How young businessmen like us handle this opportunity will serve as a model for other rising entrepreneurs. We re more international, having been more exposed overseas and to English. There are many respected executives from the older generation who run big companies, but few of them founded their firms. I think they find it difficult to innovate. But they have to cope with change because Japanese society is changing rapidly.
Companies can no longer afford to be good only in Japan.
We have to make it in the world. You have been compared with Richard Branson, who started Britain s Virgin Airlines. I can learn a lot from him but we have different management styles. They accomplished things that no one else had imagined possible. Southwest has demonstrated what customer-oriented management can do.