Ever walked through a department store in the 1950s? Honestly, if you saw a tag that said "Made in Japan," you probably put the item back. It meant cheap. It meant flimsy. It meant a knock-off of something better made in Pittsburgh or Dusseldorf.
Then came Akio Morita.
He didn't just build a company; he staged a one-man coup against a global reputation. Along with Masaru Ibuka, he took a bombed-out room in a Tokyo department store and turned it into Sony. But the real story isn’t about the gadgets. It’s about how Made in Japan Akio Morita and Sony became the blueprint for every tech giant we obsess over today, from Apple to Tesla.
The Rice Cooker That Burned Everything
Most people think Sony started with some high-tech miracle. Nope. Their first product was an electric rice cooker. It was basically some interlocking wooden slats and electrodes.
It was a disaster.
The rice was either a soggy mess or a charred brick. They sold almost none. But this is the thing about Morita—he didn't see failure as a signal to quit. He saw it as a data point. He and Ibuka realized they couldn't just make "stuff." They had to make things that didn't exist yet.
They moved on to a "Power Megaphone" and then a tape recorder. In 1950, Japan’s first magnetic tape recorder, the G-Type, weighed nearly 80 pounds. It was huge. It was expensive. And nobody wanted it because nobody knew what a tape recorder was for.
Morita realized he wasn't just an engineer. He had to be a teacher. He spent his days showing people why they needed to record their own voices.
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Why the Name "Sony" Almost Didn't Happen
By 1955, the company was officially Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. Try saying that three times fast in a boardroom in Manhattan. You can't. Morita knew that if he wanted to conquer the world, the name had to go.
He wanted something that sounded "sonic" but also "sunny." He found the Latin word sonus (sound) and mixed it with "sonny-boy," which was American slang for a bright, young kid.
Sony was born.
But the banks hated it. They told him he was crazy to drop a respected (if unpronounceable) Japanese name for a four-letter westernized word. Morita stood his ground. He knew the brand was a promise of quality, not a tribute to geography. He even turned down a massive deal from Bulova because they wanted to put their name on his radios.
"In fifty years," he told them, "my name will be as famous as yours."
He was wrong. It became much more famous.
The Walkman: Innovation Without Permission
If you want to understand the soul of Made in Japan Akio Morita and Sony, you have to look at the Walkman.
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In 1979, the "experts" at Sony thought Morita had finally lost it. He wanted a tape player that couldn't record. It only played music. And it had no speakers. You had to wear headphones.
The marketing team did the research. They said it would flop. "Who wants to walk around in their own world?" they asked.
Morita didn't care about market research. He famously said that the public doesn't know what's possible, so you can't ask them what they want. He pushed it through. He even made the engineers create two headphone jacks originally because he thought people would be lonely listening by themselves.
He eventually realized people wanted to be in their own world. He pivoted. The Walkman didn't just sell; it changed how humans move through space. It was the ancestor of the iPod and the smartphone.
How Morita Managed Differently
Morita’s philosophy wasn't about "human resources." He hated that term. To him, people weren't resources; they were family.
- No firing: He believed in lifetime employment. If a worker was bad at one job, you didn't fire them. you moved them to a different department until they found their "fit."
- The floor is equal: He often wore the same blue-grey jacket as the factory workers. He wanted the distance between the CEO and the assembly line to be as small as possible.
- Destroying the "School Record" Myth: In his 1966 book Never Mind School Records, he argued that where you went to college mattered way less than what you could actually do. This was revolutionary in a Japan obsessed with elite university credentials.
The "Made in Japan" Transformation
By the 1980s, the world had flipped. If a product said "Made in Japan," it meant it was the best in the world. Morita had achieved his goal. He had taken a country that was associated with cheap toys and turned it into the global capital of precision engineering.
His autobiography, Made in Japan, became a bible for business leaders. It wasn't a dry textbook. It was a manifesto. He argued that American business was becoming too obsessed with "paper profits" and quarterly earnings. He believed in the long game. He believed in making things that lasted.
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He lived what he preached. He moved his entire family to the United States in the 60s just to understand the American consumer. He learned to play golf, he learned the culture, and he learned how to sell.
What You Can Actually Use From This
You don't have to be a multi-billion dollar CEO to take something from Morita’s playbook. The guy was basically a walking masterclass in grit.
First, stop asking for permission. If Morita had listened to the focus groups, there would be no Walkman. If you have a conviction about a product or a project, trust your gut over a spreadsheet. Data tells you what happened yesterday; intuition tells you what could happen tomorrow.
Second, protect your name. Morita’s refusal to let Bulova put their logo on his product was the most important decision he ever made. Your reputation—your brand—is the only thing that scales. Don't trade long-term identity for a short-term paycheck.
Lastly, treat your team like they share your fate. Success isn't a solo sport. When workers feel like they are part of a family rather than a "resource," they don't just work for a paycheck. They work for the mission.
Morita passed away in 1999, but his fingerprints are all over the device you're holding right now. He proved that "Made in Japan" wasn't a label of origin—it was a standard of excellence.
If you're looking to apply these principles today, start by auditing your own projects: are you building what people are asking for, or are you building what they’ll eventually realize they can't live without?
Next Step: Research the specific "Three Creativities" framework Morita used to balance R&D, product planning, and marketing to see which area your current business or project is neglecting.