Morita began his firm with umbrellas over his desk to catch the leaking rain meanwhile, cars had to burn rubbish for fuel (the author returns to the Japanese passion for saving waste and energy in a chapter on technology). In practice, ‘peace’ in 1945 meant that one in five Japanese had tuberculosis and that children were fed rice one grain at a time. He writes well about the 1940s: of streamlined, air-conditioned ‘Asia’ trains in Manchuria, of buying vacuum tubes from RCA, and of Nagoya, home of the Zero aeroplane. Choosing to avoid wartime death by signing up for a lifetime career in the navy science, Morita met his partner to be, Masaru Ibuka, making heat-seeking weapons. Pa’s board meetings were boring physics and tinkering with wireless were not. The Toyoda family, makers of cars, were right across the street. Morita, first born son of a rich, Buddhist, sake-brewing family, was brought up on fine ceramics, furniture and paintings. For a far superior handling of all those silvery products, the reader should find Stephen Bayley’s excellent Sony design (Conran Foundation, 1982). The pictures are however a disappointment. The style is personal, relaxed and – unlike so many management texts nowadays – unpretentious: no doubt Time’s Ed Reingold has helped here.

Anecdotal, name-droppy and immodest, it still fascinates on the man, the company and the country. That hasn’t happened, but the firm and its share price have staged a remarkable revival.Ī good read for managers, this is less fun for designers. Back then, Japan still looked as if it could completely conquer the living room – if not the world. In 1987, though, Japan had yet to enter the years of sclerosis with which everyone is now familiar. But in high-end TVs, the company is back, reaching nearly 40 per cent of world market share. In smart phones, Apple, Samsung, LG and even Nokia and HTC have largely extinguished Sony’s efforts. Now, however, the company has sold an astonishing 525 million PlayStations, and may earn getting on for $2 trillion in 2018 through streaming music.

It announced 10,000 redundancies, and, by the spring 2013, sold its US HQ at Madison Avenue, New York City, for more than $1bn. In 2012, Sony declared more than ¥500bn ($6bn) in losses, its worst ever. This is a review of his book, written with Edwin Reingold and Mitsuko Shimomura, Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony (Collins) Akio Morita, co-founder and chief executive of Sony, is possibly Japan’s most important post-war industrialist.

Made in japan by akio morita