Japanese Media Covering Message Of Hope In My Book
Audience makes it an “Amazon Bestseller” in Japan
写真＝iStock.com／KenCanning Note: Photo accompanying President magazine article on my book. Gazelle is the nickname in OECD statistics for fast-growing young companies.
I’d like to take it as a good sign that the Japanese media, live audiences, and book buyers are taking to the message of hope in the Japanese translation of my book on resurrecting entrepreneurship to revive the economy: 失われた30年」に誰がした―日本経済の分岐点. Shukan Gendai concluded its review: “The key to reviving the Japanese economy is to shift policy from preserving stagnant zombie companies and protecting elephants [old stodgy companies] to nurturing young, vibrant gazelle companies. With political will, it is by no means impossible to break away from the ‘lost 30 years.’ This is a hopeful story.”
So far, three of the leading weekly magazines have reviewed the book and/or published excerpts. I did an interview with the TBS TV network, which will appear soon. And interviews with other major media will lead to additional coverage soon.
All of this has boosted sales. Amazon.co.jp (https://tinyurl.com/ypke2ars) lists my book as an “Amazon bestseller.” Of the millions of books sold on Amazon.co.jp, my book fluctuates in the 1,000 to 2,000 range. In the “business and money” category, its rank ranges from 250 to 400.
Meanwhile, during my current book tour in Tokyo, I’ve gotten good reactions in my talks to Japanese business people, officials, and politicians.
Here are translations of assorted passages from three major magazines.
Shukan Gendai -- https://gendai.media/articles/-/150790
「失われた30年」の原因を作った「自民党のゾンビ企業温存」政策…いま日本経済再生のために「本当に必要なこと」
The LDP's zombie company preservation policy that caused the “Lost 30 Years”
What is really needed now to revive the Japanese economy
What Japan needs is the development of “gazelle companies” (a rapidly growing young company)—[see photo at the top]--and what is hindering it is the LDP government's “zombie corporate preservation policy”. His book, “Who did it in the lost three decades?,” is a blowout. Katz shows an astonishingly optimistic outlook after the merciless point, but is it really possible to revive the economy?
According to “Who did it in the lost three decades”, Japan, which had a healthy metabolism of 12 percent of companies' start-up rate and 5% of the closure rate during the period of high growth, is now at the lowest level among the twenty-seven developed countries. In other developed countries, nearly half of the productivity gains are due to the metabolism of companies, but only ten percent in Japan.
At the same time, GDP growth fell from an average of 9% per year during the period of high growth to 3.4% in the late 1970s and 1980s, and an average of 0.7 percent in the past three decades. Japan's per capita GDP rose to 83% in the United States in 1991, but dropped to 63 percent in 2020. Japan was overtaken by South Korea in 2018...
Among developed countries, Japan is the country where it is most difficult for new companies to raise growth capital from outside. Only two in five small and medium-sized enterprises that have been in business for less than 10 years can obtain bank ...There are also few angel investors in Japan. The angel tax system was introduced in 1997, but it had little effect due to strict restrictions imposed by the Ministry of Finance (limited to companies founded less than three years ago, total investment cap of $100,000, etc.). Angel investment in Japan peaked in 2008, and even that year it was only 1% of the amount invested in the UK....
Katz concludes: “Japan's problems are in many ways much easier to solve than those of the United States and other countries. Many of the policies proposed in this book can be easily adopted and implemented if there is political will. If we can get economic rewards from implementing them, it will be easier to move on to the more difficult reform phase.”
Toyo Keizai -- https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/868930
「日本人は起業家精神に欠けている」というのはウソだとアメリカ人の知日派ジャーナリストが確信しているワケ
Why an American journalist with a pro-Japan perspective is convinced that the idea that “Japanese people lack entrepreneurial spirit” is a myth...
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report has repeatedly shown that Japan ranks at or near the bottom in all dimensions of entrepreneurial attitude.... A closer look at what the data suggests shows that Japanese people are not naturally anxious, but that they worry a lot. In one survey, 37% of Japanese men said they would rather take the risk of starting a new company than be employed by someone else, which is about 80% of the average figure. However, only 20% think it is possible, which is only half the average percentage...
So the biggest difference is not whether they want to be entrepreneurs or not, but that they are being cautious given the Japanese situation. It is hard to change a disposition that is deeply rooted in culture, but it is much easier to fix an environment with a tough risk-reward ratio....
Behavioral patterns that are interpreted as conformism are often completely different. Former psychology professor Toshio Yamagishi demonstrated this with his famous “red pen” experiment, which was carried out in various ways....
However, there is no denying that employees on the path to management are more risk-averse. This reflects in large part the “demerit-based” promotion criteria that began in the 1970s at major banks and spread to many other companies.
Changing practices that have been in place for decades through counterproductive promotion criteria is not impossible, but it often comes with a major shock. Two of the most famous cases of restructuring have come when companies have hit rock bottom and come under foreign ownership: Nissan and Sharp. What's notable about both cases is the fact that foreign companies were involved in the restructuring.
President -- https://president.jp/articles/-/93886
平均30歳で会社を立ち上げ､42歳で億万長者に…｢令和時代に大金を稼いでいる日本人｣の共通点
People who start companies at age 30 and become billionaires at age 42... What “Japanese people making a lot of money in the Reiwa era” have in common? The government is neglecting “companies that are essential to economic growth”
Here is an excerpt from the introduction of Richard Katz’s book, “Who Did It in the Lost Thirty Years? A Turning Point for the Japanese Economy”
After a generation, Japan has finally gained the power to rewrite its story. On the surface, the economy is hopelessly stagnant, and politics is disappointingly unresponsive. But beneath the surface, six major trends are emerging, and a tectonic shift is also occurring in civil society, giving hope.
Major trends include changing mindsets with each generation, technological changes that are shifting the balance of power between incumbents and new entrants, changing gender relations, the impact of demographic shifts, the effects of globalization, and political tensions due to stagnant economic growth.
“My grandfather's generation grew up very poor, so getting a stable job at a large company was heaven,” says Jun Tsuzaka, president of the Nihon Sangyo Suishin Kiko (NSSK), a privately equity company that helps small and medium-sized businesses improve their management. “In my father's generation, being a salaryman was boring and stressful, but if you wanted a stable life, there was no other option. People today are actively leaving big, well-known companies to take new jobs at new companies and live more fulfilling lives.”
...Recently-made Japanese billionaire Soichiro Minami embodies three of the big trends mentioned above: generational change, technological change, and globalization. Minami was taught by Hiroshi Mikitani, founder of the major online retailer Rakuten, that business is a way to solve social problems. He also believes that Japan's lifetime employment system is a hindrance to growth. ...So in 2009, at the age of 33, Minami launched a company called BizReach, which uses the Internet to act as a matchmaker. People with an annual salary of 6 million yen or more looking for a new job can send their resume to the BizReach website run by Visional. The 17,000 companies registered on the site will then contact them directly. In July 2021, the site had 1.4 million job seekers. When Visional went public on the stock market in 2021, Minami became a billionaire.
Like many Japanese entrepreneurs, Minami has an international background. He spent several years in Canada with his family as a child. He graduated from Tufts University in the United States and joined the Tokyo branch of Morgan Stanley Securities (the company's name at the time)...
In 2021, Japan had 55 billionaires, of whom 11 had founded their companies within the past 25 years. This is the first time in decades that so many new, growing companies have entered the market. What is different about today's billionaires? They are young, internationally minded, and think outside the box. On average, they started their own companies at age 30 and became billionaires by age 42. Many of them have lived abroad, studied at universities overseas, and worked for foreign companies. And most importantly, they used their own ideas to find gaps in the market and come up with ways to fill them. This is something that traditional executives at companies don't see. “You can't get things done unless you break the norm,” is the phrase used by billionaire Taichiro Motoei, who was born in the United States and provides online legal services.
Rather than creating new inventions in the fields of fintech or artificial intelligence (AI), many of the new billionaires are using the latest technology to revolutionize common existing businesses. These include e-commerce that allows small businesses to access previously unavailable customers, online medical information services for doctors, and accounting services for small businesses. Most importantly, these businesses are just the tip of the iceberg of new companies.
Of course, these social changes are still far from reaching the critical mass needed to revive the economy, and it won't happen without government action to foster the upward trend. But we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
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