Lest we forget, Toshiba invented NAND flash only for them and Japan (namely the patent office) to throw it out the window for the likes of Intel and Sandisk to pick it up and create an entire industry.
There is perhaps no better time to say that, nothing of value was lost here.
And Kodak invented the digital camera only for Canon and Nikon to steal their lunch. And Xerox invented the GUI and let Apple steal their lunch. And GM invented the EV1, the world's first mass produced EV and then let Tesla and BYD steal their lunch. And IBM invented the PC and ... you get the point already.
Same with HP, SUN, SGI, Cisco, Blackberry, Nokia, Intel, etc insert your favorite $EXAMPLE here. Google is also on a similar path.
It's not a country problem, it's a "big and old company problem", which has fossilized and lacks future vision so stays conservative and slowly atrophies.
Only the US has managed to avoid this trap "thanks" to its lack of industry unions and social policies, coupled with a free market economy, start-up friendly tax system, and strong VC culture focused on disrupting existing players by throwing big money at new risky ideas.
While the VC investment culture and focus on disrupting existing players is non existent in most other countries, coupled with the stronger social policies and unions, like in Europe for example, means there's a lot of political pressure (and lobbying!) to support the existing big old established players that contribute to the economy and employ tens of thousands of workers, to keep the status quo, no matter how antiquated and stagnating they are, instead of letting the free market run its course and letting them slowly whither die and focus instead on creating new businesses and industries in their place.
This is also compounded in some of the countries I listed above by the ageing demographics who's retirement prospects are tied to the old declining industries(like in Germany), meaning their votes, government policies and financial aid will focus on keeping those old declining industries on life support for as long as possible, instead of focusing on supporting newer industries instead at the expense of the older ones. It's what the people vote for.
Exceptions would be Singapore, Switzerland, and some of the UK-Ireland, Nordic and BeNeLux countries that have a strong education system focused on research and innovation and a business friendly tax and legal system for VC investors and who's population isn't too invested and entrenched in old declining industries.
The US welcomed the engineers/scientists/wealthy fleeing the war and it continued after 1945. Same with the UK, but to a lesser extent I expect.
Of course the US had people of similar ability, but the migration from European countries to the US (and other places) had the double effect of reducing the talent in one place and adding to it in another.
The foundation of the US tech industry was created in the years after WW2.
So was Germany and Japan. Both of which became much wealthier post-WW2 than before thanks to their booming industries.
The difference is the US managed to successfully pivot away from the post-WW2 boom industries into the 21st century growth industry, aka IT or tech, while the other two countries got complacent and stagnant, pigeonholed in the same post-WW2 industries that made them wealthy in the first place but which aren't driving as much growth anymore today.
The rest was - from a financial point of view - a sideshow. They have some awesome technology companies, highly reputed and lots of knowledge and research happening there relative to its size, but that doesn't change the financial picture.
Might need to elaborate a little ? Such a sweeping statement.
This combined with an introverted national culture that encourages the various companies fight each other (eg: Toshiba vs. Sony vs. Panasonic) rather than stand together and face the global market, and Japan has lost nearly every single thing they once achieved the top spot in. Government corruption, as was the case here, is icing on the cake.
I say again: Nothing of value was lost here; any value Toshiba had they already threw away decades ago.
Also, I'm Japanese. I call dibs when it comes to (justifiably!) trash talking my heritage.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujio_Masuoka
[2]: Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention of NOR flash in 1984, and then NAND flash at the IEEE 1987 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco. Toshiba commercially launched NAND flash memory in 1987. Toshiba gave Masuoka a few hundred dollar bonus for the invention, and later tried to demote him. But it was American company Intel which made billions of dollars in sales on related technology. Toshiba press department told Forbes that it was Intel that invented flash memory.
What? Why?
The Keiretsu based structure bred complacency & selling average products to each other.
As innovation technology in Silicon Valley skyrocketed, Toshiba made slideware & agreements that offered no tangible value.
They would talk about the cloud, sign agreements with IBM but have zero real budget for implementation.
Instead they would focus on continuing to build and sell non competitive solutions that meant divisions were ordered to keep making non competitive products built by thousands of engineers at a loss.
The board cooking the books sealed their fate.
This sort of culture could explain why Sony still sells $1000 digital Walkmen and luxury Android devices with a headphone jack.
That applies to all of Japan, not just Toshiba.
"Nails that stick out will be hammered in." (出る杭は打たれる。)[1] is an age old saying in Japan; those who stand out or are otherwise different from the masses will be forced into compliance.
This cultural tradition has stifled many Japanese attempts at innovating, because doing something new is different from the status quo.
[1]: https://jisho.org/search/%E5%87%BA%E3%82%8B%E6%9D%AD%E3%81%A...
Huh? Since when do American companies like Google and Apple stand together instead of fighting with each other? Are we in the same universe? Competing companies don't stand together in any capitalistic society I'm aware of.
>Japanese people are very talented, but that also means they oftentimes can't understand the value of inventions and technology.
As another comment pointed out, the exact same thing has happened many, many times at American companies: Xerox PARC and the GUI are the poster child here.
>Also, I'm Japanese. I call dibs when it comes to (justifiably!) trash talking my heritage.
I'm an American living in Japan. I've noticed that it's very common for Japanese people to think that something about their country or culture (especially negative things) is unique to Japan, when in fact it's much the same in countries and cultures all around the world. A common example is how many really seem to think Japan is the only place in the world with 4 seasons (!), but there are many other more substantive things.
They created it but don't know how to market it.
At same time Steve Jobs and his right hands was at Japan manufacturers so they can see about their technology. And someone shows to them that disk... they was finally found missing component for an iPod.
That said, activist investors, the root cause, are a plague. Generally they want to boost short term profit at the expense of the longer-term. They are generally not interested in investing in the future rather cost cutting. Certainly most large companies could do with more efficient allocation of spending, but the US / western drive for short-term shareholder value is anathema to the good of the company longer term.
Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, is flourishing under new western management after they were freed from Toshiba and Japan's ineptitude.
Toshiba desired to not cause change and market disruption was hated by Japanese business culture.
Eventually inaction & fear led to destruction. Quite sad really.