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April 25, 2025
 

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ENTREPRENEURS

Rozan Al-Khazendar (second from left), an entrepreneur from the Gaza Strip, speaks to Kiyomi Kitamura (left), her Japanese partner in a T-shirt venture to raise funds for the Palestinian enclave, during a meeting at her office in the outskirts of Cairo, last December.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 2, 2025
Gaza woman launches clothing brand with Japanese partner
Entrepreneur Rozan Al-Khazendar is collaborating with a mail-order business operator out of Shiga Prefecture to launch a website selling T-shirts to fund aid to the region.
Tsuyoshi Domoto in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward on March 28. As an entrepreneur, Domoto experienced plenty of setbacks but maintains a positive attitude and continues to pursue his dreams.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 30, 2025
Tokyo tech failures lean into misfortune, mistakes and missteps
At a Tokyo Fail Club gathering, speakers share candid talks about ventures gone wrong, bankruptcy and depression, touting a message of persistence in the face of adversity.
Kyoko Watanabe made a home for herself in Ishinomaki after moving there to participate in disaster relief efforts following 3/11, and now operates a business focused on the creative reuse of <i>akiya</i> (abandoned houses).
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 17, 2025
From abandoned houses to ‘creative communities’: An Ishinomaki entrepreneur's vision for rural Japan
Kyoko Watanabe moved to Miyagi Prefecture to help with disaster relief efforts following 3/11. She ended up building a company and a vision for revitalizing rural Japan.
The uncertain reaction to Xi Jinping’s display of warmth toward business made sense: China’s executives are eager for a reset after years in the cold but ever wary of meddling.
BUSINESS / Markets
Feb 24, 2025
Is Xi’s sudden embrace of business for real? China is left guessing
China's private sector has good reasons to worry that Beijing could meddle more in businesses in the name of supporting them.
Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma and other prominent entrepreneurs met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, in a signal of Beijing’s support for the private sector after years of turmoil.
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2025
Xi hosts summit with Jack Ma and other private sector leaders
The meeting signals Beijing’s support for the private sector after years of turmoil.
A Good me tea store, operated by Guming Holdings Ltd., in Chongqing, China, on Saturday. The tea chain's shares began trading in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 12, 2025
Hong Kong’s latest bubble tea IPO mints another billionaire
Guming Holdings' IPO has made founder Yun’an Wang a billionaire as China’s bubble tea market continues its rapid expansion.
Sam Altman (left) and Elon Musk were among the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 12, 2025
AI feud: How Musk and Altman's partnership turned toxic
Facing a barrage of hostility, Altman has increasingly suggested that Musk's actions stem from regret over leaving OpenAI in 2018.
Tech entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist Masayoshi Son made his fortune by becoming a bridge between California's technology culture and Japan.
COMMENTARY
Oct 31, 2024
Masayoshi Son may be the oddest of the oddball billionaires
Masayoshi Son made his fortune by becoming a bridge between Californian tech culture and Japan.
Capsule hotels were created as a way to deal with the amount of overwork employees tend to do in Japan. Can't commute home? Then spend the night in an tiny, affordable sleeping space.
BUSINESS / Tech / Longform
Oct 12, 2024
Japan wakes up to the market for a proper sleep
After years of sleep deficits and drowsy mornings, a growing number of products and services are being developed to help us rest easier.
Entrepreneurs who participated in the Beyond Japan Zero to X program last year share their experiences in the United States during a meeting in May in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 23, 2024
Japanese startups advised to internationalize to get some global mojo
Occupying the No. 1 spot in the Japanese market affords many comforts, but global dominance is unlikely to be one of them.
Several support networks have launched to help startup founders in Japan whose native language isn't Japanese.
BUSINESS / Companies / Longform
Jul 8, 2024
As Japan's startup ecosystem grows, so does a supportive community of entrepreneurs
Interest in startups is outpacing ecosystem capabilities, which has led more founders to turn to each other for guidance and support.
Fawn Weaver's book “Love and Whiskey,” out this month, is an engrossing narrative tracking the author's discovery of the truth behind one of the most popular whiskey brands in the world.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 30, 2024
‘Love and Whiskey’: A tale of how an obsession delivered a woman from grief
Through Fawn Weaver’s efforts, bracketed within a personal tragedy, the true story of how Jack Daniel learned how to make whiskey from a Black slave comes to life.
Health minister Keizo Takemi speaks to reporters in Tokyo in March.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 27, 2024
Panel sets out investment vision for Japan's health care startups
Since 2019, the number of health care startups established each year in Japan has declined to around 50.
Balaji Srinivasan addresses the Singapore Fintech Festival in November 2022. A techno-libertarian, Srinivasan, who made his name as an anti-government crusader, tried to attach himself to the U.S. government when he was under consideration for a position in the Donald Trump administration.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 19, 2024
How techno-libertarians fell in love with big government
When faced with the prospect of the government becoming a major client for Silicon Valley techno-libertarians, once-principled opposition to state power dissipates.
Tokyo has proved to be an attractive destination for Chinese entrepreneurs in recent times, away from the challenges hitting the economy at home.
BUSINESS
Jun 16, 2024
Chinese entrepreneurs bet on Japan
A Chinese-language MBA program has been catering to those seeking opportunities in Tokyo.
Startup Genome officials speak to representatives from startups that will participate in the Global Hypergrowth Tokyo program during its kickoff event last week in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 3, 2024
New mentoring program aims to help later-stage Japan startups go overseas
While many acceleration programs target young startups, the new initiative focuses on later-stage firms that already have a certain degree of experience.
Workers collect recyclable garbage including plastic bottles on World Environment Day in Tokyo in June 2020.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 6, 2023
New solutions tackle Japan’s waste problem at its core
Issues like the plastics and climate crises seem insurmountable — until we apply "systemic design," as several Japanese initiatives are showing.
Yasuhide Uno, Usen-Next Holdings CEO, has transformed his father’s company into Netflix’s biggest competitor in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 28, 2023
Reluctant CEO becomes billionaire at Netflix rival in Japan
Initially wanting nothing to do with his father's cable music company, Yasuhide Uno's faith in video streaming helped him rebuild it for a new era.
Sam Altman, then the chief executive of OpenAI, in Redmond, Washington, in February
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 19, 2023
The perpetual rise of Sam Altman takes an unexpected turn
The former OpenAI CEO was the face of an AI-fueled future. He was the most Silicon Valley person alive. Then, on Friday, he was fired.
Currently, if foreign nationals hope to obtain a residence status enabling them to start a business, they must secure a place of business and have two or more full-time employees or a capital fund of at least ¥5 million ($33,000).
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2023
Japan mulls eased residency requirements for foreign entrepreneurs
Foreign nationals may be allowed to stay for two years if they have certified business plans and even if they do not have a place of business or capital.
Japan must correct Trump’s false data for trade talks, says Kono
Former Foreign Minister Taro Kono
Japan wants to 'separate' tariff and security issues. That may be tough.
Japan’s chief tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, poses with a "Make America Great Again" cap at the White House in Washington on April 16.
Social media helps fuel growing 'sex tourism' in Japan
People walk down a street in the red-light entertainment area of Kabukicho in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo on March 31.
Nintendo says demand for Switch 2 console in Japan is overwhelming
An attendee plays with the Nintendo Switch 2 gaming device at a media event in Tokyo on April 3.
Top Japanese firms scrap employment system that held women back
MUFG Bank, a unit of the nation’s biggest banking group, is among firms that recently scrapped a clerical job category that consisted almost exclusively of women, a sign that the financial sector is finally getting more serious about reducing gender inequalities.
Japan weighs using U.S. rice imports as tariff negotiation tool with Trump
A restaurant owner pours California-grown Calrose rice into a rice cooker at his restaurant in Tokyo
Is Japan’s parliament ready to welcome more youth to its ranks?
Lower House lawmaker Kai Odake in his Tokyo office on Wednesday
Crow meat, goat tartare: Mauvaise Herbe raises its game
Crow meat, shaped into a ball and attached to a foot of the bird, is one of the peculiar offerings of game at Mauvaise Herbe.
Cases of epidural use in labor rise in Japan alongside concerns
Of the 721,000 childbirths reported in 2024 in Japan, 13.8% involved the use of an epidural, according to the Japan Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Nothing sells like Shohei Ohtani, MLB’s marketing megastar
People walk past an advertisement featuring Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani outside Tokyo Dome on March 18.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
By Tomoko Otake

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