@patio11 Hey Patrick, Japan question: Anecdotally, it seems like most big Japanese brands are actually conglomerates with drastically diverse product lines. Does this check out?
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Replying to @prestonattebery
I think that describes conglomerates generally (e.g. Disney, Dell, and Doritos all have extremely diverse product lines), but the interesting thing about BigCo Japan from the US perspective is that firms have diverse ecosystems around them in a way that US companies don't.
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Replying to @patio11 @prestonattebery
For example, I get my life insurance from Sony. Why do I get my life insurance from Sony? Because Sony woke up one morning with 100k+ healthy employees and said "This is silly; why are we leaking so much margin when we could just be our own risk pool."
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Replying to @patio11 @prestonattebery
And then, after they had built an insurance company as a fun side project (as one does, when one is a Japanese megacorp), well it is just *silly* not to sell its products to the rest of the world.
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Replying to @patio11
That is so interesting! Why then do they choose to only localize the products/services in Japan?
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Replying to @prestonattebery
For insurance specifically? Heavily regulated, Japan's a plenty attractive market, no reason to cause politically powerful interests overseas to react negatively against Sony in service of a tiny portion of their business interests.
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Replying to @patio11
Ah! Why do you think Japan co's decide to build these types of side-business where in America, Coca-Cola, IBM, could but don't?
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Replying to @prestonattebery
A bit of empire building, a bit of corporate culture, a bit of structural issues internal to firms (insurance legendarily exists as a way for outgoing local management to monetize their social capital by selling insurance to their previous reports/offices), a bit regulatory, etc.
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Replying to @patio11 @prestonattebery
One example for you is banking. If Google were a Japanese company, Google would *absolutely* own a bank by now. I predict with relatively high degree of confidence that every time Google has that discussion somebody says "Become a bank holding company OH HELL NO."
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Meanwhile Rakuten, which is one of the largest Japanese pure-play Internet firms, makes >50% of their profit from financial services which are substantially eased by them owning Rakuten Bank (which they acquired back in the late 90s off the top of my head; might want to check).
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