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Founders: #386 Akio Morita: Founder of Sony

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Akio Morita was a visionary entrepreneur and co-founder of Sony. Born as the first son and fifteenth-generation heir to a 300-year-old sake-brewing family in Japan, Akio eschewed the traditional path to forge his own legacy in electronics. In post-war Japan, Akio joined forces with Masaru Ibuka to found Sony. They started in a burned-out department store with limited resources—to build their first product they had to buy supplies on the black market. Akio was determined to change the global perception of Japanese goods as poor quality. From day one he set out to build high-quality, differentiated products, targeted at affluent markets. Akio believed in long-term vision over short-term profits, product innovation without market research, and brand building over immediate profits. Against all opposition, including inside of his own company, Akio invented one of the most successful consumer products of all time: The Walkman. It sold over 400 million units and inspired countless other entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, James Dyson, and Phil Knight. This episode is what I learned from rereading Akio's classic 1986 autobiography Made In Japan. ---- Ramp gives you everything you n

[00:00] David Senra: Akio is a great example of this maxim, that all of history's greatest founders studied history's greatest founders. Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, studied Akio, as did James Dyson, as did Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos. And a few months ago I was spending time with John Mackey, who's the founder of Whole Foods. John also relentlessly studies the great founders that came before him. And it was during one of our conversations that John told me one of the craziest things that anyone has ever said about the podcast. He had listened to over 100 episodes before we met and he…

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