> The true culprit, the risk-averse culture -- while with own merits -- did not mesh well with the more fluid flat culture of software development.
Not even that. It's just about financing.
Japan's domestic capital markets collapsed due to the Asset Bust in the early 1990s, the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s, and the Great Recession in 2008-12, and domestic asset managers turbocharged the "Flying Geese" development model in order to make themselves whole.
There's no reason for an Asset Manager at SoftBank, Nomura, or MUFG to invest in a Japanese startup when a South Korean, Chinese, Indian, or Singaporean startup can command outsized returns in an IPO or Acquisition.
Japanese asset managers play a major role in Tech VC/PE in Asia, but they prefer to invest abroad.
Look at the outsized returns from Alibaba (SoftBank), Flipkart (SoftBank), and Grab (MUFG) compared to anything that came out of Japan in the last 30 years.
> but at best, keiretsu is a symptom
South Korea and China both use the same corporate model that Keiretsus use, as much of the reform era leadership in both SK and China studied in Japan, and both countries got significant technical and economic advising from Japan via the "Flying Geese" model
Not even that. It's just about financing.
Japan's domestic capital markets collapsed due to the Asset Bust in the early 1990s, the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s, and the Great Recession in 2008-12, and domestic asset managers turbocharged the "Flying Geese" development model in order to make themselves whole.
There's no reason for an Asset Manager at SoftBank, Nomura, or MUFG to invest in a Japanese startup when a South Korean, Chinese, Indian, or Singaporean startup can command outsized returns in an IPO or Acquisition.
Japanese asset managers play a major role in Tech VC/PE in Asia, but they prefer to invest abroad.
Look at the outsized returns from Alibaba (SoftBank), Flipkart (SoftBank), and Grab (MUFG) compared to anything that came out of Japan in the last 30 years.
> but at best, keiretsu is a symptom
South Korea and China both use the same corporate model that Keiretsus use, as much of the reform era leadership in both SK and China studied in Japan, and both countries got significant technical and economic advising from Japan via the "Flying Geese" model