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by 1n3nt0r 919 days ago
Certainly accounting scandals are bad. I am sure there are shenanigans being done by quite a few Japanese companies.

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.

2 comments

This is specifically Japanese management styles and social culture at play. The meme of "western short-term corporate thinking" doesn't apply here.

Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, is flourishing under new western management after they were freed from Toshiba and Japan's ineptitude.

Toshiba's Flash memory division had been fine even under Toshiba and as Kioxia too. Why Toshiba sold it is because they need money, to fill nuclear division's loss. Rather, they are now in danger due to current Flash memory market situation.
Corruption by senior management doomed the company to continue down a path of failure.

Toshiba desired to not cause change and market disruption was hated by Japanese business culture.

Eventually inaction & fear led to destruction. Quite sad really.