1) I'm fortunate to be in an industry where I can get by with zero employees, which is exactly how many educated people in my town would be willing to work for a one-person company that didn't have major corporate backing.
2) I may be forced out of my current apartment after leaving the day job, on the theory that I present unnecessary risk to the landlord of nonpayment of my ($450 a month) rent, since we all know how dangerous small businesses are. (I haven't discussed this with the landlord yet. I think I should be able to finesse this, but I'm a very, very quirky guy by definition because I come from the perspective that this is something that I can negotiate with the landlord rather than a condition he'll impose that I'll just have to accept.
Social acceptance doesn't stop at landlords and bank officers, either. For example, take prospective in-laws. You want to marry your daughter off to a nice young salaryman or a post office worker: he'll give her and your grandchildren stability. You don't want to marry your daughter off to an entrepreneur: one bad quarter and your grandkids won't be able to afford cram school!
Without casting any aspersions on the motivations of parents of young ladies I may have dated, suffice it to say that for at least some people "salaryman" is such a good quality it trumps obvious negatives like "he's, ahem, well... he spent a lot of time overseas."
3) Have you noticed how I use the world's most efficient distribution channel, the Internet? Japan lags the US -- by quite a bit -- in the "ads -> web page -> purchase consummated online" space. It looks like America in 1996 in a lot of ways -- I have software engineers at my company ask, in seriousness, "But how do people pay you when they get your software?" "I take credit cards." "PEOPLE TELL YOU THEIR CREDIT CARD NUMBER!?"
Oh, the entire Japanese payments infrastructure is optimized around Big Freaking Enterprises rather than small businesses. You know how painful it is to get a merchant account with no corporate history? Think that "about that painful, cubed" for taking non-cash payments in Japan.
4) I am sharply limited in what I can say of the Japanese government's entrepreneurial promotion activities having once been employed by a sub-branch of them (prefectural technology incubator). Here's a general statement, make of it what you will: the government giveth and the government taketh away.
5) Hypothetically assuming I were Japanese, my resume would read DAMAGED GOODS right now, because I had the brass ring (salaryman employment at a good company) and I let it go. (Foreigners interact a little... quirkily... with a lot of Japanese social norms. This is one of them.)
Let me try putting it in American terms: how attractive would YC be if it were widely known that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and almost every other company worth working for considered anyone who either a) did not secure employment at graduation or b) has ever left a company as the moral equivalent of a felon?
Good points. There's another relevant one - in Japan, parents are liable if their child defaults on a debt. How much risk would you be will to take if you knew your parents might lose their house if you failed?
You know how you're supposed to return your rental modem by a certain date to avoid paying an extra fee? The person who previously rented my last apartment did not get her's returned by the date, so she owed the ISP $100. She also left the country prior to paying it. Lo and behold, when I tried to get coverage, they discovered the bill and asked me to pay it.
"I'm sorry, I think you have a misunderstanding. I am not this young Swedish lady."
"Are you related to her? Is she your wife, girlfriend, etc?"
"No."
"Quite the coincidence that two foreigners would end up renting the same apartment back to back."
"We're translators. Her contract is up, I'm replacing her, it is my employer's apartment."
"Oh. So that makes you coworkers?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking."
"You should pay to avoid causing embarrassment for your employer."
This is one of those times when my American brain goes "Oh hellllllllllllllll no" and my Japanese brain goes "Oh effity, you're right, that is what I am expected to do in this situation."
I paid.
If your adult child defaults on a loan, and someone knocks on your door (and there may be an actual physical knock and likely as not the person who is knocking is a yakuza enforcer, even if your adult child was in debt to an arm of a major publicly traded corporation), you pay. If your drunken useless excuse of a son has an automobile accident, you show up to the hospital several times with flowers and once with a discrete envelope with a generous amount of money to convey the depth of your sorrow for the lapse.
1) I'm fortunate to be in an industry where I can get by with zero employees, which is exactly how many educated people in my town would be willing to work for a one-person company that didn't have major corporate backing.
2) I may be forced out of my current apartment after leaving the day job, on the theory that I present unnecessary risk to the landlord of nonpayment of my ($450 a month) rent, since we all know how dangerous small businesses are. (I haven't discussed this with the landlord yet. I think I should be able to finesse this, but I'm a very, very quirky guy by definition because I come from the perspective that this is something that I can negotiate with the landlord rather than a condition he'll impose that I'll just have to accept.
Social acceptance doesn't stop at landlords and bank officers, either. For example, take prospective in-laws. You want to marry your daughter off to a nice young salaryman or a post office worker: he'll give her and your grandchildren stability. You don't want to marry your daughter off to an entrepreneur: one bad quarter and your grandkids won't be able to afford cram school!
Without casting any aspersions on the motivations of parents of young ladies I may have dated, suffice it to say that for at least some people "salaryman" is such a good quality it trumps obvious negatives like "he's, ahem, well... he spent a lot of time overseas."
3) Have you noticed how I use the world's most efficient distribution channel, the Internet? Japan lags the US -- by quite a bit -- in the "ads -> web page -> purchase consummated online" space. It looks like America in 1996 in a lot of ways -- I have software engineers at my company ask, in seriousness, "But how do people pay you when they get your software?" "I take credit cards." "PEOPLE TELL YOU THEIR CREDIT CARD NUMBER!?"
Oh, the entire Japanese payments infrastructure is optimized around Big Freaking Enterprises rather than small businesses. You know how painful it is to get a merchant account with no corporate history? Think that "about that painful, cubed" for taking non-cash payments in Japan.
4) I am sharply limited in what I can say of the Japanese government's entrepreneurial promotion activities having once been employed by a sub-branch of them (prefectural technology incubator). Here's a general statement, make of it what you will: the government giveth and the government taketh away.
5) Hypothetically assuming I were Japanese, my resume would read DAMAGED GOODS right now, because I had the brass ring (salaryman employment at a good company) and I let it go. (Foreigners interact a little... quirkily... with a lot of Japanese social norms. This is one of them.)
Let me try putting it in American terms: how attractive would YC be if it were widely known that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and almost every other company worth working for considered anyone who either a) did not secure employment at graduation or b) has ever left a company as the moral equivalent of a felon?