[waterhouse]

> this limits innovation, because nobody wants to do something new.

Curious. The stuff that I've read about Toyota says they have "continuous improvement" as a core principle[1]. Does that just not carry over into the way they do software, or is Toyota an anomaly among Japanese companies, or what?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota#Company_strategy

[gkanai]

In short, Toyota does not see themselves as a software firm (and they aren't in a broad sense); Sony also failed to transition beyond their best years of the 90s largely because they did not understand the importance of software and the Internet on consumer electronics as Apple did. I say this having worked at Toyota building some of the very first websites and web services for Toyota globally as well as working at Sony as well (I built the Internet services for the Network Handycam as well as other things.)

[irq11]

The OP is making stereotypes, and they aren’t universally true (as is usually true for stereotypes).

Japan is a big place. There are all kinds of people, and plenty of innovative organizations. It’s frankly embarrassing, the amount of nonsense that people are spouting in this thread.

[ericdykstra]

Indeed, there is a lot of innovation happening in Japan. Most of it isn't software or sexy industries that get all the news in American press, though.

[prestonh]

Could you give some examples? Not challenging you, just curious.

[philipov]

That sounds like top-down improvement such as 'agile' development, not bottom-up improvement like hacker culture. That said, I'm sure there are plenty of Japanese who are curious and self-motivated, and there are plenty of non-Japanese who don't want to put in any individual effort. It's just that the cultural narrative told by each society highlights different things.