Word: japanization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Still, it wasn't until after he signed a deal to represent hardware maker Cisco Systems in Japan in 1993 that Son's grand Internet vision began to fall into place. "When you have the railroad being laid, you can see the train, you start to imagine the passengers, and you know there will be department stores going up around the station," he says in the midst of one of his characteristic soliloquies. "I had a feeling this was going...
Just take the great martial powers of modern times: the U.S., the Soviet Union, Germany, Britain, Japan, China and Israel. The age of America's expansion in the 19th century was marked by the low-tech coffeepot that was left on the fire until the brew inside had thickened into a blackish acid just right for tanning buffalo hides...
...Japan and China? Between Tsushima, where the Japanese sank the Russian fleet, and Pearl Harbor, where they wiped out America's, the sons of Nippon did not even know from coffee; all they had was green tea. Ditto the Chinese when they chased American soldiers down the Korean Peninsula. Ditto the British, who for 400 years ruled the seas while swilling Java that was as tasty as their food. Tiny Israel has bested the Arabs in five wars. And why? Because Israeli "coffee" could eat through the armor of a Soviet-built T-72 in three minutes...
...news is good news in Japan these days. Last month Nissan announced a sweeping restructuring with thousands of job cuts, and last week it reported a $3 billion loss, one of the biggest in history. The overwhelming reaction among Japan watchers was...jubilation. These days each time Mitsubishi, NEC or Hitachi announces a plant closing, the Tokyo stock market surges higher. Economists now cheer as banks that once could have bought small countries desperately merge or plead for a white knight (even foreigners are welcome) to save them from insolvency. Behind this seemingly misplaced optimism in Japan's ailing economy...
Mikitani, 34, owner of Japan's most popular e-commerce sites, represents a new generation of feisty entrepreneurs who would rather die than work for Japan Inc. He started out in the mainstream--the best universities, a top job at a respected bank. But like a lot of Japanese in their 30s and 40s, Mikitani decided that his future would be more prosperous if he were in charge. "No smart young person wants to work at a big company," he says. "That would be risky...