Tokyo’s internet Jesus uses secret creed to command CEOs(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Tokyo’s internet Jesus uses secret creed to command CEOs
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-14/how-gmo-s-masatoshi-kumagai-once-a-high-school-dropout-runs-102-companies
79 comments
I wonder if the Zoom interview was conducted in his native language. If not, he might have been trying to say "I learn from how Jesus founded Christianity and apply that to how I operate my company," which is a bit strange thing to say but not as creepy as "I'm Jesus."
It looks like Kumagai is (at least previously he said he was) a Christian. https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/29818?page=3
It looks like Kumagai is (at least previously he said he was) a Christian. https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/29818?page=3
Even if he is Christian; it's kind of strange to me that people don't realize that other cultures will use Western cultural references that might be very "heavy" in a different, much more casual way. I mean, Western companies talk about code "ninjas" all the time; and I have heard a few samurai and zen references too.
Japan talking about Christians isn't particularly different. Christianity and comparisons to it are made relatively casually, with much less cultural weight than they would have in the US or Europe. Here's a Japanese rap song [1] whose lyrics [2] go, "As the Bible is to a devout Christian, so to me is is the Zulu Nation" (translation [2]).
So in my opinion the "internet Jesus uses secret creed" thing is at least mildly clickbaity. It'd be the equivalent of seizing upon the name "Zen of Python" to write an article about "A Language with a simplicity driven by Buddhism".
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnJMBcQFNME#t=2m51s
[2] https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-aklo-rgto-eng...
Japan talking about Christians isn't particularly different. Christianity and comparisons to it are made relatively casually, with much less cultural weight than they would have in the US or Europe. Here's a Japanese rap song [1] whose lyrics [2] go, "As the Bible is to a devout Christian, so to me is is the Zulu Nation" (translation [2]).
So in my opinion the "internet Jesus uses secret creed" thing is at least mildly clickbaity. It'd be the equivalent of seizing upon the name "Zen of Python" to write an article about "A Language with a simplicity driven by Buddhism".
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnJMBcQFNME#t=2m51s
[2] https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-aklo-rgto-eng...
Japan in particular is completely unsurprising as Christianity features prominently in a lot of anime
Many people I know here in Japan wear crosses and have figurines of the Virgin Mary and so on not because they care about Christianity at all, but because it looks cute.
That clip where Anno is asked why the Evangelions are named that way is always relevant.
https://youtu.be/rGJ_Kq8qifQ?t=379
https://youtu.be/rGJ_Kq8qifQ?t=379
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I'm Zulu. What on earth are they singing about?
Probably a reference to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Zulu_Nation
That makes sense.
The lyrics reference that directly.
>Western cultural references that might be very "heavy" in a different, much more casual way
Just to prove your point - crucified Santa Claus [0]
[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-21/how-the-iconography-o...
Just to prove your point - crucified Santa Claus [0]
[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-21/how-the-iconography-o...
It does not shock me and it probably was actually "a Jesus" with the indefinite article which does not exist in Japanese.
Non-native English readers see everywhere terms like "product evangelist", so that's not a leap at all to call a very good evangelist "a Jesus".
Non-native English readers see everywhere terms like "product evangelist", so that's not a leap at all to call a very good evangelist "a Jesus".
Could be that he maintains polytheistic views. That’s the default for most Japanese person rooting for the culture, the lord in Christianity in this mindset is just an another god and his religion that one may or may not buy into.
It's not a great leap to assume that relaying your equivalent role to an audience by referencing a familiar icon would be effective.
"You know the office? I'm basically Michael Scott." "To these people, I am Steve Jobs."
Christianity has a particular bug about calling oneself "Jesus", as in, "the second coming of Christ" and goes on high alert over it. That's what I got out of it, at least.
"You know the office? I'm basically Michael Scott." "To these people, I am Steve Jobs."
Christianity has a particular bug about calling oneself "Jesus", as in, "the second coming of Christ" and goes on high alert over it. That's what I got out of it, at least.
if it was in Japanese, he probably referred to himself as "kami-sama" rather than Jesus Christ, in which case it could be interpreted as your <god of reference> depending on your own religion.
EDIT: if he actually referred to himself as being "Jesus Christ" it would make absolutely no sense, since Jesus never had priests working under him.
EDIT: if he actually referred to himself as being "Jesus Christ" it would make absolutely no sense, since Jesus never had priests working under him.
>EDIT: if he actually referred to himself as being "Jesus Christ" it would make absolutely no sense, since Jesus never had priests working under him.
Huh? He had apostles/disiples, and he explicitly prepared them and send them to found churches all over the world...
Huh? He had apostles/disiples, and he explicitly prepared them and send them to found churches all over the world...
They were not priests.
In traditional Christian thought, they were priests in both the universal Christian sense and in the sense of the ordained office, since that office is fully contained within the office of bishop, which is fully contained within the unique and only partially (exactly as far as the office of bishop) transferrable office conferred upon each of the Apostles by Christ.
> Jesus never had priests working under him.
In the traditional Christian understanding on which the concept of apostolic succession is grounded he did, because the the apostles are ur-bishops and bishops are priests.
In the traditional Christian understanding on which the concept of apostolic succession is grounded he did, because the the apostles are ur-bishops and bishops are priests.
TBH that would be even more weird. Customers are kami-sama, never yourself.
I think we're reading a bit too much into this: he was riffing off the "GMO-ism is a religion" theme and went a bit far with the metaphor, but Jesus is meant here as a "leader of religion", not literally God because trinity and all that. (Japan not being a Christian nation, the average Japanese knows next to nothing about Christianity.)
I think we're reading a bit too much into this: he was riffing off the "GMO-ism is a religion" theme and went a bit far with the metaphor, but Jesus is meant here as a "leader of religion", not literally God because trinity and all that. (Japan not being a Christian nation, the average Japanese knows next to nothing about Christianity.)
> GMO is a conglomerate for the internet era, dominating large parts of Japan’s web infrastructure
Japan's web infrastructure is also where NTT, KDDI and Rakuten play in Japan. All of them are horrible companies, if anyone looks at how their services work and operate. The West can rest easy, Japan's online giants represent no threat to anyone.
Japan's web infrastructure is also where NTT, KDDI and Rakuten play in Japan. All of them are horrible companies, if anyone looks at how their services work and operate. The West can rest easy, Japan's online giants represent no threat to anyone.
What's wrong with NTT? Always found them to be a reliable, and they've been the main driver of innovation in dragging the ISP industry towards modern standards.
Well it's a massive company so of course there is variation in it's groups but I know NTT Data does cool stuff from time to time, contributes to postgres and I love them for that.
No idea what the rest of the company is like, but innovation is somewaht hard to come by in Japan, so it's reasonable to expect most companies to not really be pushing the envelope. Ironically, NTT contributing to a no-bullshit rock-solid open source tool like Postgres is par for the course -- it's great that they're pushing innovations inside Postgres, but technically from an outside lens it's a conservative place to invest.
[0]: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/NTT
No idea what the rest of the company is like, but innovation is somewaht hard to come by in Japan, so it's reasonable to expect most companies to not really be pushing the envelope. Ironically, NTT contributing to a no-bullshit rock-solid open source tool like Postgres is par for the course -- it's great that they're pushing innovations inside Postgres, but technically from an outside lens it's a conservative place to invest.
[0]: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/NTT
Second that, what's wrong with NTT? 250mbit fiber for a fraction of what it would cost in the US. IPv6 ready. Basically no down time in 5 years. Very polite service staff.
Sure, if you look at how they design their websites, signup process and router UX, it's... a bit special (from a "western" perspective) ... But it works.
Sure, if you look at how they design their websites, signup process and router UX, it's... a bit special (from a "western" perspective) ... But it works.
NTT the carrier and NTT Docomo (the horrid mobile phone provider that I was forced to use on a trip there) are different, probably.
NTT Docomo has its quirks from the customer POV (in particular they are pricy), but as a company I see them as stellar and incredibly flexible in their operating context.
I mean, they brought customer installable java apps way earlier to the game, and it was miles ahead of the crap J2ME that stack of western phones. They brought imode when other countries where toying with wap. Then NFC based electronic payment years before anyone else, GPS apps etc.
I worked with one of their phone QA team for a while, and they were unsurprisingly pragmatic, very clever on the trade-offs and cared a lot more about what you had to say than if you came with a white shirt.
As much as NTT can be a very old and dusty company, NTT Docomo was at least for a very long time a very dynamic and forward thinking company.
I mean, they brought customer installable java apps way earlier to the game, and it was miles ahead of the crap J2ME that stack of western phones. They brought imode when other countries where toying with wap. Then NFC based electronic payment years before anyone else, GPS apps etc.
I worked with one of their phone QA team for a while, and they were unsurprisingly pragmatic, very clever on the trade-offs and cared a lot more about what you had to say than if you came with a white shirt.
As much as NTT can be a very old and dusty company, NTT Docomo was at least for a very long time a very dynamic and forward thinking company.
I don’t think they are any worse than any comparable regional largest telcos in the world ... better than SoftBank at least.
Looks like Japan's telco sector is going through a US T-Mobile moment, with Rakuten Mobile trying to drive the prices down with a free year of service and a cheap prepaid unlimited data plan, chock full with change and hope rhetoric. They even use practically the same color as T-Mobile!
Not talking about NTT the internet provider. NTT does a lot more than that. They have a nebula of companies.
They're great for infrastructure operator but not good service operator.
It took KDDI 4 weeks to change the speed of our connection from 100mbit to 200mbit... Japan is weird.
Did you have to send a fax?
And return it with hanko stamp.
Haha, I have no idea, Japan office dealt with it.
Time Warner Spectrum can rest easy? They're worse.
From the Bloomberg article: "Some of the doctrine is made up of Silicon Valley-esque platitudes (“Change begins with the mind”) and clichés (“Make everything absolutely cool and beautiful!”). Some is idiosyncratic: Multiple-choice surveys of potential clients must always have an even number of answer options"
Anyone know what the even number of answer options is about? Is it to force no neutral answers? Is it a numerology thing?
Anyone know what the even number of answer options is about? Is it to force no neutral answers? Is it a numerology thing?
I was also wondering about that! “No neutral answers” is an interesting theory, although I’ve used 1-5 preference plus “no opinion” (for an even total of six) before.
An alternative theory might be just that this simply forces people to pay attention when building surveys - nothing magic about even or odd, just forcing that final check-over to make sure everything adds up.
An alternative theory might be just that this simply forces people to pay attention when building surveys - nothing magic about even or odd, just forcing that final check-over to make sure everything adds up.
> nothing magic about even or odd, just forcing that final check-over to make sure everything adds up.
Ah; so a no brown M&M's rule.
Ah; so a no brown M&M's rule.
Isn't 3 already basically no opinion
There's a difference between "meh, I don't care" and "I don't know enough about this to have an opinion".
It's pretty standard when you want to force people to express an opinion. For example, I know a company where the interview ratings sheet does not have a "neutral" choice, you need to either support or oppose the hire and can then calibrate how strongly you feel either way.
Company aside, in a weird coincidence I recently came across an interesting slide deck from a meetup (?) here:
https://speakerdeck.com/takutakahashi/ceph-on-zfs
I was impressed when I found this slide deck and it was in japanese, and from a thoroughly japanese company here. If you don't happen to know japanese, just go like... 3 slides in and you can see the creator is from GMO, also there are some images.
If you're not into infra you might as well stop reading here, but basically the idea is to get durable crash-resistant replicated storage on kubernetes by actually combining two CSI storage providers:
- Run ZFS as your on-disk file system (for absolute durability without bitrot and some of the other benefits) for each node
- Add the openebs/zfs-localpv[0] to dynamically provision zvols with say xfs or ext4 to make drives for ceph to consume
- Add Ceph via Rook[1] to get synchronous remote replication on every write (if you want it), and give ceph the drives you made (the zvol(s))
- Expose storage to your kubernetes cluster that is replicated (depending on how you set up ceph) and easy to back up and/or duplicate at the node level (w/ zfs send). You can back up at multiple levels, nodes themselves (with some replication lag since zfs doesn't so sync replication) and the workloads that run on them (which are sync replicated across the network).
There is some overlap in these tools -- ceph's relatively new bluestore engine does checksumming now and self-heals, so there's not so much reason to use ZFS at the lowest level at all, but ZFS does have some features that ceph doesn't, and is somewhat easier to manage with less moving parts in user space.
[0]: https://github.com/openebs/zfs-localpv/
[1]: https://github.com/rook/
https://speakerdeck.com/takutakahashi/ceph-on-zfs
I was impressed when I found this slide deck and it was in japanese, and from a thoroughly japanese company here. If you don't happen to know japanese, just go like... 3 slides in and you can see the creator is from GMO, also there are some images.
If you're not into infra you might as well stop reading here, but basically the idea is to get durable crash-resistant replicated storage on kubernetes by actually combining two CSI storage providers:
- Run ZFS as your on-disk file system (for absolute durability without bitrot and some of the other benefits) for each node
- Add the openebs/zfs-localpv[0] to dynamically provision zvols with say xfs or ext4 to make drives for ceph to consume
- Add Ceph via Rook[1] to get synchronous remote replication on every write (if you want it), and give ceph the drives you made (the zvol(s))
- Expose storage to your kubernetes cluster that is replicated (depending on how you set up ceph) and easy to back up and/or duplicate at the node level (w/ zfs send). You can back up at multiple levels, nodes themselves (with some replication lag since zfs doesn't so sync replication) and the workloads that run on them (which are sync replicated across the network).
There is some overlap in these tools -- ceph's relatively new bluestore engine does checksumming now and self-heals, so there's not so much reason to use ZFS at the lowest level at all, but ZFS does have some features that ceph doesn't, and is somewhat easier to manage with less moving parts in user space.
[0]: https://github.com/openebs/zfs-localpv/
[1]: https://github.com/rook/
"Tokyo' Internet Jesus" for calling GMO's CEO is really funny. IMO no one (except employee?) think he's Jesus. GMO is known for bad acts (most acts are previous but still does some) for engineers. Onamae.com is known as worst domain registrar for many reasons for a long time (maybe similar to GoDaddy).
https://www.kumagai.com/?pid=6888
Apparently this is his home page. What a fascinating website and approach. It looks very hand rolled. The discipline he recounts aligns with many other very successful people as well.
Apparently this is his home page. What a fascinating website and approach. It looks very hand rolled. The discipline he recounts aligns with many other very successful people as well.
Yeah...the "lol" thing is off-putting though. Makes it feel like I'm reading an 11 year olds diary.
Analogy fails, it’s internet Pope not internet Jesus
The whole "secret creed" angle in the headline is pure sensationalism. Half the article doesn't even talk about it, and even the way they describe it sounds like a normal "business values" kind of deal, maybe expressed in a weird way. You wouldn't call Bezos' leadership principles a "creed" for Amazon's management, would you?
The point of these religion and cult references is to try to answer the existential question that the market asks of any conglomerate.
How are you better together than broken up?
Given the huge negative valuation of the parent against the sum of the children, I can imagine how much pressure Kumagai must have to exert to counter the market's disintegrative forces.
How are you better together than broken up?
Given the huge negative valuation of the parent against the sum of the children, I can imagine how much pressure Kumagai must have to exert to counter the market's disintegrative forces.
One especially sinister way of looking at this is to compare it with The Grail in Garth Ennis's Preacher comics. They control and command not only CEOs but Presidents, Prime Ministers, and organized crime, all over the world, but clandestinely. If you like satire with a touch of the supernatural, check it out (not for the faint of heart):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)
Reading this article, I feel like I read a satire?
I mean come on, comparing your executives to priests and yourself to Jesus has to be on the high end of arrogancy?
Especially when your company is not THAT kind of a big deal. If we convert the yen to usd, his "conglomerate" which is almost 30 years old had revenues of $2 billion dollars?
Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of money, but if you are going to compare yourself to Jesus then better start pumping those numbers..
I mean come on, comparing your executives to priests and yourself to Jesus has to be on the high end of arrogancy?
Especially when your company is not THAT kind of a big deal. If we convert the yen to usd, his "conglomerate" which is almost 30 years old had revenues of $2 billion dollars?
Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of money, but if you are going to compare yourself to Jesus then better start pumping those numbers..
The better comparison was the zaibatsu (which was actually legitimized by the emperor [a Shinto God] at the time)
which probably will have backlash by the Japanese society. Also if he compares it to other <insert other religion prophet/god here>, also get backlash. It is better for him to compare himself to Jesus.
[deleted]
I wouldn't mind hearing from a Japanese person if comparing yourself to jesus has the same creepy vibe as it does in the west. It may not.
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What are Jesus' numbers? I found Vatican's financial report, it seems to be a significantly smaller economy than that conglomerate:
http://www.ior.va/content/dam/ior/documenti/rapporto-annuale...
http://www.ior.va/content/dam/ior/documenti/rapporto-annuale...
Jesus has significant but un-exercised IP rights on a lot of technologies underpinning the modern economy (e.g., all the waters under heaven, dry land, every living creature that moveth, etc.)
This^ Most under-rated comment ever.
Plus, maybe if you counted all the skisms (Mormonism, Protestant, etc.) i'm sure it'd outrank GMO.
Plus, maybe if you counted all the skisms (Mormonism, Protestant, etc.) i'm sure it'd outrank GMO.
Don't forget the ur-patent: There is nothing new under the sun.
And his father's Universal Replicator: creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). It has to be a heavily guarded secret, otherwise it would ruin physics as we know it.
According to [1], the Church is estimated to own over 170 million acres worldwide. Assuming that property is distributed evenly by land area, let's estimate that the Catholic church owns ~3.5 million acres in the United States and ~1.75 million in Europe (minus Russia). The value ranges from something like $100 million for an acre in NYC to $1,000/acre in Wyoming so even if you price each acre as Wyoming uninhabited wilderness they'd have $3.5 billion in assets. Considering how big churches, hospitals, and schools are and where they're built, I'd assume their assets average closer to $10k or $100k per acre, putting their wealth in the United States alone at $35 to 350 billion. In Europe, the numbers are probably even more skewed towards the higher end.
As long as the global average per acre is $500 or more, they've got at least a trillion in wealth. Unlike the corporation, the Church is more decentralized and structured such that most of the revenue moving through that property (donations, tithes, salaries, maintenance, etc.) doesn't show up on the books.
[1] https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/18/16483194/catholic-chur...
As long as the global average per acre is $500 or more, they've got at least a trillion in wealth. Unlike the corporation, the Church is more decentralized and structured such that most of the revenue moving through that property (donations, tithes, salaries, maintenance, etc.) doesn't show up on the books.
[1] https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/18/16483194/catholic-chur...
That’s not a liquid asset. If you sell your Church property in a neighborhood then you no longer exist there, and have automatically failed your duty as a Church.
Unlike a regular business or charity, a church is expected to exist in perpetuity so long as there are people in the area.
Unlike a regular business or charity, a church is expected to exist in perpetuity so long as there are people in the area.
The Catholic church doesn’t globally pool their wealth.
“ In 2010, the Vatican had an income of $326 million and ran a $13 million budget surplus, but in 2011 the Vatican ran a $19 million deficit. And while some of that money obviously went to maintaining church buildings and art, much of it also went to charitable causes.
Recent re-evaluations of Vatican assets show that the Vatican has approximately $1 billion in total assets. For comparison, Harvard University’s endowment is over $30 billion. So, relatively speaking, the Catholic Church is not really wealthy, and no one blames museums for maintaining their art work and structures. “
The calculation above is like adding up all the wealth of people with the last name Smith.
“ In 2010, the Vatican had an income of $326 million and ran a $13 million budget surplus, but in 2011 the Vatican ran a $19 million deficit. And while some of that money obviously went to maintaining church buildings and art, much of it also went to charitable causes.
Recent re-evaluations of Vatican assets show that the Vatican has approximately $1 billion in total assets. For comparison, Harvard University’s endowment is over $30 billion. So, relatively speaking, the Catholic Church is not really wealthy, and no one blames museums for maintaining their art work and structures. “
The calculation above is like adding up all the wealth of people with the last name Smith.
The Vatican isn't Jesus, either. Your comment completely misses the mark.
No, but according to doctrine, the Church is his bride, so it ought to be under a joint account at least.
I think comparing yourself to Jesus probably has a different connotation in a Japanese context.
In Japanese context: Normally no one comparing to Jesus.
Eh, I dunno. Jesus isn't exactly unknown to the Japanese, even if Christianity itself isn't a very common religion there. It's sort of like Buddha in the West.
The comparison was meant to emphasize that the organization views his creed as gospel, and all his executives practice what he preaches. He wasn't saying he had the scope or influence of Jesus.
Valley is full of bro’s talking about how they are the Jobs and the nerd they found is the Wozniak. Why not go up to an even more successful founder?
Is this any different in character from the messianic CEOs of Silicon Valley?
It seems purposeful that more internet startups have innuendo in their names. (GroupOn competitor)
1. Have a set of trusted high level people and reward loyalty above all else.
2. Have an army of collective, group-minded people who will buy into and follow your creed. (From the article: “We only have people in the group who share our vision. But if you don’t share the vision, please go somewhere else.”, which is similar to The Sony Way and Toyota's approach in the 70s, all the way back to the daimyo in the middle ages).
3. Give your army the feeling that you'll take care of them for life.
4. Find out what the competition is doing and copy them, only better. (From the article: For example, rivals must be monitored daily, and when one differentiates itself in the market, a GMO company must match it within a day or two).
5. Have mantras, rituals, etc to keep an air of mysticism to the leadership and their cause.
This has been Japan's MO since medieval times, and it works in Japan because that's part of the personality of their country. Every other country has its own personality, and thus its own optimal way of doing things. Sometimes it gives them an international edge, sometimes it doesn't.