The Japan Paradox: Key Insights for Foreign Business from Q1 2025
The landscape for foreign business in Japan presents a critical paradox, according to key findings from Q1 2025. Global headquarters are rediscovering the market, pouring in capital with high expectations for growth.
The Shifting Sands of Entrepreneurship in Japan: Navigating New Realities
The landscape for foreign entrepreneurs in Japan is undergoing a significant transformation. Recent changes to the Japan Visa Rules, particularly concerning the Business Manager visa, are creating new biz challenges and forcing a re-evaluation of strategies for both aspiring and established foreign business owners.
Founder's Journal: Navigating Japan's Q2 Business Climate
The second quarter of 2025 has been defined by a palpable sense of volatility and strategic reassessment. For any CEO operating within the current Japan Business Climate, the challenges are multifaceted, ranging from turbulent financial markets to a fracturing Global Supply Chain.
Gambling Man by Lionel Barber: A Review
Masayoshi Son finds his best possible biographer in Lionel Barber, the former editor of the FT. Barber (Dulwich School and St Edward’s Hall, Oxford ) has elegant establishment credentials, but he also has an entertainingly thuggish streak, like those upper-class SAS army officers who join special units because they rather enjoy the murder and mayhem.
Q1 2025: Navigating Risk, Data, and Growth in Japan
The first quarter of 2025 provided a critical opportunity to reassess strategy and vision. For those engaged in Executive Leadership Japan, navigating the complexities of the market requires more than just data; it demands a trusted Lived Experience Forum. This period highlighted a renewed focus on intentional risk, the indispensable value of authentic information, and the power of a connected community through the Delphi Network.
Bridging Continents: The Delphi Network’s Vision for Cross-Border Energy Collaboration
In an era of geopolitical uncertainty, climate urgency, and rapid technological transformation, cross-border energy collaboration has become both a necessity and a challenge. The complexity of aligning national priorities, regulatory environments, and private sector incentives often stalls progress just when acceleration is most needed.
What European Developers Should Know About Partnering with Japanese Investors
Japanese investment in European infrastructure is on the rise, particularly in clean-tech, smart city development, and sustainable mobility. Yet for European developers, municipalities, and climate-focused startups, partnering with Japanese investors is not as simple as aligning on spreadsheets and pitch decks. It involves understanding distinct business cultures, adjusting timeline expectations, and navigating cross-border complexities.
Why Japan Is Looking to Ireland and Wales for Clean Energy Partnerships
The global clean energy transition is accelerating—but not at the same pace everywhere. While many regions are still figuring out how to attract the right capital, talent, and technology, Ireland and Wales are quietly positioning themselves as key players in the next phase of green energy investment.
Navigating the New Reality: How the Cheap Yen is Reshaping Business in Japan
The ground is shifting beneath the feet of foreign executives in Japan. As the yen tumbles to multi-decade lows, the profound cheap yen impact is forcing a complete re-evaluation of every foreign business strategy.
Only Define: AI
A clear understanding of AI is crucial for businesses aiming to stay competitive. While AI, like Google's Bard (now Gemini), performs "intelligent" functions through algorithms and data, it fundamentally lacks human-like consciousness, self-awareness, or emotions.
The Day the Empire Lost Its Self-Respect
In this thought-provoking analysis, we explore the 1942 surrender of Singapore, an event that delivered a profound psychological shock to the British Empire. The article examines how this defeat, more than a military failure, forced the British to experience for the first time what it was like to be a colonized people, losing their self-respect to a rapidly modernizing Japan.
Beyond the Boardroom: A "Reality Test" for Business Leaders
"The Reality Test" by Robert Rowland Smith challenges the idea that business is a purely rational pursuit, arguing that corporate strategies are often "fictions" that ignore messy reality. The book encourages leaders to focus on the human and organic side of their organizations, where genuine success is found by understanding the real forces that drive people and the market.
Drinking at the Old Bar
An evening of whiskey at the Imperial Hotel brought the author a paradoxical experience, simultaneously sharpening their senses with clarity while providing a comfortable mental fuzziness. However, this fleeting bliss was ultimately paid for with a hangover, reinforcing the simple truth that anything that makes you feel sick can't be good for you.
The Politics of Nostalgia
The provided blog post argues that "Abeism" is a dangerous political ideology rooted in a romanticized, militaristic past and a "death worship." The author contrasts this nostalgic yearning among a powerful Japanese elite with the pacifism of post-war Germany and the lived reality of ordinary people, like their father-in-law, who experienced the true brutality of war.
Aikido: More Than a Sport, It's a Way of Life
Aikido is presented not as a sport, but as a discipline focused on self-improvement and mental mastery. It uses physical training and repetition to teach concentration, emotional control, and a sense of calm that can be applied to navigate the chaos of modern life.
The Outsider Who Challenged a Corporate Giant
Michael Woodford, an "outsider" president at Olympus, exposed a decades-long financial fraud. Facing humiliation and resistance from the company's "old guard," his fight was driven by personal pride and a sense of duty. The scandal revealed a clash between Western individualism and Japan's feudal corporate culture, where loyalty and face-saving took precedence over transparency.
Thinking Smarter: The Insights of Richard Koo
At a recent seminar, heterodox economist Richard Koo challenged the mainstream view of a broken Japanese economy, arguing its fiscal stimulus was a necessary and successful intervention. His most radical stance is that Quantitative Easing (QE) is useless, warning of a QE trap. He firmly believes in prioritizing fiscal policy over monetary policy, basing his conclusions on data rather than ideology.
What Would Orwell Say About Today’s Surveillance?
Today's surveillance, unlike the state-enforced kind in Orwell's 1984, is driven by private companies. People willingly trade privacy for convenience, creating a "Panopticon" we all participate in. The article argues this new form of social control is even more frightening, as we're marching into it ourselves.
Japan's Sexless Society: A Preview of the Future?
Japan's supposedly declining sex drive is not a cultural failure but a glimpse into the future for other developed nations. The internet has made sex and pornography so ubiquitous that sex has lost its traditional value as a symbol of status and achievement, instead becoming a form of entertainment.
Abe’s “Third Arrow”: Not What Margaret Thatcher Had in Mind
Based on Professor Takeo Hoshi's analysis, Abenomics's "Third Arrow" is a government-led industrial policy, not the deregulation push it's often portrayed as. Its vague goals and lack of concrete metrics distinguish it from Margaret Thatcher's privatization-focused approach, and it appears to prioritize national power over the well-being of individual citizens.