs San Diego, CA, etc), industry (i.e. fintech vs social media vs healthtech, etc), and how long a company's been around for (1 year vs 30 years). But largely if we're thinking about The Silicon Valley Tech Company on average, the work is definitely demanding and things like hustle culture and 40+ workweeks are not uncommon, but it's definitely less hierarchical than Japanese companies, and employees are encouraged to be autonomous in their work and suggest new ideas often!
Lying more-on n clueless shill, Satoshi Nakamoto developed Blockchain the best technology EVER! BITCOIN! The technology is so great its uses have been hidden because it will make governments actually be fair and not corrupt, fair stock markets, fair elections! Clueless DB
Thank you for making this video, mayuko-san!! Japan is facing many difficulties right now. I think we need to change our thought about software and the Japanese education system as well. Japanese education is that we have to follow what their parents and teacher said, then we can not think by ourself. That education takes opportunities to think by themselves. why do rich people send their children to the US to study? the answer is clear. I'm sad.
One thing to consider is the fact that most consumer electronics from early era tube technology to 60s era transistor tech was mostly only made available to Japan because the UK and the US sold access to their patents because by the 60s (and earlier for tube tech) the US and UK deemed these to be antiquated tech. The Japanese consumer electronic industry boomed on tech that was already consider obsolete and the Military Industrial complex had long since moved on to the things we see Fang doing today which is also already quite obsolete compared to the bleeding edge.
I think this is one of the very best videos you've ever made Mayuko. I loved it!!! Thank you so much for share. It is a very interesting topic. I think Japan really needs to open a little bit to the world outside. I often see that senior positions in japanese companies are held by older gentlemen. They definitely needs fresh air!
Wrong more-on Satoshi Nakamoto developed Blockchain the best technology EVER! BITCOIN! The technology is so great its uses have been hidden because it will make governments actually be fair and not corrupt, fair stock markets, fair elections! Clueless!!! Watch who makes the powerful lasers and FUSION ENERGY!!!!
We're actually in the process of submitting our application for this event. I'm hoping we'll get the chance to be a part of it because we've been planning to roll-out in Japan before the pandemic and this might be a good avenue for us to do that. Speaking of Silicon Valley, I love the innovation and accomplishments of Silicon Valley (as a collective) but I hope Japan's tech innovation remains separate from the SV version for one reason: Japan has always been known to be a country of people that always prioritize others over self. To what extent that's true, I don't know since I'm not an expert on Japan. I do have a lot of friends and have a number of clients there and my experience with them so far affirms that my perception of Japan rings true. Silicon Valley, on the other hand, is all about growth at all costs, pivot, and fail fast which is why it has always been like a bull in a china shop - SV is strong and powerful but it also breaks a lot more things than it builds. It's not obvious when you're sitting in SV itself talking to people whose world-view is shaped by the vision that's shared about "making a difference" and "changing the world," but in reality none of those things actually matter on the other side of the world - where I live. I think Japan has the capacity and the resources to become its own version of SV that retains its cultural propensity to favor mindfulness (to some degree) and responsibility for society rather than "Unicorns-at-all-cost" and other fantastic beasts that's always part of the colorful SV vocabulary that tends to gloss over the real-world consequences of careless ideas that always prioritize self, individual profit, and fame. I'm sorry if I have such a negative view of SV, I live in a part of the world where most of the consequences of careless ideas mean life and death for people on a daily basis.
Lol. Thank God you are not significant enough to decide the progress of the world. BTW, you should try russia. You won't have a negative view of the high tech environment there. Precisely because they take no risks and make no innovations whatsoever.
Thanks for the video and learned a lot. I would say that as a Filipino, I had a chance to work as a software engineer in Japan many years ago, but the stumbling block is that I had to learn Nihonggo before I could do so. My suggestion to their INNO program is that they can encourage more diversity if they just allowed people from overseas who speak only global languages like English.
The language barrier is definitely something that came up in my interviews, for sure. It's interesting though that there are more companies that are using a hybrid approach for languages so that neither side are excluded. The INNO-vation program definitely invites english speakers to be a part of the program! They have folks in the program who are fluent in both.
The reason why Japan entered it's stagnation is two words: Trade War US went to trade War with Japan in the 80s and won, ending Japan's low fixed rate currency. President Reagan imposed a 100 percent tariff on Japanese-made computers, television sets and power tools. Well simply put I would say he was the main reason.
US targeted Japanese supercomputers, semiconductors, commercial satellites and even operating systems such as Tron. US won. Japan conceded. Then, the country fell behind and China takes over the place. Along with Japanese currency rate management and central banking policy, China studied Japan on this trade conflict well. They will never concede on the current trade war.
@@mimichaten Wrong, I work in the Semiconductor industry and in there, I have a front row view of how not only did the Japanese win, they are still winning but Americans are totally oblivious to it. Let me give you an example, in 1975 there were over 30 LCD Semiconductor companies that existed in the US and none in Japan. The Technology was developed in the US, but MITI (Ministry International Trade and Industry) Required that all Japanese firms must have at least 1 LCD line in operation and by 1980. By 1990, There was 20 LCD Companies in Japan and only 1 left in the US, which sold to the Department of Defense. It was a total bloodbath, and most of the Semiconductor firms in the US Right now are afloat due to products that are considered dual use, which means they cant be manufactured abroad due to potential military applications. Now here is where it gets interesting, Americans congratulate themselves on the whole entire Trade War and Currency Rate agreement. That was all on the surface. What the Japanese realized is that if your brands are all over the place, like Sony, Sharp, NEC, Nikon, etc, people begin to attack you because they feel threatened. So what Japan did after 1990, which is fucking amazing brilliant is that they transitioned from Consumer Products to Value-Added Components and Industrial Products. Which are very imporant but not visible to the public eye. You mentioned that Japan conceded. Correction, they pretended to conceded. Since they basically ran most component manufacturers out of business, they were now offering their components to American companies for them to brand as their own. And these were the High-Value Added Components. So whenever I hear that Japan is Dead or Lost because you never see Japanese products anymore, my response is, you have a Sharp Screen, Sony Camera, and Toshiba Memory in your pocket right now - the IPhone. And Those are the most value added components. Even the other components which are made by American companies, for example, my company makes a specific microchip used in the Iphone that they brand as "American Made". Our manufacturing line, 60 percent of the Toolsets are from Japan, and virtually the most critical ones: Such as Nikon, Hitachi, Seiko and the Semiconductor Material is sourced from Japan as well. 30 percent is from Germany and 10 percent is American. Nikon's most profitable divison is no longer Cameras but Semiconductor Lithography and Etching. Im sorry, but I cannot say how under these circumstances the US Won Anything. And this is not just with Semiconductors, I have worked with people in the Auto, Aviation, Electronics industries and they will all tell you the same circumstances they have seen. Open your GM car and find tons of components manufactured by Toyota, Honda, or Mitsubishi connected manufacturers. Open your Dell or HP laptop and find most of the components manufactured by NEC and Murata. The question is why does this matter? The reason why Japan succeded was not due to chance or miracle, its because of Comprehensive Long term Planning with a Mutual Public-Private relationship between the Keiretsu and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, allowing for them to engage in Technical Based Continuous improvement and coordiation between the companies to basically target and destroy American companies (One MITI Employee told me once that they had a Strategy nicknamed "Deathu Stawru"). The US is a Neoliberal Financial based society that has no concept of long-term government planning and allows its companies to beat the shit out of each other while being run into the ground by foreign competitors. If the US seriously thinks with Tarrifs and Sanctions, they are going to win, the answer is that they havent in the past 40 years and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. Proof: I Work in the Semiconductor industry and worked at various times with Nikon, Murata, EDS (Ross Perot Company) and also have studied Japanese Kaizen and the History of MITI. Read Chalmers Johnson, Michael Sekora, and Clyde Prestowitz books to understand how Japanese companies actually operate and why Americans didn't get it then and why they havent changed at all.
According to other analysts the reason for their stagnation is the crisis their own central bank created by inflating the real estate market with tons of cash (may order may not sound familiar) to bring down their post war economy system and transfer to the capitalist free market. Numbers don't suggest a great success there. China will haven taken notes about that and a pretty similar story in South Korea as well.
@@Monsterpala The Numbers you mention are total garbage. I have spoken to many so-called analysts who have made similar analysis for Japan's performance. They become silent when I mention that majority of Value-Added Components, Firmware, and the critical toolsets in our manufacturing industries are from Japan. The company I worked for, which is a Major Supplier for Apple and prides itself as American Made, 60 percent of the Toolsets are from Japan, 30 percent from Germany and 10 percent from the US. Americans saying that Japan "Lost" shows how oblivious they are that Japan has us by the balls. The country with the highest foreign direct investment in the US is not China, but Japan. To this day, South Korea and China are not even in the top 10. Btw, South Korea is a Carbon copy of Japan, due to Park Chung-Hee Japanophile reorganization of the Government, which largely exists today and a similar thing can be said about the Chaebol's of Korea as well manufacturing most value added components through companies like Samsung, POSCO, and Hyundai Industrial.
@@jacoblitchfield2527 I would have dismissed this as your average yt comment conspiracy theory, but you give an oddly convincing, well-supported argument... Where can I read up on this?
Engineers in Tokyo have their pick of where they want to work because there is so much demand. I went to an English coding bootcamp there and my American classmates found it fairly easy to get a job after with visas-much harder to do the same in the US. Working conditions are quite good for us especially compared to sales and other departments-almost like a bubble, like a foreign enclave. Even companies that only have Japanese customers have engineering teams that are mostly foreigners, and Japanese is sometimes not a requirement even at a basic level. But overall, it’s not the most flourishing industry and the level is certainly below SV standards as traditional Japanese business practices go against fail fast, agile methodology. But it’s not all bad and actually is a great place to go to learn to become a developer and break into the career. The main issues are working at the bigger, traditional companies with the gross infamous Japanese work style but if you work for a Mercari, or a Mercari wannabe, work life balance is actually very good... My work experience at a Japanese company was actually better than at Apple, even (7.5 hour work days). But the salaries are generally way better at the Gaishi (foreign companies).でも本当に日本のIT業界、ちょっと心配ですよね。
Glad to see Japan recognize their mistakes and take steps to correct. I've always admired their craftsmanship roots and I'd love to see those principles applied to Software.
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My previous location, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology is truly and definitely the only university that is diverse inside Japan with the majority of the students and researchers from overseas, and more than half of them being female. I had really enjoyed my time there, where the environment is so refreshing and inspiring. Until when I moved to my current, ordinary company in Japan. I was shocked to find the difference so drastic. I believe it depends on which field you are in, but my current organization has so little diversity and leads a rigid working style. Though people are very kind, the environment is dull. We really need a more free structure and lively environment to promote ideas and innovations, or just to make life more fun. I feel like doing something to change it, but is out of my reach. Thanks for your video for speaking out the issue.
I think this works for many top universities. I had my one year exchange program at Tsukuba University and the diversity there is incomparable to most of places in Japan. Around 2000 foreign students come every year, halal restaurants and praying rooms are available, and what is most important you can see the close interaction between Japanese and foreigners. I believe places like Tsukuba university might bring a shift in social structure in Japan with new open-minded and diverse generation of Japanese people.
Great points! I worked in one of Japan's large corporations as a new grad engineer before moving to the US to pursue further studies and look for opportunities in tech industry here. So I have a perspective of both places as well. But I feel, things are changing in Japan too, albeit slowly. I worked in a software R&D department in the Japanese company. The work culture was actually quite relaxed. Work timings were flexible and normal working hours. Overtime was also paid. I also did not face any discrimination or uchi-soto behavior for being a non-Japanese in a primarily Japanese workplace. And guess what, my team also used the latest tools globally in the industry, so I was able to grow highly transferrable skills.
Satoshi Nakamoto developed Blockchain the best technology EVER! BITCOIN! The technology is so great its uses have been hidden because it will make governments actually be fair and not corrupt, fair stock markets, fair elections! Clueless!!! Watch who makes the powerful lasers and FUSION ENERGY!!!!
In Japan plain officie workers and IT specialists are paid the same, of course Japanese salaries are very low even if we consider seniority issues. In Korea, IT workers are now very well paid although it wasn't that way in the '90s. In Japan there is only basic level of reward for loyality itself ,not for special capabilities. There are many jobs in Japan especially in domestic distribution such as food sales because of lack of automation. Japan is a good place for individuals, especially men, who have only basic talents and capabilities(such as excel) but are very loyal but Japan is definitely not a place for talented ones with outstanding skills, especially digital related ones Now there are professional opinions that Japan is a former developed country.
Thanks for this info. I am getting somewhere about why my Toyota Rav4, a great car mechanically, uses infotainment systems that look and work like they were designed and made about 15 years ago.
I have worked as an external software engineer in a Japanese owned factory at my country. And sometimes I had to stay there waiting for the lines to shutdown, I find those bell sounds so triggering, cuz it always reminded me how many hours I had spent being there.
Great topic. it's something that really concerns me as well, as a Japanese linguist and programmer that's working on a gafa project now and worked at Yahoo Japan in early 2000s. One thing is, Japan fell behind on the ability to adapt and innovate, in the face of multiple disrupting technologies. There's no simple solution, but innovation obviously doesn't happen in a vacuum. It requires an ecosystem with the conditions for the seeds to take root, grow and flourish. I think about what makes Japanese farmers grow good rice, fruit, vegetables, beef, etc. All the things that make up the "ecosystem" they grow in, matters, and you just can't create them overnight. When it comes to IT, Japan didn't have the ecosystem to compete globally. A large component of tech today is software engineering which means using programming languages. Other than the logic aspect, programming languages are based on English syntax and sementics. So English native speakers have a natural advantage when it comes to understand programming. An English native highschool grad with some motivation and math, can learn to be a competent programmer. but for a Japanese native it would take an above-average college grad to do the same thing - very roughly speaking. This isn't about who is more or less "intelligent". It's about the Japanese language itself and the education system, which provides almost no advantages for learning programming. In fact I consider them to be an outright hinderances. to be cont?
You might have a point, but can't you make a similar argument towards European countries? For example countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet. Or countries like Germany that has been historically unskilled in English. Sure, they are all closer to English than Japanese is, but it's not like Japanese people has proven itself inept at programming or learning programming languages. Ruby for example, was made by a Japanese programmer and got quite popular in Japan and in the states, and is even more English-like than Python. As seen by their (still) strong games industry, I don't think it plays that much of a difference. I think that interests and culture is more in the way than anything else (for the individual). Why go for a low tier blue collar job when you can become a respected salary man? Well, interest would make you do that, but family pressure to make a stable living in a respected position might outweigh that. And ofc all of the structural and cultural things within domestic companies as mentioned in the video. From your angle, maybe looking up documentation and examples on sites like stackoverflow and mozilla is a challenge, as they are mostly in English? Maybe you have some insight on that particular issue?
@@andee9gaming as for the countries with the Cyrillic alphabet, then most of the people there also do not know programming. On the other hand, the school focus on mathematics education gives engineers an edge in algorithms and computations, where English is not important.
Learning Japanese kanji is like learning the syllabys database, too many outdated kanjis and they need to modernise the language. Katakana and hiragana was a good start, until it get a lot of cluster with no space and kanjis.
Hi, Mayuko I live in South Korea. From what I understand a lot of the similar attitude has been here however it's changing. More schools are pushing for IT and computer programming.
Japan's cultural and societal norms help them excel in certain types of technology and engineering. Their QC on high end tech components is legendary. The best Taiwanese motherboards and power supplies proudly advertise, "made with 100% highest quality Japanese capacitors." We could certainly use their diligence and work ethic over here. They could use more of our entreprenurial and innovative spirit over there. Let's go!
Great video! I've been an IT person for my entire professional career (30+ years). I remember when I was young (early 80s), there was this Japanese term called .... dennu kids (I think, electronic brain kid, a la computer kids)... but it wasn't a good term. It carried a similar connotation of otaku. It was a geeky thing and it wasn't "normal". So even back in the 80s, the signs were already there.
I think that hardware is still 1st class. but for different reasons. Software runs like trash on bad hardware, but can run amazing on good hardware. And look how amazing ARM and RISC-V are compared to x86_64. And it's honestly amazing how a processor can actually take the binary that our code was assembled into and execute it. And then what we can do with our software will expand over time as our hardware gets better and better. I'm looking forward to if we can figure out how to get quantum computers created & mass produced.
What you're talking about isn't so much hardware as in end product, which i think is what the video implies it's about, but components. Key components is what makes or breaks the hardware. But where are components out of Japan? Hitachi used to be one of the biggest semiconductor companies, they made a huge variety and volume of processors, you would find a Hitachi 68k (licensed), H8(their own) or SH(also their own) in just about every product. Hitachi Semiconductors is now Renesas. What do they make? Mostly junk. The SH5 and SH2A came out almost 20 years ago, and now what? Is there SH-6? Nope. The SH or SuperH was such a massive breakthrough, it's a 32-bit processor but it needs as little memory bandwidth as a 16-bit one for most tasks, it has 16-bit uniform instructions, and its pipelining and (in models where available) superscalarity matrices are pretty great. Well back in the 90s, a small, and back then largely unimportant British company Acorn RISC Machines licensed their patents, and made the similar Thumb instruction set. ARM7TDMI with Thumb quickly found its way into just about everything including the new 32-bit Nintendo Gameboy Advance, since it could hit an insanely low pricepoint and deliver quite a performance for embedded tasks. Currently, classic 32-bit ARM instruction set is deprecated, Thumb2 is the foundation for all new ARM processors, including 64-bit ones. And they're now the predominant force. Japan lost what it had and is sleeping on every new trend, they're so firmly behind. NEC and Sharp were up there too in semiconductor business, not much left of those either. Toshiba is still holding on, with flash business and power and linear semiconductors, but that's about it.
This helps me understand the Sony Xperia phones throughout the years sooooo much. They always had amazing hardware...and were running an ancient version of android...
It's starting to get better. but it's the same across asia. Software development is one of the lowest paid industry in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. China is probably the only place in Asia where i can see software being appreciated. Although in the past 2 years or so. I started seeing Japanese companies started paying software developers quite well. which is a good sign.
really good explaining how software industry in japan. as non japanese, i was confused about japan. many "why why" in japanese persepective about software. now its all clear to me. really good video Mayuko 👍
I enjoyed the video. I think there are tons of problems we Japanese solve to improve the software class. In hardware company I think we develop software for superior not for user, cause it should be what it is for example Sony TV should work as it is the Sony one.
Saudi Arabia has already begun to open up to foreign companies and is trying to build Saudi Silicon Valley It is cooperating with Japan in the SoftBank Fund to work on the fourth generation technology in the city of Neom.
Great video. I was reading an interview with Dylan Cuthbert who was a UK programmer sent to work on Starfox for Nintendo. He said in the 80's/90's there was access to a lot of personal home computers which lead to a lot of hobbyist programmers. Apparently personal computers were more expensive in Japan and there wasn't as much of a general 'scene/community'. It was seen more as a means to an end in a sense.
fact : - Sony was the first smart phone i bought, now i'll never buy it again, reason - crappy software support - when i wanted to search for something from Japan website, they don't have English option or just redirect to other region, or their translation engine is crap - i know some friend working for Japanese software development, they tend to use existing framework rather than crafting anything themselves, this thing alone already tell me that they don't care about their software performance rather than features, this one is dangerous if they keep this development attitude, they will lose more customers, - unlike software from US are more and more complex, performance is getting along with hardware, US also one of the leading on crafting and refine new and existing frameworks or even new programming languages, plus English is the second Language for almost every country, so japan is already out of this game.
Well I wouldn't compare old smartphones from the past to new ones nowadays, every manufacturer has skeletons in their closets. new sony smartphones are pretty much basically android so they've changed that. Also in a software related companies and yeah some things I can see for other companies or older mindsetted companies, current one I'm with is pretty good about updating and keeping up software while reiterating constantly. so things slowly changing.
@@techcommentlooker3951 Once the trust was broken, it's not easy to earn it back, while everyone else is keeping their brand name strong, Japanese software is so far behind to gain back the trust.
Heavy bureaucracy is deeply in entrenched that country. No one mention it being a factor? I get the impression that the strong conformity makes everyone risk adverse. Start ups are about taking risks.
This is amazing to watch. I've been living in Silicon Valley for three years now and I never realized how truly world-class we are. We influence other countries for advancement? It's crazy and took me a little while to realize this amazing place I live in. Much love from the South Bay :)
If you see Pepakura designer and you find PDO files, you will see excellence of Japanese software. Very innovative, very good design and amazing functionality.
Japan has the same attitude towards technology as Germany: both countries have a very strong tradition of viewing technology and problem solving through the lens of engineering, which brought work, prosperity and a reputation for excellence for both nations in the 20th century. But the problems of the 21st are being solved by Software engineers and both nations fail to respond accordingly to this major shift in technology.
Nice video, one of the huge factors I would have thought led to the decline would be the Plaza Accords, where the U.S. literally just straight up forced Japan to stop being so competitive so the U.S. could have the dominant economy. Kind of messed up how that happened, but it kind of also made sense being that America put itself at a disadvantage by providing so much social welfare for Japan to help it recover after WWII, in order to prevent the Japanese from becoming communist.
My guess is that comparative advantage has something to do with why software isn't that big in Japan. Like if some other country can do with less of an opportunity cost, then Japan doesn't really need a domestic industry.
Great analysis! A few years ago we researched the quality of CS programs in college for our university recruiting efforts. We found that the CS programs were 10+ years behind those in the US. Our company hired mostly self-taught software engineers!
Japan could immediately start “celebrating people from all different backgrounds” but that doesn’t change the fact that there just aren’t that many “diverse” people (like me, 17-year resident) here in Japan. And that means there isn’t some huge “diversity dividend” to be gained by being more inclusive, like in America. The real issue is diversity of thought, and of age, and of gender, in the ranks of management. And that problem goes back to the problem of not hiring for talent, which means becoming the boss is primarily a function of longevity, luck, and politics (and male-ness). Risk aversion, which was touched on early in the video, also means that creative people and ideas are viewed with skepticism and, often, fear and dread. After all, Japan built the second strongest economy and a high-tech manufacturing juggernaut in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Why change what worked so well, and put it all at risk? The answer might seem self-evident, but not in most Japanese boardrooms.
It's not diversity per se that's the reason for Silicon Valley's success.. it's opening the talent pool to the entire world, not limiting only to one's own borders (Japan only has ~125 million people whereas the world pop is ~ 8 billion). Statistically, the more applicants you open your search to, the better your chances of getting quality.
i saw many IT engineers here in japan but they arent japanese. just because lots of companies started thinking they need software engineers but we dont have much software engineers im mechanical engineer but ive never thought about mechanical engineering is the first class lol my paying is very low too
it is wild how on the one hand companies, shops, and the like... infrastructure of Japan's tech world is so out of date - yet they do often still create wildly advanced niche things that are ahead of or up to day with the rest of the world. Things like the Toto toilets, gaming, VTubing, Anime advancement which has come a long way, their robots peppered around places like robot ran hotels and restaurants, advanced vending machines not really seen in other places.. They obviously can create tech on par with the rest of the tech world - but their infrastructure of businesses and such hold them back society wide - with the things like still using faxing and cash when shopping. It's not that they couldn't do it but it rocks the BIIIIG boat of society to do those things in particular which is not a Japanese value. It's both extremally amazing and infuriating that they can do this. In some ways its kinda neat how they can hold on to cultural and balance that with the old tech still but frustrating when you can't also just do things easier. Part of that more retro charm is aestheticly cool but practically people would find it much easier if they could pay with card and use email. lol (I'm also JA and have love staying in connection with my roots though through anime, gaming, history, art, and things like that )
I have worked with japanese in my early career... oh man !!!! They are very hard working ... I owe them for moulding me into a hard working engineer...
I really thought that the pandemic would have changed their attitude towards software because of the need for remote work, but they're just really stubborn on their old ways of working culture.
@@japanstation1 It seems like things are changing in Germany as well but it will take a lot of time and effort. It’s laughable how backwards Germany still is in regards to digitalising education and overall internet literacy for large swaths of the population
Worked a lot with Japanese companies, but shifted more to Koreans and Chinese. What’s JP’s problem? 1. Some sales guys may speak English, but no one else in the company… - hence, the guys in foreign transplants were not engineers, but Japanese majors - no understanding of technology 2. Slow, slow, slow… all decisions go up to the top guy, even minor topics. 3. Being scared of changes… All this ended up in: lack of technology, lack of quality, high costs.
I've been living in Japan for 36 years and worked for one of the largest electronics makers in product development and their IP department. Totally agree with your observation/experience with Japanese attitudes on software development. I remember when the Japanese thought Japanese word processing software was the "bees knees" and scoffed at MS Word Japanese version.
@@missplainjane3905 1) Is Japan a highly developed country/advanced country? Well, it’s highly developed from a societal standpoint; highly structured and rules for everything. I remember being in a Japanese language class when I first came to Japan and one of the students was a Japanese-American. He could not wait to return to the US since he could not handle the society here. He once said that he had a Japanese face, but was not Japanese in his thinking and I said to him “the Japanese have been screwing each other over here in Japan longer than the white man ever stepped foot in North America and being confined to a small area with virtually no escape they devised complex customs and a language to go along with it. As you probably know, many of the most intelligent Japanese move to America or Europe - just check out how many Japanese Nobel Prize winners spent decades at US universities. You probably know Seiji Ozawa (the conductor). When he first became a conductor of a famous European orchestra the Japanese network NHK interviewed him. During the interview he made a faux pas by stating that the Japanese academic music world was too rigid and musicians were mostly promoted on seniority. Needless to say, Ozawa was in the “dog house” for a number of years and did not come to Japan. And generally speaking, Japan is a safe country given the fact guns are not prevalent like in the US. That said, in my opinion given the underlying jealously here, if guns were available like in the US, Japan would make Ukraine look like Nirvana. 2) How would you personally rate Japan (from culture to technology, architecture, food, local products, scenery/landscape, standard of living/quality of life, etc.) on a scale level of 1 to 10 ? Technology: 9 - consumer products are great - medical products are still medieval - only 30 to 40 percent of prescription drugs have any effect (I was told that by a number of medical professionals in Japan) since Japan is a country of hypochondriacs placebo drugs work fine!! Architecture 7 - Japanese style homes have inadequate insulation and most are not earthquake-proof Food: 5 - somewhat healthy, but the salt is a killer Local products: 9 - good variety Scenery / landscape: 5/8 depends where you are in the country Standard of living / quality of life: 2/6 depends on your living situation: Tokyo: 2 (7 to 9 if you are young and single but 1 or 2 if you are old) 3) Overall impression of Japanese people: They are kind, but not generous. 4) There words to describe Japan: SAFE/INSULAR/TRUSTING
@@missplainjane3905 Did you every hear the phrase: Japan has a first-rate economy, a second-rate standard of living and third-rate politicians. The term "advanced" is subjective. For Japanese, yes, Japan is advanced. For people coming from poorer countries, Japan is heaven. By-and-large, there is good and bad in any country, but Japan is a nice place to live. Even where I live (Matsumoto City) the public transportation system is great, medical facilities are abundant and food variety is excellent. We have 5G internet and prompt delivery from Amazon. First-world and convenient...
@@missplainjane3905 Sorry, I thought you were a Japanese/American. As for me, I have trouble reading a Japanese newspaper, but no trouble reading/translating a Japanese patent which are notoriously vague to the point even Japanese Patent lawyers hate reading them...
Silicon Valley and Japan have the opposite problem when it comes to diversity. One has too little, the other has too much. And yes, there is such a thing as too much diversity. One can only afford to take so many diversity hires at the expense of actual productivity, hiring people only because they aren't male and white or Asian. The right idea is that diverse appearances/outlooks/ideas not be an obstacle to being hired, but they shouldn't be an asset either. Treat others equally, not with special privileges masquerading as "equity" or some other now-meaningless word.
I think there is a lot more complex situations at work but primarily the tech boom in Japan was based around consumer electronics. Consumer electronics is something that is greatly impacted by trends and advancements in technology and standards. And Japan was making mostly analog consumer electronics like video tape technology, audio tape technology, televisions, boom boxes, stereo systems and so forth. All of that became obsolete with the revolution in digital symbolized by the rise of the internet. (Which is why I got all the old tapes sitting around with fewer and fewer options for playing them). Then you have to think in terms of the evolution of manufacturing the USA from local industries towards a more globalized supply chain and manufacturing base. Japan was in the first wave of this migration and naturally took full advantage of it. However, as time went on other Asian countries were also becoming more important in the tech supply chain, especially Taiwan and South Korea. So they faced a lot of competition in this space for manufacturing consumer electronics as things transitioned from analog devices towards digital devices which are most often manufactured in other cheaper locations. Meanwhile in America they were moving more to a post industrial economy where they focused more on developing IP and "services" versus focusing mostly on manufacturing. This is where modern silicon valley comes into play as industries that are not known for actually manufacturing anything (except Apple). And for the most part these companies are more in the business of data, either in collecting it, analyzing it, hosting it, processing it or selling it as part of the modern internet economy.
I think the impact of the 1991 real estate/stock crash and the subsequent "lost decades" that put Japan into effective economic stagnation had an impact as well. Consumption of goods did not reach the 1980s level for many years and made people frown upon wealth and taking on risk since wages well thus making Japan as desirable as before. Even with very low interests, businesses didn't borrow and invest as one would expect/require for new innovation. In essence, if the economic conditions discourage taking on new investments, risks, and opportunities, why bother? Japanese giants had to face these pressures and then also had to face competition coming from rising plays like South Korea and China.
Dang, I am using Mercari since 2017. It is definetely making progress and outcompeting otger apps and sites, but in terms of business, it still has sone distinctively Japanese quirks, namely no international shipping at all and the necessity of a rating.
I agree. I would love for the Toyota Prius Prime and Rav4 Prime to have better software. That uses electric versus gas based on navigational data to know the speed distance and grade of the trip route. For example, if the battery is full, use electricity to make room in the battery for energy recovery in a long downhill section. Or to use electricity at the beginning and end of a trip but not during the highway high speed section.
what a fascinating story! i have been working in a tech company in China for 5 years, we see the US and China are two pillars of the tech world, didn't know Japan want to catch up.
I'm a software developer working in Japan. One thing that is praiseworthy of the Japanese software scene is that someone with little or no programming background can get an entry level position, though at a very low salary of $20k~30k a year (this doesn't change much regardless of what you've studied). The trade off of that is that your salary is likely to only increase by single digit percentages per year. And someone who comes in and learns everything and becomes a star developer is not going to be distinguished from someone scraping by. This pattern continues in the experienced job market. However similarly to America you can generally get a pretty significant salary boost by hopping jobs; jobs almost always require you to mention your previous salary though so it's often very difficult to negotiate. Additionally, societal structure and values discourages changing jobs. While changing jobs every couple years is seen as ambitious and desiring to grow in the US. In Japan you're seen as someone who hops ship and can't keep to commitments; some companies are changing their stances on this but it's still very ingrained in individual values, including a feeling of guilt in individuals leaving the company. TLDR: There's two issues: 1. Overall developer skill level is lower due to lower barriers of entry and less merit based advancement. 2. People stick with lower paying jobs due to societal values/structure.
I forgot to mention. One other reason for the low salaries is the chains of outsourcing-- that is, as mentioned in the video, lots of companies outsource for their software development projects. Other companies will pick that up, and then further outsource, and then, you guessed it, those companies will outsource to other companies/developers. In other words, typically a developer will have 2~5 middlemen taking their cut.
One more thing I would like to add as a foreigner living in Japan is THE LANGUAGE. I am Russian but used to work in Spain for some time and the English language was the default language in a company I worked for and in every other company, I was invited to. Actually, in Europe, it is just normal now. This helps with diversity a lot. Let's take Singapore - its hub where English is a common thing so a lot of foreigners could easily come and apply their skills. In Japan thou, still, many companies require JLPT N2. And I think Not many skilled professionals who would like to work in Japan are ready to put a hell of an effort into studying Japanese.
How I easily spot Japanese Tech downfall.... TVs: Early 2000s-Every Electronics store has TVs ranging from Toshiba to Sony to Sharp. Now- Every Electronics store carry 2 Major Korean Brands-Samsung and LG. With the endless loop of Twice or Girls Generation playing. Computers: Early 2000s- Japanese Dominated. Sony, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic Now-Taiwanese Dominated . Acer, Asus, MSI,
In Japan, companies still use personal stamps for authorization(or approvals) on their documents. They lag far behind in digital areas. Compared to Korea which is over 90% of population uses cashless payment methods, Japan is below 30%. Also, PC usage among households are far below the average advanced countries. Nowadays Japan is considered backwater country in regards to digital tech field.
Unlike Japan, America has almost zero worker protections amd companies ask college students to have 3-5 year experince for an entry level positon especially in tech. When companies talk about diverisity it's for PR reasons they haven't actually done as much as people want to think. America changes slower compared to the rest of the developed world imho. We don't even have universal healthcare. At least Japan has that.
The US has better working conditions than Japan and if you work in Tech healthcare is great. The US is the mecca of innovative tech and only a fool who haven't partake in this industry wouldn't know that. Why do you think people like Elon Musk moved to the US?
@@sangwoohan1177 its funny that you say that given how the u.s. has been union busting since Regan to the point that unions have ceased to exist which leaves no worker representation or collective bargaining. Am I saying unions are perfect no, but its a whole lot better than relying on the free market to dictate how much workers get paid, improving working conditions and rely on it as the main source of innovation is misguided. Not to mention we had Amazon union busting recently because they were afraid of workers not being able to shit and piss in bottles so they can meet Amazon's unrealistic goals. If the u.s. is so innovative howcome our infrastructure is falling apart and gets a grade of D+? Japan has bullet trains while we have a railway system that has not been upgraded for over a hundred years. And if healthcare is so great here, howcome we have thousands die every year because they can't afford healthcare and our system having the worst outcomes out of every developed nation? Japan like the rest of the devloped world has 0 people die. You know why? Because healthcare is guranteed and is not treated as a commodity for corporations and pharma to price gouge people. As if Eon Musk is a perfect example for innovation. Without his factory workers and engineers making Tesla's and tech for space x his companies wouldn't make any products whatsoever. Also it's easy to dodge taxes here because our govt is corrupt and bought by the wealthy such as him. He didn't get where he is today simply because he worked hard and is innovative, he simply inherited wealth from his parents apartheid businesses in South Africa. Your whole entire statement is filled with American exceptionalism brainwashing so i'm not even going to take what you say seriously. Not saying Japan is perfect because it has been struggling with an overwork culture similar to the u.s. but now they're experimenting a 4 day work week. And they have universal paid vacation time which the u.s. doesn't have. To say that the u.s. has better working condtions despite evidence and documentation of poor working conditions with no representation for workers is foolish. Outsourcing for more effciency and cheaper goods and allowing out country be run by corporations is not innovative at all. Your worshipping of these people shows your lack of understanding of the way the American system functions.
@@Kon420 I know the US has many flaws, but when it comes to tech it still ranks number one. If you are a high skilled worker (like a software engineer) living in the US is your best option. I've worked in many countries across the world, but none match what the uUS offered. Better pay (like by a lot), biggest capital market, and access to the biggest startup accelerators like YC. I am from Canada and it's around 60-80% of CS students from top STEM unis like Toronto and Waterloo move to the US after graduation. Why do you think the US is able to brain drain the world despite having bad healthcare system and infrastructure?
I don't really know if it's sad though. Korea Japan and China are not diverse, and they seem to be doing fine.I'm not really sure if it's relevant to this topic, is it?
@@WoodysAR lol, I've missed that. How is the question if forced diversification is lowering the skill bar, not a valid question? If you hire a person based on the gender/color/culture/etc instead of skills, how do you expect to have the same level of skills compared to hiring based solely on the skill level? That seems pretty stupid. Edit: PS. I'm not saying you are supporting that, I've missed it in the video, and you were the one who pointed that out :)
@@_sparrowhawk I said it's sad for WESTERN COUNTRIES. Obviously many countries that don't have forced "diversity" DO seem to be much more internally harmonious.
The worst parts of Silicon Valley are the traffic (car culture) and high cost of living. If Silicon Valley could upzone/densify and develop reliable and useful rail/subway services it'd be awesome. I think if somehow we could have the US run companies in Tokyo, or have Tokyo do city planning in Silicon Valley we'd have two utopias.
I think China tech unicorns growing much faster than Japan. The most reason that happed is capital market. Silicon Valley bank entered China for couple years ago to invest venture capital and made billions, the incentive is as same as the risk appetite.
Hope you enjoyed the video! Let me know what topic you'd like to see next!
Also, here are the links to the articles I mentioned at the beginning of the video if y'all are interested.
www.japan.go.jp/technology/innovation/
www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/rebooting-japans-high-tech-sector
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-21992700
www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/tech/japan-tech-startups/index.html](www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/tech/japan-tech-startups/index.html
www.mercurynews.com/2012/10/12/japans-once-mighty-tech-industry-has-fallen-far-behind-silicon-valley/
ua-cam.com/video/9Y-YJEtxHeo/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/8j6cueDgjIU/v-deo.html
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'Software as second class'... that explains a lot! Even when Japan's hardware was dominating, the accompanying software was horrible!
😁😁😁
Perfect excuse to share the tangentially related but nonetheless BEST VIDEO ON UA-cam: ua-cam.com/video/Mh5LY4Mz15o/v-deo.html (history of japan)
this software is second class atitude is prevalent in india as well ,they are payed really less in companies like TCS,Infosys and horrible work culture.
Insightful! “Software is second class to hardware” sums up why Japan makes great cameras but horrible firmware.
damn that's a great example
it's nice example
And now that Apple have caught up with hardware, there's no contest
@@TomNook. I’m not sure if how it is in the latest iPhone, but Apple have at least used Sony cameras before in their phones.
@@TomNook. apple does not make dslr's?
I'm currently reading a book about late Nintendo's CEO Satoru Iwata's thoughts, and I was quite surprised by how much he seemed to reflect on the fact that he was a software engineer at first, and how it made him see things differently than other people around him. Now I understand better why he was thinking that way and why this was so important to him. Thanks for this video, it was quite instructive.
''On my business card, I am a Corporate President, in my mind, I am a video game developer, but in my heart, I am a gamer.''
Ever since the Wii was launched, it became pretty obvious that Software came first at Nintendo. Hardware facilitated the Software, not the other way around.
Dude she's missing the fact Japanese invented the best thing since nuclear energy!!! Blockchain technology that will make EVERYTHING HONEST AND FAIR, UN-CHEATABLE....BITCOIN, SATOSHI NAKAMOTO
Iwata Asks
I lived in Japan for 2 years and I was shocked to find that many places still use Fax machines. They won't take emails and will only take documents via fax. I was also shocked that many shops don't take credit cards and only cash. I felt like I was living in the 90s at times.
What the fuck. Why are they so damn conservative. Good lord!
What year it was?
Well lots old people around they won’t be well adapted to new tech,so yeah just let it stay in the past
@@减压 Then they should allow both fax and email.
If they are doing it because of the old people, it's just going to get worse as Japan's population is getting older still.
@@sarbeshmallick6452 2018
I think one of the reasons why Japan will never change it because it is so hard for them to change the status quo. I recently worked for Panasonic here in the Philippines and to be honest I don't want to work for any Japanese company again. I saw first hand how they cheat their sales figures and they make this annual sales projections that were dubious and, to be honest, fictitious just to please their senior managers and they've been doing this every year prior to my employment. I asked myself, if these Japanese guys are practicing it over here, it means they are practicing it globally, too. And because their culture is male dominated, everyone is like trying to be the Alpha male in the room. Tsk tsk. I'm an outsider who got hired because their Chairman made a worldwide announcement that they will hire people from the outside to help upgrade their current talent pool (the status quo)... I was already a seasoned manager in marketing and sales and also a sales country manager for two tech companies.. prior to working with Panasonic. Being an outsider, I was not welcomed even with Filipinos who are working there since their college days. And you know what happened? We got bullied and got insulted by the long time employees and managers. And adding insult to injury... my resume and my employment contract was left seen by the public inside Panasonic... they were angry that we have higher salaries... so I guess instead being angry with management they vented their anger towards the newbies... In the end, after a year or two we resigned our post and left the company for good. i only stayed for half a year. I really had a bad experience.
Japanese companies are like the US government refuse to change
@@qjtvaddict that's whfy CHina no #1
That is only your side of the story, uncorroborated anecdotal evidence at best.
@@Sanyu-Tumusiime China is only number 1 in their minds, not, in reality, a fragile regime run by 50 corrupt families, no chance.
@@snuscaboose1942 they're the only country willing to help my home country of Uganda so stfu
without them our llive here would be worse and we are greatful to them.
Soooo true! As an American living in Japan for 2 years, my friend said that their culture of collectivity/harmony doesn’t encourage wild creativity. No one likes to disagree with you, challenge your ideas, etc. She also noticed that it’s so shameful to switch jobs in Japan-so of course, you can’t get fresh new perspectives as quickly as in America where people change companies often. She loved visiting the country as a tourist, but trying to work there in tech was stifling.
It was also frustrating how outdated all of their apps and software are 😅 People like idolizing the japanese for being technologically advanced, but man, their websites and social media platforms are like a time capsule of 2005.
Really great point - the social contract extends into the day job and manifests itself in the actual output of most companies there.
Great post. Mayuko is emerging as an important voice in Japanese software development. As a tech analyst in Japan during the 1999 IT Bubble, I can offer a couple of perspectives on why Japan never really tried replicating Silicon Valley.
The first perspective is from a very long-term perspective on Japanese history. The narrative goes like this, "Just leave us alone. Admiral Perry and the Black Ships were a wake-up call to the need to develop our own modern military industrial complex so that we can defend our country from invasion. Despite setbacks in WW2, we successfully developed our own modern military industrial complex in the 1980's. Now, leave us alone again."
The second perspective is economic. Japanese society never grasped the importance of Joseph Schumpeter's concept of Creative Destruction. Given that it takes hundreds or thousands of failed businesses to produce one Amazon or Google or Facebook, Silicon Valley embraces business failure as a learning experience. Meanwhile, Japan's tradition of life-long incremental improvement deems failure as an irredeemable personality trait.
Want to say thanks for that insightful perspective, was an interesting read mate 👍🏻
Interesting
@@jellyfishi_ Moral and ethics? Overworking people and paying low wages is not moral or ethical.
Let's just agree that they are different but there is no need to put one down over the other.
@@HSfox no no, u need to look back a bit, the employee "wanted" to work hard, and they dont even spend that much anyway, why bother getting a high wages if u'r not using it, and its shown at japan's deflation rate, ppl wanna work but don't wanna spend.
@@yudhobaskoro8033 and you don't think that they are saving and not spending because that is what low wages for decades has caused to do?
If i know that i will always get paid little, I would have to adapt and be frugal and if things change it would take me a while to realize that there is a shift when making high wages, that i have enough savings and that the higher wages won't disappear, if that happened maybe then people will spend more.
I totally understand what you mean. I worked 5 years in Singapore (even in US companies) as a dev before coming to the US. My childhood friend, who also works in tech, in Singapore asked me "What? You are still coding?" That pretty much sums it up. Being a dev is only meant to be a transitionary step to a manager, where the real money is, in Singapore. I think Singapore tech is more hierarchical and places less emphasis on software engineering than even Japan.
In many software-engineering-service (SES) companies in Japan, writing code is a job for outsourced people, not for the "proper" hired employees.
That's probably why tech in Singapore hasn't been successful 😂
@@yongshengtay8016 My former Intern at Redmond Microsoft, who is from Singapore like me, returned to Singapore to form a startup. He couldn't find a Singaporean as his chief dev as most Singaporeans prefer to be managers. He had to hire a Japanese Software Developer instead. 😂
I don't understand why a project manager would make more than a software developer. I mean the developers are the ones creating the app, not the project manager. An app can be done without a project manager ... the developer can manage his/her own time and project.
@@goldlilys Unfortunately in Asia, individual contributors are treated like kids who can't get anything done without an adult holding a whip in plain sight. It is a hierarchical organization imported from the manufacturing days where workers were often uneducated and unprofessional. The system hasn't been adapted to deal with professional Software Engineering since the mentality is geared towards manufacturing and hardware.
The japanese minister responsible for cybersecurity has never used a computer...
You can't get more cybersecure than that.
try convince greatest hacker in the world to hack him, I bet no one can.
@@someopinion2846 LOL
@Pat Risberg Except he is clueless about that and likely prints moronic laws everyday.
I think in Asia (especially in Japan, Korea, China and increasingly Vietnam), the prevailing wisdom is that the semiconductor industry is the primary avenue towards tech innovation and then software innovation will come as a result. In other words, the major players in hardware/semiconductor like Huawei, Samsung, Sony, ASUS, HTC etc all walked so that LINE, Mercari, TikTok, Alibaba, and Naver could all run if that makes sense.
None of the companies other than Samsung are prominent in the semiconductor industry which remains dominated by US companies and with a few exceptions (e.g. Intel) isn't even considered technology any more giving its maturity.
@@Sabhail_ar_Alba TSMC is a huge company in the semiconductor industry and base in Taiwan
@@laurenth1467 True, but it's a foundry i.e. doesn't own the IP it merely takes the masks from design companies such as Apple and manufactures the chips using mainly US designed and manufactured wafer processing equipment.
sony almost knock out from that league
what they had now?some camera sensor and playstation
China has its own software industry. other countries only use US product . faang
One quibble: I don't think it takes a long time for things to change in Japan. I think it takes a long time for things to get to a crisis point that forces Japan to make big changes quickly. If you look back in history Japan has very often made revolutionary changes to itself; this has happened many, many times in our ancestral homeland's long history - but Japan does tend to drag its feet for a very long time until that crisis forces change. I'm not sure Japan is yet at that crisis moment. But I do think it is possible for Japan to change rapidly when the time finally does come.
True. I'm waiting for the next crisis so Japan can do what it does best, rally around a cause.
Exactly, like overwork. They never even mention it until someone jumps off the roof of the company and it gets enough media buzz for them to start acting like they're going to do something and then once everyone forgets everything goes back to normal and all changes are thrown out the window.
You are absolutely right about Japan's _exceptional_ ability to change itself quickly. The most famous instance of this happening was in fact mentioned by Mayuko in this very video, it's the Meiji Reformation. Japan went from an agriculture-based Medieval society to an industry-based capitalistic powerhouse in the span of less than 30 years. As far as I know, that's the fastest and most profound change any country has ever had.
@@mouadchaiabi Yeah I was thinking of the Meiji Restoration and also the post-war transformation, as well as many prior changes such as the revolutionary restructuring of Japanese government during the Hideyoshi/Tokugawa transition which created a highly decentralized Japanese state which had many modern features not typically associated with feudalism in the West (some historians believe this may be partly why Japan was able to modernize so quickly). Japanese are very traditional yet oddly willing to accept rapid and sweeping changes in tradition when there comes a kind of national consensus it's (finally) time to make that change.
Definitely, for instance after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, once the group comes to a consensus, things change fairly quickly.
OMG this is so true. I do product design (ui/ux and visual) here in Japan.. and the biggest challenge for me is that not alot of people understand web tech - specially the key decision makers. It’s really frustrating. Ughhhh
Was watching a podcast of people living in Japan and they said websites are still stuck in the 90s design where they cram as much info as possible on the screen
We just have to keep fighting it. Cramming everything possible with tiny text is going to disappear, eventually.
wow, this is the most naturally authentic mayuko content ever. love all your videos, but this one was especially great. thanks for sharing!!
I can summarize the stagnation in one short phrase: stubborn old people.
Japan is a strictly hierarchical society and status quo is everything.
Conformity and groupthink are not only the norm, but you will be cast aside if you don't participate.
This has been a huge point of contention for me while living in Japan.
And what's worse, the humanitarian side of things in Japan are gravely lacking.
There is this sociological notion of uchi (inside) and soto (outside) which equates in a hyper-focused in-group/out-group bias. This has lead to vast sweeping cases of discrimination and apathy vis-a-vis individual suffering.
Your opinion will never be heard, and in the rare occasion it is, it will only be because some stubborn old person took ownership of your idea when their stubborn old boss lauded it in the boardroom.
That is harmony unlike that of America where everyone is fighting each other, ready to cut others throat. This way you don't need extra rules by government. Society manages to hold everyone in line.
@@mdjey2 this backfires badly because it leaves little room for error for young people living in Japan. When a status quo isn't sustainable, everyone is beholden to leadership to do something about it and until that happens go along with the status quo. That isn't healthy.
Japan in general doesn't allow woman to thrive in corporate environment. You are automatically eliminating 50% of your talent pool and potential.
@@lordblazer Thats your Western view. Why push it on others?
@@mdjey2 Conformity is not harmony.
Part 3 has to do that most bosses in Japan are all over 60 years old with a very old way of thinking.
America focuses on software whereas Japan focuses on hardware. We have Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant, and Siri, etc... Every American website has a complex algorithm, and I can go on and on...
But in Japan, they don't have any of that; they focus more on the automatic toilets, the vending machines, and the conveyor belt sushi restaurants.
It all boils down to hardware vs software. So in a way, we're both technologically ahead of each other, just in different avenues of tech.
Software lol yea ok, try lasers and FUSION ENERGY!!!! YOU CLUELESS TURDS
Amazingly informative about Japanese Mindset. The making of Silicon valley is the dearning courage to take initiative and not being afraid to fail and learn from failure. With every success story in Silicon valley there are 10 unsuccessful stories.
A little late to the party, but great video Mayuko! So much research and insights👏
Thanks for including my pov😊🌱
Yay thank you for your insights Yuka!!!
Even though not many Japanese do not know about this, Japan is one of the most difficult countries for foreigners to reside due to strict visa requirement for PR or long stay visas which is part of the reason why Japan is homogenous country. US, European countries, AUS etc have attracted skilled migrants across the globe which has not been seen in Japan. Success of Tech industries could also depend if there is more support from the government not only financially but also by changing governmental regulations / policies.
I (foreigner) grew up in Japan and I 100% agree. Many Japanese schools and workplaces have very strict formal and informal rules about who is welcome. My school was full of mixed-race kids who weren't allowed to go to their local public school (members of my own family included). I love Japan, but there's no easy future there for many foreigners, and I'm sure that scares top tech talent away. I don't know if welcoming migrants is the answer to Japan's tech problem, but I believe they'd see more innovation if the government made it easier to hire talent from other countries.
I moved in 2019 with a student VISA (language school) because I wanted some language grasp before working in Tokyo.
After that was really easy get a sponsorship from a workplace and in my experience almost (to be honest I may have seen 1 workplace that couldn't) every workplaces can/want sponsorship you.
If someone can't get a sponsorship for a very specific reason (one is not having a degree), that person can always self sponsorship themselves quite easily, having a JLPT N4 is the major requirement, which is quite basic and doable in 1y of studies.
Isn't a idicllic scenario but can be achieved with some effort.
@@JS2123-m9x all the job postings I've come across say JLPT 2 is the bare minimum for most non teaching careers, even in Tokyo. It's tough, but we gotta make these people change and realize they're behind in the world now.
@@AssadJawaid A lot of dev roles do not require high Japanese. Often don't even require any, since the teams are multicultural. This could be true for other roles as well, for example I work as Senior Product Designer and have a barely functional N3.
I agree on openness and the importance of English (outside Japan as well, mind you) but is *very* important that foreigners that want to work and live in Japan are willing to learn the native language of the society they chose to be in. The reasons are several and not just the 2-3 years of gap in development, and this comes from a product designer, where product design (digital, at least) is easily 10 years behind USA&EU.
Japans problem is the culture. It is an extreme nationalistic country. They would be better off, if they would open their barriers. But it's so deeply embedded in the culture, it is not going to happen.
Loved to see your insight on this! I spent so much time in college asking myself if I wanted to work for a tech company here in California, but I also became very invested in Japan too. So now I'm working for a company in Tokyo, but the reality of tech in Japan was a tough pill to swallow. Hopefully the opportunities I'm looking for will come up.
From my experience at a Japanese tech company, people usually worked much slower than the US (hence all the overtime) and had a lot of difficulty making decisions, which led to a series of endless meetings. Work culture's gotta change.
There are not many choices. They dont have as big market as the US tech giants. Every piece of software built in Japan is for Japanese market. And 1/3 of Japanese people, the elderly, would never try a new software product. When you make a bad decision, it's harder to recover than its US counterparts.
I don't know, low productivity and paralysis epidemic by meetings is a common problem elsewhere too, it has been becoming an issue in USA and Europe just the same in major companies, where everything needs a meeting, and engineers end up spending half the time in meetings. This is unproductive, people get to listen at length about things that concern others but not them, and usually they have nothing to contribute. This kind of communication would work best with preparation and conclusion in written form, where others can just skim it when they want, and where then only people invite themselves who have something relevant to contribute to the topic. Engineering activity requires deep engagement with complex matter and doesn't really forgive mistakes, and a meeting disrupts that and wastes a good amount of time after to get back into the groove of things.
@@SianaGearz Truly insightful comment. You have absolutely hit the nail on the head. The disruption to thought processes and general engagement in an engineering task is painful when you have to sit through a long drawn out meeting, where it is clear people are still deciding things they should decided before the meeting. Trying to explain this to a non engineer is difficult at best. It is virtually impossible in a culture where people will think you think you are special if you don't attend because of the time limits you have and the slow to crawl the meeting causes to your work. Then people get a chip on their shoulder that you think you are special (when you merely have your priorities straight). So... you attend...
I heard German work culture is the most effective and also very strict.
The numerous conferences in Japanese companies are for evading responsibility.
I've been living in Japan 5+ years (you interview 2 people I know!) and found this video very insightful! I didn't think so much of the divide between hardware vs software as to the cause of technological stagnation, but in retrospective it's definitely true! There are so many other reasons, but many of them even circle back to this again, like culture of overwork; it's known the more hours you work, the more productive you are in mechanical tasks (making physical things) BUT the less productive you are in creative tasks (like software)
I really enjoyed this! It makes me exciting about working in tech and the kinds of problems we can tackle on a higher, macro level. Makes me feel hopeful and excited, especially after a day of making sure some buttons line up correctly...
My database science teacher at my university told me (in 2012) that japan is more than 50 years behind western countries in database development. It made since sense most japanese people never touched a computer before, but relied heavily on mobile phones already in the 90s, and even before that, companies never considered setting up a database system. It was so bad that my computational physics course, the teacher literally how to show how to turn on a computer.
+1 on Part 3 - Software as second class. Particularly UI design. A lot of Japanese tech products tend to fanciful, intentionally impenetrable interfaces that are intended to look "futuristic" or "complex." Contrast this to Apple, which tends to be more Design-first. UI, and even more, UX is everything.
But surprisingly Japanese people love using iPhones o_o
@@galpratama because of simple UI UX
Just imagine if Japan put in all the craftsmanship into software development what awesome software we could have! The gaming industry seems to be doing fine still and I wonder why
Actually, even the gaming industry is kinda falling behind compared to Western counterpart. I live in south east asia, and I grew up with basically Japanese games (like consoles and stuff). But nowadays, like Mayuko said, Japanese games and entertainment products in general, are increasingly disappearing from my life.
They don't see values in PC gaming, their games kinda follow the same formula over and over again, and they don't see values in entertainment services like Spotify, or Netflix, and so on. Many of their gaming companies stubbornly cling to the console gaming market, and make their games console exclusive (which makes sense now, seeing how they value hardware higher than software). Only in recent years, that some of their biggest game companies tested the waters that is PC gaming market, and saw how valuable the market is. Even then, I found their pricing strategies still weirdly expensive compared to Western companies, like I actually feel that they don't see PC market is worthwhile if they cannot charge an arm and leg for their games. That's why they lose their competitive edge, while more and more companies around the world actually create more accessible and wildly creative games.
@@coolfer2 Recently, Altlus recently released Nocturne remaster on steam and did Persona 4 Golden too. Hopefully this picks up more in the future.
@@bm1259 But that's what I was talking about. It's an HD remaster of an old game, not even a remake. But they are still charging as if it's a new game. Meanwhile, Shin Megami Tensei V is coming only on Switch. I think in these Japanese companies mindset, the games are created to support the consoles sales. It's not just a "platform" for them. Console sales is the "objective", idk.
I can give another example. You see, there are a lot of spiritual successors of Final Fantasy Tactics in Steam right now. Compare the prices, Japanese games like Octopath Traveller costs like $60 while most other games are like $30 . And do we need to mention games like DOA, Tekken, with their crazy DLC schemes.
Idk, man. I think it's also because these Japanese games are all created by big corporations, hence the crazy pricing. Wish there could be more smaller Japanese companies out there to bring some competition.
@@coolfer2 Yeah and another thing is that whos going to try and bring other the smaller stuff anyway. Smaller companies probably arent going to pay for things like localization and translations
@@coolfer2 What?? Japan's gaming has been going strong, even making their own innovative genre like souls games. Nintendo switch has sold pretty nicely, even way better than Xbox, and some of the games there are selling like hotcakes.
SE Asia have shit currencies (except for Singapore), which is why no consoles nor games can perform well there. I think it is a poor indicator if you wanna bring up Japan's falling in term of entertainment industry (which is false).
You mentioned that Japan games used to be popular in your country back in 90s and early 2000s. That was because those games could be pirated sooo easily and sold very cheaply.
Western gaming (especially US) also stagnate in term of innovation. It is just another COD game and shit AC games every fukin year.
I am a system engineer in Japan and working for a Japanese company and all your guesses are TRUE!!!
I like my job itself but I’m barely surviving in the toxic work culture! What’s the working environment like in American IT companies?
Look up videos on life as a Facebook or a Google employee
Don't just look up culture in FAANG companies, wouldn't be an accurate overall picture
In US, I've been in both sides of the coin in software, places where you're worked to death and places where you're a first class citizen and treated as such. The one thing though is you're probably going to get paid well otherwise you can easily jump ship, and many people do. I think that keeps management a bit on their toes when they try to take advantage of software people, sure they can demand a lot of work but they have to pay up.
In the U.S., it really depends on a few factors: things like size of the company (i.e. 10 employees vs 1000), location (i.e. Silicon Valley vs San Diego, CA, etc), industry (i.e. fintech vs social media vs healthtech, etc), and how long a company's been around for (1 year vs 30 years). But largely if we're thinking about The Silicon Valley Tech Company on average, the work is definitely demanding and things like hustle culture and 40+ workweeks are not uncommon, but it's definitely less hierarchical than Japanese companies, and employees are encouraged to be autonomous in their work and suggest new ideas often!
Lying more-on n clueless shill, Satoshi Nakamoto developed Blockchain the best technology EVER! BITCOIN! The technology is so great its uses have been hidden because it will make governments actually be fair and not corrupt, fair stock markets, fair elections! Clueless DB
Thank you for making this video, mayuko-san!! Japan is facing many difficulties right now. I think we need to change our thought about software and the Japanese education system as well. Japanese education is that we have to follow what their parents and teacher said, then we can not think by ourself. That education takes opportunities to think by themselves.
why do rich people send their children to the US to study? the answer is clear. I'm sad.
One thing to consider is the fact that most consumer electronics from early era tube technology to 60s era transistor tech was mostly only made available to Japan because the UK and the US sold access to their patents because by the 60s (and earlier for tube tech) the US and UK deemed these to be antiquated tech. The Japanese consumer electronic industry boomed on tech that was already consider obsolete and the Military Industrial complex had long since moved on to the things we see Fang doing today which is also already quite obsolete compared to the bleeding edge.
I think this is one of the very best videos you've ever made Mayuko. I loved it!!! Thank you so much for share. It is a very interesting topic. I think Japan really needs to open a little bit to the world outside. I often see that senior positions in japanese companies are held by older gentlemen. They definitely needs fresh air!
Wrong more-on Satoshi Nakamoto developed Blockchain the best technology EVER! BITCOIN! The technology is so great its uses have been hidden because it will make governments actually be fair and not corrupt, fair stock markets, fair elections! Clueless!!! Watch who makes the powerful lasers and FUSION ENERGY!!!!
We're actually in the process of submitting our application for this event. I'm hoping we'll get the chance to be a part of it because we've been planning to roll-out in Japan before the pandemic and this might be a good avenue for us to do that. Speaking of Silicon Valley, I love the innovation and accomplishments of Silicon Valley (as a collective) but I hope Japan's tech innovation remains separate from the SV version for one reason:
Japan has always been known to be a country of people that always prioritize others over self. To what extent that's true, I don't know since I'm not an expert on Japan. I do have a lot of friends and have a number of clients there and my experience with them so far affirms that my perception of Japan rings true.
Silicon Valley, on the other hand, is all about growth at all costs, pivot, and fail fast which is why it has always been like a bull in a china shop - SV is strong and powerful but it also breaks a lot more things than it builds. It's not obvious when you're sitting in SV itself talking to people whose world-view is shaped by the vision that's shared about "making a difference" and "changing the world," but in reality none of those things actually matter on the other side of the world - where I live.
I think Japan has the capacity and the resources to become its own version of SV that retains its cultural propensity to favor mindfulness (to some degree) and responsibility for society rather than "Unicorns-at-all-cost" and other fantastic beasts that's always part of the colorful SV vocabulary that tends to gloss over the real-world consequences of careless ideas that always prioritize self, individual profit, and fame.
I'm sorry if I have such a negative view of SV, I live in a part of the world where most of the consequences of careless ideas mean life and death for people on a daily basis.
Lol. Thank God you are not significant enough to decide the progress of the world. BTW, you should try russia. You won't have a negative view of the high tech environment there. Precisely because they take no risks and make no innovations whatsoever.
Thanks for the video and learned a lot. I would say that as a Filipino, I had a chance to work as a software engineer in Japan many years ago, but the stumbling block is that I had to learn Nihonggo before I could do so.
My suggestion to their INNO program is that they can encourage more diversity if they just allowed people from overseas who speak only global languages like English.
The language barrier is definitely something that came up in my interviews, for sure. It's interesting though that there are more companies that are using a hybrid approach for languages so that neither side are excluded. The INNO-vation program definitely invites english speakers to be a part of the program! They have folks in the program who are fluent in both.
The reason why Japan entered it's stagnation is two words: Trade War
US went to trade War with Japan in the 80s and won, ending Japan's low fixed rate currency. President Reagan imposed a 100 percent tariff on Japanese-made computers, television sets and power tools. Well simply put I would say he was the main reason.
US targeted Japanese supercomputers, semiconductors, commercial satellites and even operating systems such as Tron. US won. Japan conceded. Then, the country fell behind and China takes over the place. Along with Japanese currency rate management and central banking policy, China studied Japan on this trade conflict well. They will never concede on the current trade war.
@@mimichaten Wrong, I work in the Semiconductor industry and in there, I have a front row view of how not only did the Japanese win, they are still winning but Americans are totally oblivious to it.
Let me give you an example, in 1975 there were over 30 LCD Semiconductor companies that existed in the US and none in Japan. The Technology was developed in the US, but MITI (Ministry International Trade and Industry) Required that all Japanese firms must have at least 1 LCD line in operation and by 1980. By 1990, There was 20 LCD Companies in Japan and only 1 left in the US, which sold to the Department of Defense. It was a total bloodbath, and most of the Semiconductor firms in the US Right now are afloat due to products that are considered dual use, which means they cant be manufactured abroad due to potential military applications.
Now here is where it gets interesting, Americans congratulate themselves on the whole entire Trade War and Currency Rate agreement. That was all on the surface. What the Japanese realized is that if your brands are all over the place, like Sony, Sharp, NEC, Nikon, etc, people begin to attack you because they feel threatened. So what Japan did after 1990, which is fucking amazing brilliant is that they transitioned from Consumer Products to Value-Added Components and Industrial Products. Which are very imporant but not visible to the public eye. You mentioned that Japan conceded. Correction, they pretended to conceded.
Since they basically ran most component manufacturers out of business, they were now offering their components to American companies for them to brand as their own. And these were the High-Value Added Components. So whenever I hear that Japan is Dead or Lost because you never see Japanese products anymore, my response is, you have a Sharp Screen, Sony Camera, and Toshiba Memory in your pocket right now - the IPhone. And Those are the most value added components. Even the other components which are made by American companies, for example, my company makes a specific microchip used in the Iphone that they brand as "American Made". Our manufacturing line, 60 percent of the Toolsets are from Japan, and virtually the most critical ones: Such as Nikon, Hitachi, Seiko and the Semiconductor Material is sourced from Japan as well. 30 percent is from Germany and 10 percent is American. Nikon's most profitable divison is no longer Cameras but Semiconductor Lithography and Etching. Im sorry, but I cannot say how under these circumstances the US Won Anything. And this is not just with Semiconductors, I have worked with people in the Auto, Aviation, Electronics industries and they will all tell you the same circumstances they have seen. Open your GM car and find tons of components manufactured by Toyota, Honda, or Mitsubishi connected manufacturers. Open your Dell or HP laptop and find most of the components manufactured by NEC and Murata.
The question is why does this matter? The reason why Japan succeded was not due to chance or miracle, its because of Comprehensive Long term Planning with a Mutual Public-Private relationship between the Keiretsu and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, allowing for them to engage in Technical Based Continuous improvement and coordiation between the companies to basically target and destroy American companies (One MITI Employee told me once that they had a Strategy nicknamed "Deathu Stawru"). The US is a Neoliberal Financial based society that has no concept of long-term government planning and allows its companies to beat the shit out of each other while being run into the ground by foreign competitors. If the US seriously thinks with Tarrifs and Sanctions, they are going to win, the answer is that they havent in the past 40 years and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result.
Proof: I Work in the Semiconductor industry and worked at various times with Nikon, Murata, EDS (Ross Perot Company) and also have studied Japanese Kaizen and the History of MITI. Read Chalmers Johnson, Michael Sekora, and Clyde Prestowitz books to understand how Japanese companies actually operate and why Americans didn't get it then and why they havent changed at all.
According to other analysts the reason for their stagnation is the crisis their own central bank created by inflating the real estate market with tons of cash (may order may not sound familiar) to bring down their post war economy system and transfer to the capitalist free market. Numbers don't suggest a great success there. China will haven taken notes about that and a pretty similar story in South Korea as well.
@@Monsterpala The Numbers you mention are total garbage. I have spoken to many so-called analysts who have made similar analysis for Japan's performance. They become silent when I mention that majority of Value-Added Components, Firmware, and the critical toolsets in our manufacturing industries are from Japan. The company I worked for, which is a Major Supplier for Apple and prides itself as American Made, 60 percent of the Toolsets are from Japan, 30 percent from Germany and 10 percent from the US. Americans saying that Japan "Lost" shows how oblivious they are that Japan has us by the balls. The country with the highest foreign direct investment in the US is not China, but Japan. To this day, South Korea and China are not even in the top 10.
Btw, South Korea is a Carbon copy of Japan, due to Park Chung-Hee Japanophile reorganization of the Government, which largely exists today and a similar thing can be said about the Chaebol's of Korea as well manufacturing most value added components through companies like Samsung, POSCO, and Hyundai Industrial.
@@jacoblitchfield2527 I would have dismissed this as your average yt comment conspiracy theory, but you give an oddly convincing, well-supported argument... Where can I read up on this?
Engineers in Tokyo have their pick of where they want to work because there is so much demand. I went to an English coding bootcamp there and my American classmates found it fairly easy to get a job after with visas-much harder to do the same in the US. Working conditions are quite good for us especially compared to sales and other departments-almost like a bubble, like a foreign enclave. Even companies that only have Japanese customers have engineering teams that are mostly foreigners, and Japanese is sometimes not a requirement even at a basic level. But overall, it’s not the most flourishing industry and the level is certainly below SV standards as traditional Japanese business practices go against fail fast, agile methodology. But it’s not all bad and actually is a great place to go to learn to become a developer and break into the career. The main issues are working at the bigger, traditional companies with the gross infamous Japanese work style but if you work for a Mercari, or a Mercari wannabe, work life balance is actually very good... My work experience at a Japanese company was actually better than at Apple, even (7.5 hour work days). But the salaries are generally way better at the Gaishi (foreign companies).でも本当に日本のIT業界、ちょっと心配ですよね。
Glad to see Japan recognize their mistakes and take steps to correct. I've always admired their craftsmanship roots and I'd love to see those principles applied to Software.
Satoshi Nakamoto developed Blockchain the best technology EVER! BITCOIN! The technology is so great its uses have been hidden because it will make governments actually be fair and not corrupt, fair stock markets, fair elections! Clueless!!! Watch who makes the powerful lasers and FUSION ENERGY!!!!
My previous location, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology is truly and definitely the only university that is diverse inside Japan with the majority of the students and researchers from overseas, and more than half of them being female. I had really enjoyed my time there, where the environment is so refreshing and inspiring. Until when I moved to my current, ordinary company in Japan. I was shocked to find the difference so drastic. I believe it depends on which field you are in, but my current organization has so little diversity and leads a rigid working style. Though people are very kind, the environment is dull. We really need a more free structure and lively environment to promote ideas and innovations, or just to make life more fun. I feel like doing something to change it, but is out of my reach. Thanks for your video for speaking out the issue.
I think this works for many top universities. I had my one year exchange program at Tsukuba University and the diversity there is incomparable to most of places in Japan. Around 2000 foreign students come every year, halal restaurants and praying rooms are available, and what is most important you can see the close interaction between Japanese and foreigners. I believe places like Tsukuba university might bring a shift in social structure in Japan with new open-minded and diverse generation of Japanese people.
You should try to work in Rakuten. What is your current organization?
@@egorsheverev8086
You don't want Japan to stay as Japan ?
@@Rusu421 Really would like to work there! Currently I am MEXT scholarship nominee
@@missplainjane3905 Of course not. Japan has good and bad sides, so why Japan shouldn’t improve and make progress.
Great points! I worked in one of Japan's large corporations as a new grad engineer before moving to the US to pursue further studies and look for opportunities in tech industry here. So I have a perspective of both places as well.
But I feel, things are changing in Japan too, albeit slowly. I worked in a software R&D department in the Japanese company. The work culture was actually quite relaxed. Work timings were flexible and normal working hours. Overtime was also paid. I also did not face any discrimination or uchi-soto behavior for being a non-Japanese in a primarily Japanese workplace. And guess what, my team also used the latest tools globally in the industry, so I was able to grow highly transferrable skills.
Satoshi Nakamoto developed Blockchain the best technology EVER! BITCOIN! The technology is so great its uses have been hidden because it will make governments actually be fair and not corrupt, fair stock markets, fair elections! Clueless!!! Watch who makes the powerful lasers and FUSION ENERGY!!!!
The production value of her videos have increased drastically overtime.
Whatever Japan makes, whether they are advanced or not, I can say that they will be reliable and that's all I need.... 😀
close minded🙄
@@nasim3987 You are Worth less 😂
@@bholuwhoop5944 😂
In Japan plain officie workers and IT specialists are paid the same, of course Japanese salaries are very low even if we consider seniority issues. In Korea, IT workers are now very well paid although it wasn't that way in the '90s. In Japan there is only basic level of reward for loyality itself ,not for special capabilities. There are many jobs in Japan especially in domestic distribution such as food sales because of lack of automation. Japan is a good place for individuals, especially men, who have only basic talents and capabilities(such as excel) but are very loyal but Japan is definitely not a place for talented ones with outstanding skills, especially digital related ones Now there are professional opinions that Japan is a former developed country.
Thanks for this info. I am getting somewhere about why my Toyota Rav4, a great car mechanically, uses infotainment systems that look and work like they were designed and made about 15 years ago.
I have worked as an external software engineer in a Japanese owned factory at my country. And sometimes I had to stay there waiting for the lines to shutdown, I find those bell sounds so triggering, cuz it always reminded me how many hours I had spent being there.
Great topic. it's something that really concerns me as well, as a Japanese linguist and programmer that's working on a gafa project now and worked at Yahoo Japan in early 2000s. One thing is, Japan fell behind on the ability to adapt and innovate, in the face of multiple disrupting technologies.
There's no simple solution, but innovation obviously doesn't happen in a vacuum. It requires an ecosystem with the conditions for the seeds to take root, grow and flourish. I think about what makes Japanese farmers grow good rice, fruit, vegetables, beef, etc. All the things that make up the "ecosystem" they grow in, matters, and you just can't create them overnight. When it comes to IT, Japan didn't have the ecosystem to compete globally.
A large component of tech today is software engineering which means using programming languages. Other than the logic aspect, programming languages are based on English syntax and sementics. So English native speakers have a natural advantage when it comes to understand programming. An English native highschool grad with some motivation and math, can learn to be a competent programmer. but for a Japanese native it would take an above-average college grad to do the same thing - very roughly speaking.
This isn't about who is more or less "intelligent". It's about the Japanese language itself and the education system, which provides almost no advantages for learning programming. In fact I consider them to be an outright hinderances.
to be cont?
You might have a point, but can't you make a similar argument towards European countries? For example countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet. Or countries like Germany that has been historically unskilled in English. Sure, they are all closer to English than Japanese is, but it's not like Japanese people has proven itself inept at programming or learning programming languages. Ruby for example, was made by a Japanese programmer and got quite popular in Japan and in the states, and is even more English-like than Python. As seen by their (still) strong games industry, I don't think it plays that much of a difference.
I think that interests and culture is more in the way than anything else (for the individual). Why go for a low tier blue collar job when you can become a respected salary man? Well, interest would make you do that, but family pressure to make a stable living in a respected position might outweigh that.
And ofc all of the structural and cultural things within domestic companies as mentioned in the video.
From your angle, maybe looking up documentation and examples on sites like stackoverflow and mozilla is a challenge, as they are mostly in English? Maybe you have some insight on that particular issue?
@@andee9gaming as for the countries with the Cyrillic alphabet, then most of the people there also do not know programming. On the other hand, the school focus on mathematics education gives engineers an edge in algorithms and computations, where English is not important.
Learning Japanese kanji is like learning the syllabys database, too many outdated kanjis and they need to modernise the language.
Katakana and hiragana was a good start, until it get a lot of cluster with no space and kanjis.
Hi, Mayuko I live in South Korea. From what I understand a lot of the similar attitude has been here however it's changing. More schools are pushing for IT and computer programming.
And Government are funding people to learn IT tech for free and to get hired and founding Startup companies.
Which is why Naver and Kakao are now Korea's 3rd and 4th most valuable companies (ahead of Hyundai/Kia, LG)
Japan's cultural and societal norms help them excel in certain types of technology and engineering. Their QC on high end tech components is legendary. The best Taiwanese motherboards and power supplies proudly advertise, "made with 100% highest quality Japanese capacitors." We could certainly use their diligence and work ethic over here. They could use more of our entreprenurial and innovative spirit over there. Let's go!
Great video! I've been an IT person for my entire professional career (30+ years). I remember when I was young (early 80s), there was this Japanese term called .... dennu kids (I think, electronic brain kid, a la computer kids)... but it wasn't a good term. It carried a similar connotation of otaku. It was a geeky thing and it wasn't "normal". So even back in the 80s, the signs were already there.
I think that hardware is still 1st class. but for different reasons. Software runs like trash on bad hardware, but can run amazing on good hardware. And look how amazing ARM and RISC-V are compared to x86_64. And it's honestly amazing how a processor can actually take the binary that our code was assembled into and execute it. And then what we can do with our software will expand over time as our hardware gets better and better. I'm looking forward to if we can figure out how to get quantum computers created & mass produced.
What you're talking about isn't so much hardware as in end product, which i think is what the video implies it's about, but components. Key components is what makes or breaks the hardware. But where are components out of Japan? Hitachi used to be one of the biggest semiconductor companies, they made a huge variety and volume of processors, you would find a Hitachi 68k (licensed), H8(their own) or SH(also their own) in just about every product. Hitachi Semiconductors is now Renesas. What do they make? Mostly junk. The SH5 and SH2A came out almost 20 years ago, and now what? Is there SH-6? Nope. The SH or SuperH was such a massive breakthrough, it's a 32-bit processor but it needs as little memory bandwidth as a 16-bit one for most tasks, it has 16-bit uniform instructions, and its pipelining and (in models where available) superscalarity matrices are pretty great. Well back in the 90s, a small, and back then largely unimportant British company Acorn RISC Machines licensed their patents, and made the similar Thumb instruction set. ARM7TDMI with Thumb quickly found its way into just about everything including the new 32-bit Nintendo Gameboy Advance, since it could hit an insanely low pricepoint and deliver quite a performance for embedded tasks. Currently, classic 32-bit ARM instruction set is deprecated, Thumb2 is the foundation for all new ARM processors, including 64-bit ones. And they're now the predominant force. Japan lost what it had and is sleeping on every new trend, they're so firmly behind. NEC and Sharp were up there too in semiconductor business, not much left of those either. Toshiba is still holding on, with flash business and power and linear semiconductors, but that's about it.
@@SianaGearz Very insightful, and interesting. Thank you!
It's so easy to scale out with right software. Hardware shouldn't be a limiting factor in 2021 unless your work requires specialized hardware.
As a Japanese teenager, after I watched this video and read some comments here, I felt like my life as a Japanese has no hope and future.😊😊😊
This helps me understand the Sony Xperia phones throughout the years sooooo much.
They always had amazing hardware...and were running an ancient version of android...
It's starting to get better. but it's the same across asia. Software development is one of the lowest paid industry in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.
China is probably the only place in Asia where i can see software being appreciated. Although in the past 2 years or so. I started seeing Japanese companies started paying software developers quite well. which is a good sign.
India?
@@siddhantkumar1028 she thinks india is a slum dog nation....she doesn't know india has the 3rd biggest IT industry after China and USA
really good explaining how software industry in japan.
as non japanese, i was confused about japan. many "why why" in japanese persepective about software.
now its all clear to me.
really good video Mayuko 👍
Japan only fell behind in civilian technology ,but has constantly risen in industrial technology where today it is an absolute leader
I enjoyed the video. I think there are tons of problems we Japanese solve to improve the software class. In hardware company I think we develop software for superior not for user, cause it should be what it is for example Sony TV should work as it is the Sony one.
I like these topics on cultural innovation and diversity very much! 👍🏾
Woke asf bro daaaaamn.
“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” Sharing some love from a small UA-camr
Saudi Arabia has already begun to open up to foreign companies and is trying to build Saudi Silicon Valley
It is cooperating with Japan in the SoftBank Fund to work on the fourth generation technology in the city of Neom.
Great video. I was reading an interview with Dylan Cuthbert who was a UK programmer sent to work on Starfox for Nintendo. He said in the 80's/90's there was access to a lot of personal home computers which lead to a lot of hobbyist programmers. Apparently personal computers were more expensive in Japan and there wasn't as much of a general 'scene/community'. It was seen more as a means to an end in a sense.
Sheeeeesh. Was just having a conversation about this with my friend. "Japan needs to up their SWE game and start printing money." lol
They printed more money than the US. Japanese currency is depreciating faster than USD.
fact :
- Sony was the first smart phone i bought, now i'll never buy it again, reason - crappy software support
- when i wanted to search for something from Japan website, they don't have English option or just redirect to other region, or their translation engine is crap
- i know some friend working for Japanese software development, they tend to use existing framework rather than crafting anything themselves, this thing alone already tell me that they don't care about their software performance rather than features, this one is dangerous if they keep this development attitude, they will lose more customers,
- unlike software from US are more and more complex, performance is getting along with hardware, US also one of the leading on crafting and refine new and existing frameworks or even new programming languages, plus English is the second Language for almost every country, so japan is already out of this game.
Spot on
"japan is already out of this game."
Well I wouldn't compare old smartphones from the past to new ones nowadays, every manufacturer has skeletons in their closets.
new sony smartphones are pretty much basically android so they've changed that.
Also in a software related companies and yeah some things I can see for other companies or older mindsetted companies, current one I'm with is pretty good about updating and keeping up software while reiterating constantly. so things slowly changing.
@@techcommentlooker3951 Your meaning is that Japan will never catch up any cutting edge field. Changing slowly does not work on creative work.
@@techcommentlooker3951
Once the trust was broken, it's not easy to earn it back, while everyone else is keeping their brand name strong, Japanese software is so far behind to gain back the trust.
Heavy bureaucracy is deeply in entrenched that country. No one mention it being a factor?
I get the impression that the strong conformity makes everyone risk adverse. Start ups are about taking risks.
Exactly. Being highly risk averse is a key problem.
A comand and control ridgid heirachy where one pledges unquestioning fealty to the corporation.
@@marcelchaloupka Yeah. Ironically that is the exact same thing which helped Japan see incredible economic growth in the 1960s to the 1980s.
This is amazing to watch. I've been living in Silicon Valley for three years now and I never realized how truly world-class we are. We influence other countries for advancement? It's crazy and took me a little while to realize this amazing place I live in. Much love from the South Bay :)
If you see Pepakura designer and you find PDO files, you will see excellence of Japanese software. Very innovative, very good design and amazing functionality.
Japan has the same attitude towards technology as Germany: both countries have a very strong tradition of viewing technology and problem solving through the lens of engineering, which brought work, prosperity and a reputation for excellence for both nations in the 20th century. But the problems of the 21st are being solved by Software engineers and both nations fail to respond accordingly to this major shift in technology.
Nice video, one of the huge factors I would have thought led to the decline would be the Plaza Accords, where the U.S. literally just straight up forced Japan to stop being so competitive so the U.S. could have the dominant economy. Kind of messed up how that happened, but it kind of also made sense being that America put itself at a disadvantage by providing so much social welfare for Japan to help it recover after WWII, in order to prevent the Japanese from becoming communist.
My guess is that comparative advantage has something to do with why software isn't that big in Japan. Like if some other country can do with less of an opportunity cost, then Japan doesn't really need a domestic industry.
Great analysis! A few years ago we researched the quality of CS programs in college for our university recruiting efforts. We found that the CS programs were 10+ years behind those in the US. Our company hired mostly self-taught software engineers!
Watching this video made me understand why my Sony camera has the best hardware I can buy but the menu is so difficult to maneuver around. Thank you!
Japan could immediately start “celebrating people from all different backgrounds” but that doesn’t change the fact that there just aren’t that many “diverse” people (like me, 17-year resident) here in Japan. And that means there isn’t some huge “diversity dividend” to be gained by being more inclusive, like in America.
The real issue is diversity of thought, and of age, and of gender, in the ranks of management. And that problem goes back to the problem of not hiring for talent, which means becoming the boss is primarily a function of longevity, luck, and politics (and male-ness). Risk aversion, which was touched on early in the video, also means that creative people and ideas are viewed with skepticism and, often, fear and dread.
After all, Japan built the second strongest economy and a high-tech manufacturing juggernaut in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Why change what worked so well, and put it all at risk? The answer might seem self-evident, but not in most Japanese boardrooms.
@@missplainjane3905 Near 18 years ago I was studying, yes. Been working for the past 16 or so.
@@missplainjane3905 Yep.
@@missplainjane3905 Happy to comment further, but if this is for a research paper or follow-up YT video, please credit me in the footnotes😉
It's not diversity per se that's the reason for Silicon Valley's success.. it's opening the talent pool to the entire world, not limiting only to one's own borders (Japan only has ~125 million people whereas the world pop is ~ 8 billion). Statistically, the more applicants you open your search to, the better your chances of getting quality.
i saw many IT engineers here in japan but they arent japanese.
just because lots of companies started thinking they need software engineers but we dont have much software engineers
im mechanical engineer but ive never thought about mechanical engineering is the first class lol
my paying is very low too
it is wild how on the one hand companies, shops, and the like... infrastructure of Japan's tech world is so out of date - yet they do often still create wildly advanced niche things that are ahead of or up to day with the rest of the world. Things like the Toto toilets, gaming, VTubing, Anime advancement which has come a long way, their robots peppered around places like robot ran hotels and restaurants, advanced vending machines not really seen in other places..
They obviously can create tech on par with the rest of the tech world - but their infrastructure of businesses and such hold them back society wide - with the things like still using faxing and cash when shopping. It's not that they couldn't do it but it rocks the BIIIIG boat of society to do those things in particular which is not a Japanese value.
It's both extremally amazing and infuriating that they can do this. In some ways its kinda neat how they can hold on to cultural and balance that with the old tech still but frustrating when you can't also just do things easier. Part of that more retro charm is aestheticly cool but practically people would find it much easier if they could pay with card and use email. lol
(I'm also JA and have love staying in connection with my roots though through anime, gaming, history, art, and things like that )
I have worked with japanese in my early career... oh man !!!! They are very hard working ... I owe them for moulding me into a hard working engineer...
I really thought that the pandemic would have changed their attitude towards software because of the need for remote work, but they're just really stubborn on their old ways of working culture.
Actually things are changing, just very slowly, but they are definitely changing.
@@japanstation1 It seems like things are changing in Germany as well but it will take a lot of time and effort.
It’s laughable how backwards Germany still is in regards to digitalising education and overall internet literacy for large swaths of the population
Worked a lot with Japanese companies, but shifted more to Koreans and Chinese. What’s JP’s problem?
1. Some sales guys may speak English, but no one else in the company… - hence, the guys in foreign transplants were not engineers, but Japanese majors - no understanding of technology
2. Slow, slow, slow… all decisions go up to the top guy, even minor topics.
3. Being scared of changes…
All this ended up in: lack of technology, lack of quality, high costs.
I've been living in Japan for 36 years and worked for one of the largest electronics makers in product development and their IP department. Totally agree with your observation/experience with Japanese attitudes on software development. I remember when the Japanese thought Japanese word processing software was the "bees knees" and scoffed at MS Word Japanese version.
@@missplainjane3905
1) Is Japan a highly developed country/advanced country? Well, it’s highly developed from a societal standpoint; highly structured and rules for everything. I remember being in a Japanese language class when I first came to Japan and one of the students was a Japanese-American. He could not wait to return to the US since he could not handle the society here. He once said that he had a Japanese face, but was not Japanese in his thinking and I said to him “the Japanese have been screwing each other over here in Japan longer than the white man ever stepped foot in North America and being confined to a small area with virtually no escape they devised complex customs and a language to go along with it. As you probably know, many of the most intelligent Japanese move to America or Europe - just check out how many Japanese Nobel Prize winners spent decades at US universities. You probably know Seiji Ozawa (the conductor). When he first became a conductor of a famous European orchestra the Japanese network NHK interviewed him. During the interview he made a faux pas by stating that the Japanese academic music world was too rigid and musicians were mostly promoted on seniority. Needless to say, Ozawa was in the “dog house” for a number of years and did not come to Japan. And generally speaking, Japan is a safe country given the fact guns are not prevalent like in the US. That said, in my opinion given the underlying jealously here, if guns were available like in the US, Japan would make Ukraine look like Nirvana.
2) How would you personally rate Japan (from culture to technology, architecture, food, local products, scenery/landscape, standard of living/quality of life, etc.) on a scale level of 1 to 10 ?
Technology: 9 - consumer products are great - medical products are still medieval - only 30 to 40 percent of prescription drugs have any effect (I was told that by a number of medical professionals in Japan) since Japan is a country of hypochondriacs placebo drugs work fine!!
Architecture 7 - Japanese style homes have inadequate insulation and most are not earthquake-proof
Food: 5 - somewhat healthy, but the salt is a killer
Local products: 9 - good variety
Scenery / landscape: 5/8 depends where you are in the country
Standard of living / quality of life: 2/6 depends on your living situation: Tokyo: 2 (7 to 9 if you are young and single but 1 or 2 if you are old)
3) Overall impression of Japanese people: They are kind, but not generous.
4) There words to describe Japan: SAFE/INSULAR/TRUSTING
@@missplainjane3905 Did you every hear the phrase: Japan has a first-rate economy, a second-rate standard of living and third-rate politicians. The term "advanced" is subjective. For Japanese, yes, Japan is advanced. For people coming from poorer countries, Japan is heaven. By-and-large, there is good and bad in any country, but Japan is a nice place to live. Even where I live (Matsumoto City) the public transportation system is great, medical facilities are abundant and food variety is excellent. We have 5G internet and prompt delivery from Amazon. First-world and convenient...
@@missplainjane3905 Sorry, I thought you were a Japanese/American. As for me, I have trouble reading a Japanese newspaper, but no trouble reading/translating a Japanese patent which are notoriously vague to the point even Japanese Patent lawyers hate reading them...
Silicon Valley and Japan have the opposite problem when it comes to diversity. One has too little, the other has too much. And yes, there is such a thing as too much diversity. One can only afford to take so many diversity hires at the expense of actual productivity, hiring people only because they aren't male and white or Asian. The right idea is that diverse appearances/outlooks/ideas not be an obstacle to being hired, but they shouldn't be an asset either. Treat others equally, not with special privileges masquerading as "equity" or some other now-meaningless word.
I think there is a lot more complex situations at work but primarily the tech boom in Japan was based around consumer electronics. Consumer electronics is something that is greatly impacted by trends and advancements in technology and standards. And Japan was making mostly analog consumer electronics like video tape technology, audio tape technology, televisions, boom boxes, stereo systems and so forth. All of that became obsolete with the revolution in digital symbolized by the rise of the internet. (Which is why I got all the old tapes sitting around with fewer and fewer options for playing them).
Then you have to think in terms of the evolution of manufacturing the USA from local industries towards a more globalized supply chain and manufacturing base. Japan was in the first wave of this migration and naturally took full advantage of it. However, as time went on other Asian countries were also becoming more important in the tech supply chain, especially Taiwan and South Korea. So they faced a lot of competition in this space for manufacturing consumer electronics as things transitioned from analog devices towards digital devices which are most often manufactured in other cheaper locations.
Meanwhile in America they were moving more to a post industrial economy where they focused more on developing IP and "services" versus focusing mostly on manufacturing. This is where modern silicon valley comes into play as industries that are not known for actually manufacturing anything (except Apple). And for the most part these companies are more in the business of data, either in collecting it, analyzing it, hosting it, processing it or selling it as part of the modern internet economy.
One of the reasons why japan have the economy situation today is result from the US.
Back to 70s, even 80s, japan was literally the No.1 in Asia.
I think the impact of the 1991 real estate/stock crash and the subsequent "lost decades" that put Japan into effective economic stagnation had an impact as well. Consumption of goods did not reach the 1980s level for many years and made people frown upon wealth and taking on risk since wages well thus making Japan as desirable as before. Even with very low interests, businesses didn't borrow and invest as one would expect/require for new innovation. In essence, if the economic conditions discourage taking on new investments, risks, and opportunities, why bother? Japanese giants had to face these pressures and then also had to face competition coming from rising plays like South Korea and China.
Omg, when I use to teach English in Japan like eons ago every school had that bell sound, dong ding dang tong
You forgot to mention that Japan became dominated in consumer products from Korean tech giants such as Samsung, LG and etc.
Can you elaborate on that?
Dang, I am using Mercari since 2017. It is definetely making progress and outcompeting otger apps and sites, but in terms of business, it still has sone distinctively Japanese quirks, namely no international shipping at all and the necessity of a rating.
I agree. I would love for the Toyota Prius Prime and Rav4 Prime to have better software. That uses electric versus gas based on navigational data to know the speed distance and grade of the trip route. For example, if the battery is full, use electricity to make room in the battery for energy recovery in a long downhill section. Or to use electricity at the beginning and end of a trip but not during the highway high speed section.
what a fascinating story!
i have been working in a tech company in China for 5 years, we see the US and China are two pillars of the tech world, didn't know Japan want to catch up.
I'm a software developer working in Japan. One thing that is praiseworthy of the Japanese software scene is that someone with little or no programming background can get an entry level position, though at a very low salary of $20k~30k a year (this doesn't change much regardless of what you've studied).
The trade off of that is that your salary is likely to only increase by single digit percentages per year. And someone who comes in and learns everything and becomes a star developer is not going to be distinguished from someone scraping by. This pattern continues in the experienced job market. However similarly to America you can generally get a pretty significant salary boost by hopping jobs; jobs almost always require you to mention your previous salary though so it's often very difficult to negotiate. Additionally, societal structure and values discourages changing jobs. While changing jobs every couple years is seen as ambitious and desiring to grow in the US. In Japan you're seen as someone who hops ship and can't keep to commitments; some companies are changing their stances on this but it's still very ingrained in individual values, including a feeling of guilt in individuals leaving the company.
TLDR: There's two issues:
1. Overall developer skill level is lower due to lower barriers of entry and less merit based advancement.
2. People stick with lower paying jobs due to societal values/structure.
I forgot to mention. One other reason for the low salaries is the chains of outsourcing-- that is, as mentioned in the video, lots of companies outsource for their software development projects. Other companies will pick that up, and then further outsource, and then, you guessed it, those companies will outsource to other companies/developers. In other words, typically a developer will have 2~5 middlemen taking their cut.
The irony when you realise that a Japanese company owns a majority of the Silicon Valley unicorns.
Like softbank
One more thing I would like to add as a foreigner living in Japan is THE LANGUAGE. I am Russian but used to work in Spain for some time and the English language was the default language in a company I worked for and in every other company, I was invited to. Actually, in Europe, it is just normal now. This helps with diversity a lot. Let's take Singapore - its hub where English is a common thing so a lot of foreigners could easily come and apply their skills. In Japan thou, still, many companies require JLPT N2. And I think Not many skilled professionals who would like to work in Japan are ready to put a hell of an effort into studying Japanese.
Akira, talking about animated industry, was stellar. When will we have a sequel?? Art is equally important.
Japan started falling behind when people stopped using Ruby.
How I easily spot Japanese Tech downfall....
TVs:
Early 2000s-Every Electronics store has TVs ranging from Toshiba to Sony to Sharp.
Now- Every Electronics store carry 2 Major Korean Brands-Samsung and LG. With the endless loop of Twice or Girls Generation playing.
Computers:
Early 2000s- Japanese Dominated. Sony, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic
Now-Taiwanese Dominated . Acer, Asus, MSI,
Thank you and thanx to all those commenters here. You all back up my own impression about Japan's economy.
god damn woman, your hair is stunning
Thinking the same thing
her comb over changed. my brain can't handle this.
In Japan, companies still use personal stamps for authorization(or approvals) on their documents. They lag far behind in digital areas. Compared to Korea which is over 90% of population uses cashless payment methods, Japan is below 30%. Also, PC usage among households are far below the average advanced countries. Nowadays Japan is considered backwater country in regards to digital tech field.
They also still use Fax machines. lol
I came for the cover of the book, stayed for the surprisingly useful information about tech industry in Japan.
That’s the best video I’ve watched this year. Amazing content
Unlike Japan, America has almost zero worker protections amd companies ask college students to have 3-5 year experince for an entry level positon especially in tech. When companies talk about diverisity it's for PR reasons they haven't actually done as much as people want to think. America changes slower compared to the rest of the developed world imho. We don't even have universal healthcare. At least Japan has that.
Fo realz. Underrated comment.
The US has better working conditions than Japan and if you work in Tech healthcare is great. The US is the mecca of innovative tech and only a fool who haven't partake in this industry wouldn't know that. Why do you think people like Elon Musk moved to the US?
@@sangwoohan1177 its funny that you say that given how the u.s. has been union busting since Regan to the point that unions have ceased to exist which leaves no worker representation or collective bargaining. Am I saying unions are perfect no, but its a whole lot better than relying on the free market to dictate how much workers get paid, improving working conditions and rely on it as the main source of innovation is misguided. Not to mention we had Amazon union busting recently because they were afraid of workers not being able to shit and piss in bottles so they can meet Amazon's unrealistic goals. If the u.s. is so innovative howcome our infrastructure is falling apart and gets a grade of D+? Japan has bullet trains while we have a railway system that has not been upgraded for over a hundred years. And if healthcare is so great here, howcome we have thousands die every year because they can't afford healthcare and our system having the worst outcomes out of every developed nation? Japan like the rest of the devloped world has 0 people die. You know why? Because healthcare is guranteed and is not treated as a commodity for corporations and pharma to price gouge people.
As if Eon Musk is a perfect example for innovation. Without his factory workers and engineers making Tesla's and tech for space x his companies wouldn't make any products whatsoever. Also it's easy to dodge taxes here because our govt is corrupt and bought by the wealthy such as him. He didn't get where he is today simply because he worked hard and is innovative, he simply inherited wealth from his parents apartheid businesses in South Africa. Your whole entire statement is filled with American exceptionalism brainwashing so i'm not even going to take what you say seriously. Not saying Japan is perfect because it has been struggling with an overwork culture similar to the u.s. but now they're experimenting a 4 day work week. And they have universal paid vacation time which the u.s. doesn't have. To say that the u.s. has better working condtions despite evidence and documentation of poor working conditions with no representation for workers is foolish. Outsourcing for more effciency and cheaper goods and allowing out country be run by corporations is not innovative at all. Your worshipping of these people shows your lack of understanding of the way the American system functions.
@@Kon420 I know the US has many flaws, but when it comes to tech it still ranks number one. If you are a high skilled worker (like a software engineer) living in the US is your best option. I've worked in many countries across the world, but none match what the uUS offered. Better pay (like by a lot), biggest capital market, and access to the biggest startup accelerators like YC. I am from Canada and it's around 60-80% of CS students from top STEM unis like Toronto and Waterloo move to the US after graduation. Why do you think the US is able to brain drain the world despite having bad healthcare system and infrastructure?
Sadly, for Western countries, forced “diversification” in this World is not a thing outside of Westen countries.
You hear the idiot @13:45 say it has been debunked that forced diversification is harmful!
I don't really know if it's sad though. Korea Japan and China are not diverse, and they seem to be doing fine.I'm not really sure if it's relevant to this topic, is it?
@@WoodysAR lol, I've missed that. How is the question if forced diversification is lowering the skill bar, not a valid question?
If you hire a person based on the gender/color/culture/etc instead of skills, how do you expect to have the same level of skills compared to hiring based solely on the skill level? That seems pretty stupid.
Edit: PS. I'm not saying you are supporting that, I've missed it in the video, and you were the one who pointed that out :)
What do you mean That’s a good thing LMAO
@@_sparrowhawk I said it's sad for WESTERN COUNTRIES. Obviously many countries that don't have forced "diversity" DO seem to be much more internally harmonious.
The worst parts of Silicon Valley are the traffic (car culture) and high cost of living. If Silicon Valley could upzone/densify and develop reliable and useful rail/subway services it'd be awesome.
I think if somehow we could have the US run companies in Tokyo, or have Tokyo do city planning in Silicon Valley we'd have two utopias.
I think China tech unicorns growing much faster than Japan. The most reason that happed is capital market. Silicon Valley bank entered China for couple years ago to invest venture capital and made billions, the incentive is as same as the risk appetite.