Are you for real? - My Experience with Japan Tech CEOs
Tags: japan, ceo, company, culture
Published: 2023-07-24 08:51:32

i've been working in Japan for Japanese companies as A software engineer for almost 10 years now -- I left my country whhen I after working for a couple of local companies and never looked back.
So far it's been a smooth sailing, I'm enjoying a lot the company culture and the general chillness of Japanese companies and  - except everybody he's saying - a lot of companies you don't have to work yourself to death if your're a foregner. I guess that's one of the perks of being a foregnier working in a Japanese company. You're not required to work yourseft to dead. Coworkers are smart and the tech I've been using it's been up to date and really exciting stuff. The only thing I've been stupified with is the Japanese CEOs i've been had to deal with so far. Since I came to Japan I've been working for 4 different companies staying more or less at least 2 years each. Current company is great and I'm with this company for like 3.5 years now. The only strange thing 

i've been working in Japan for Japanese companies as A software engineer for almost 10 years now -- I left my country whhen I after working for a couple of local companies and never looked back.
So far it's been a smooth sailing, I'm enjoying a lot the company culture and the general chillness of Japanese companies and  - except everybody he's saying - a lot of companies you don't have to work yourself to death if your're a foregner. I guess that's one of the perks of being a foregnier working in a Japanese company. You're not required to work yourseft to dead. Coworkers are smart and the tech I've been using it's been up to date and really exciting stuff. The only thing I've been stupified with is the Japanese CEOs i've been had to deal with so far. Since I came to Japan I've been working for 4 different companies staying more or less at least 2 years each. Current company is great and I'm with this company for like 3.5 years now. The only strange thing The only strange thing about the japanese companies I've been working so fare are the CEOs (and the upper management in minor way). I never met a Japanese CEO that is actually on top of things and humble and in touch with the reality of the company they are leading.

The first Japanese company i've joined after graduating was a small web dev startup and the CEO was really young ex engineers and he was working directly with us devs. One thing I really noticed about him is that was really determinated to make the startup suceess, which was admiral but, I don't know why, maybe it was because he was too young or maybe because too inexperienced, they set up some very unrealisting goals for the company. I remember when I first joined we were 5 people working in a small room and the goal/kpi for that quarter was getting 100 customers and earning xxxx M yens. I was also young and inexperienceed (also the different currencty didn't helped) so I tought that was a realisting goal and I gave all myself to help achieve it. Only after talking about work with some Japanese friends I realized that the CEOs' numbers were completely nut-nut. 

Not so long after my eyes were opened on the issue, the CEO started running the company to the ground trying to chase those self imposed crazy goals. Lots of coworkers started to getting burned and left the company.
My second Japanese company was this ecommerce site. The evironment was chillier but the CEO was, again, completely out there, and completely separated from reality. The service never got profittable and the CEO continued to rise the earning goals months by months in a completely irrational way. Each month We we didn't obviously not reach the marks, the CEO dished out all his disapproval and rage to the uppermanagement which after that they dished out theirs to our (the product/dev team). Now to be completely honest that CEO also had other companies to look after so he dedicated maybe around 10% of his working time to us. Still, that was no reason to be act like a psyco.

The 3rd CEO I've been worked for (another ecommerce company) his mission for the company was basically beconing the next amazon. For reference, we were a small company of 10 people with a barely functional app. The CEO actually kinda eredited the company (old CEO left) and was completely oblivious on how to run a Tech Company. Meetings were rampant, and the only people talking were the CEOs and the upper management, ignoring the earning, losses and basically explaning to us (the dev and product team) how Amazon worked and what feature we should develop. The CEO was only listening and sometimes nodding like nothing was.

My 4th Japanese company is my current one so I won't share any details that would doxx myself but again, the CEO and company mission is to take over the world of geolocaliazion services and beat both Google and Apple at their games. And this is a company of ~100 employees that holds no innovative product whatsoever.

Now, when I get to know a new CEO and company I always give them the benefict of the doubt but after having to deal with 4 completely different Japanese CEOs I'm starting to see an emerging pattern here:

Japanese CEOs are out of touch with the underlaying processes of their business. It doesn't matter if what they are asking is impossible or even completely against their company's current line of business rappresent. If they demand it, somebody should build it exactly as they demand. No question.

It doesn't help that most of Japanese employees are just yes-man (which is the right way to be here in Japan, NEVER contraddict your superiors) and they enables the CEO to have complete free-range on everything.

Japanese CEOs are out of touch with the market. It doesn't matter what kind of outlandinsh idea they come up with. Doesn't matter if there is an actual market of it or if it's totally useless. According to some of them, aping FAANG it's a quick way to make a buck.

Japanese CEOs act like they are your father. They don't control you directly - they just throw their 'suggestioons' around a lot and if you don't follow them, they act all disapponted and they blame you for the failure. I know that japanese culsture is famous for CEOs blaming theirself for the company failure, but yet, I still have to encounter one of those self-blaming CEOs in my career here in Japan.

It doesn't matter the age of the Japanese CEOs, I had to deal with old, young and young-ish CEOs and they were really mentally boomers.