It seems the best approach for any venture is a combo platter - Japan's quality-consciousness paired with America's willingness to experiment and (sometimes) fail.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We must draw on the unique strengths of the Japanese economy, seek an open and cooperative approach with our international partners, and intelligently exploit the promise of new growth areas.
We have a lot of customers in Japan, but they don't quite get the local content that they always need, so we want to encourage all of our product teams to start thinking globally.
For decades, Japan has been a friend and reliable trading partner with the United States, and I anticipate that relationship will prosper.
Japan's very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don't think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that's already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.
American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan. But they don't know what to copy.
When I was a young guy, when I first started with G.E., Jack Welch sent us all to Japan because in those days Japan was gonna crush us. And we learned a lot about Japan when we were there. But over the subsequent 30 years, the Japanese companies all fell behind. And the reason why they fell behind is because they didn't globalize.
Clearly, Japan is a most important market for digital consumer products.
Japan can't get anything on the market very cheaply because it has a large, relatively highly paid workforce which you can't fire.
Alabama farmers want a chance to complete fairly in Japan, but they can't if the Japanese won't let us in.
I received from my experience in Japan an incredible sense of respect for the art of creating, not just the creative product. We're all about the product. To me, the process was also an incredibly important aspect of the total form.