Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 34 Weird Japanese Company

The next afternoon, Masato Takeshita arrived at the Industrial Bank headquarters early. There were people coming and going here, and everyone's face was filled with happy smiles.

The central bank cut interest rates, and both the stock and property markets grew. Every day, countless companies and individuals rushed into the financial market with funds.

These funds further boosted the growth of the stock and property markets, and Industrial Bank, one of the giants in the financial field, also made more money.

The upper class eats meat and the lower class drinks soup. The welfare and unemployment of bank employees are also rising steadily.

In addition, as a member of the financial field, banking professionals are also the main force in stock speculation. These people not only take out loans, but also leverage in various ways, so they also make more money.

It can be said that as long as one is brave enough, banking professionals can easily earn several times their salary by relying on the stock market.

"You're here so soon. Wait a moment while I sign the last document."

Managing Director Toyoshima did not regard Masato Takeshita as an outsider at all. He allowed his secretary to bring him into the office while he was still working, and he was not afraid of leaking company secrets.

"Sorry, that document was very urgent. What would you like to drink, tea or coffee?"

"It's okay. I'm not in a hurry. I can drink anything."

"Well, black tea then."

"it is good!"

After chatting casually for a while, Toyoshima Hiroji said with a smile: "What do you want to do at Industrial Bank this time? Tell me and see if I can help you."

"Well, there is something. I am optimistic about the LED industry, and I would like your bank to help me acquire Nichia Chemical, a manufacturer of LED bulbs and fluorescent powders located in Tokushima Prefecture. If that doesn't work, I can just poach their R&D department."

The invention of blue LED, or blue light-emitting diode, is revolutionary in the lighting industry and is known as the second lighting revolution after Edison invented the electric light.

Because humans have invented red and green LEDs among the three primary colors long ago, as long as they invent blue LEDs, they can make up the three primary colors, and then they can invent LEDs that can release white light, thus promoting industrial progress.

Unfortunately, although there are several paths to blue LEDs, these paths are only guesses, and the scientific community is still unable to produce blue LEDs.

But, it doesn't matter.

It won’t be long before the secret of blue LED is cracked. The inventor of blue LED, Shuji Nakamura, is working at Nichia Chemical, a small company in Tokushima.

This is a small company with only a hundred people, so the price won't be too high. The only thing to worry about is that this is a family business, so it may be difficult to complete the acquisition. So Masato Takeshita also made a second-hand preparation, poaching people from the R&D department.

If he wasn't worried that his purpose was too obvious, he would even want to suggest poaching only Nakamura Shuji.

Because blue light LED is a product that was developed entirely by Shuji Nakamura himself, despite all the bullying from the company.

Speaking of which, Japanese companies at this stage were simply weird.

Japan was able to surpass the United States in the electronics, electrical appliances, semiconductors and other industries in the 1970s and 1980s entirely due to the promotion of scientific and technological talents. As a result, Japanese companies, big and small, do not value their own technical talents, and even often do disgusting things that insult the company's technical talents.

Take Shuji Nakamura as an example:
During his time developing blue LEDs, he often had to endure hostility from company executives. One executive even told him directly, “Why don’t you quit?”

If the seniority system had not been deeply rooted in people's hearts and Shuji Nakamura had not been recognized by the old president, he might have been kicked out of Nichia Chemical long ago, and Nichia Chemical would not have become a giant.

As a result, when Nakamura Shuji developed blue light LED, Nichia Chemical made a fortune from it, but did not intend to compensate Nakamura Shuji at all, and only gave him a few thousand dollars and sent him away. After this incident was exposed, Nakamura Shuji was given the speechless title of "Slave Nakamura".

The same goes for Toshiba, which is even worse.

Fujio Masuoka is a Toshiba technician who invented flash memory chips that can compete with storage chips.

As a result, for their own selfish desires, the senior leaders of Toshiba refused to admit that the flash memory chip was invented by their own employees. Instead, they admitted that the flash memory chip was invented by Intel.

In the Showa era, Japan exploited scientific and technological talents while inventing countless inventions that shocked the world. It can only be said that the scientific and technological talents in the Showa era were all model workers.

Of course, Japan's lack of attention to scientific and technological talents has also led to serious consequences.

After South Korea's rise in the 90s, a large number of Japanese talents left for South Korea, making great contributions to the research and development of semiconductors for South Korean companies such as Samsung. In the end, the Japanese semiconductor industry collectively sank in the 21st century, and South Korea became one of the hegemons in this field.

This is also one of the biggest drawbacks of Japan's seniority system.

Because most scientific and technological talents are not good at seeking personal gain, and very few of them become senior leaders. Ultimately, the voice of scientific and technological talents continues to shrink, which leads to all kinds of weird things that exploit scientific and technological talents.

There are similar cases in China.
For example, a well-known person.

Technology R&D talents were not valued and were even driven out of the company. What had once been expected to become a technology giant like Weimar and ZTE eventually became an assembly factory.

"Tokushima Nichia Chemical, can you tell me what kind of company this is?"

Senior Manager Toyoshima instinctively felt that something was wrong and he wanted to know some deeper secrets.

"This is a small company with only about 100 people, and it produces LED phosphors. What I value most about this company is that its R&D department independently developed red and green LED lights."

Shuji Nakamura is a genius in the field of research and development.

Because before he developed the blue LED light, he had independently developed two other colors of LED lights.

Unfortunately, Nichia Chemical in Tokushima is still a small company, and those businesses that need red and green LED lights do not trust Nichia Chemical's products at all.

The product was developed, but no one bought it.

This is also one of the most important reasons why Shuji Nakamura had a hard time at Nichia Chemical.

Because in the eyes of the leaders, Nakamura Shuji did research a lot of things. But it was useless. Not only did he not make money, but he also wasted a lot of company funds.

If the money was invested in phosphors, the company might have become the largest phosphor manufacturer in Japan. They are a small company and cannot aim too high. Even giant companies have not developed blue LEDs, so why can you, Nakamura?

In addition, there are also educational factors.

Shuji Nakamura graduated from a third-rate university in Japan. In Japan, which attaches great importance to academic qualifications, he is considered a guy with low IQ.

Such people can only do some imitative work and can never think of making any groundbreaking achievements.

(End of this chapter)