『Disrupting Japan』のカバーアート

Disrupting Japan

Disrupting Japan

著者： Tim Romero
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Disrupting Japan gives you candid, in-depth insights from the startup founders, VCs, and leaders who are reshaping Japan.Tim Romero マネジメント・リーダーシップ リーダーシップ 政治・政府 旅行記・解説 社会科学 経済学
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  • The future of AI looks very different in Japan

    The future of AI looks very different in Japan
    2026/06/22
    Japan is much further ahead in real AI deployment than most people realize. Today we talk with David Ha, CEO of Sakana AI, Japan's clearly most valuable, and arguably most innovative, AI startup, and he explains how Japanese enterprises are using AI in production environments today. We talk about selling advanced software to conservative enterprises, how Sakana is customizing existing LLMs to fit Japanese sensibilities, and why smaller, more flexible routing models will likely win out over the massive, expensive frontier models. David also shares some great advice for anyone starting a startup in Japan. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes When it's best build for Japan instead of (or before) going global How to raise money overseas as a KK and raise large rounds in Japan It's actually very easy to start a startup in Japan Sakana AI's three-stage go-to-market strategy The tradeoffs between B2B and B2C strategies in Japan How to drive AI adoption in the Japanese enterprise Designing AI workflows that prevent users from outsourcing decision making Why routing models will win in the market over frontier models What "data sovereignty" actually means in practice in Japan How Sakana AI is adapting existing models to make them reflect Japanese sensibilities David's best advice to founders in Japan Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Sakana AI Follow them on Twitter @SakanaAILabs Connect with Sakana on LinkedIn Follow David on Twitter @hardmaru Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs. I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. To say that AI is hot right now understates the mania. AI startups accounted for over 60% of global VC investment in 2025, and things are on track to be even more AI-focused this year. And while investor and media attention remain stubbornly focused on the U.S. and China, things are moving surprisingly fast here in Japan, although things are moving in a slightly different direction. Today we sit down with David Ha, the co-founder and CEO of Sakana AI, Japan's most valuable and arguably most innovative AI startup. Now this episode's a bit longer than usual, but it is well worth your time, because by the end, you'll understand why the frontier model companies, the open AIs, the Anthropics, might be pursuing a flawed and very expensive strategy, and why there's a real chance for Japan to be a global leader here. In fact, as David explains, enterprise AI adoption in Japan is far more advanced than most people realize. And we're talking about actual production deployments here, not just POCs and press releases, but actual daily use. Now David and I talk about raising capital from both Japanese and foreign VCs, the global importance of AI sovereignty, the best way to drive AI adoption in large conservative Japanese companies, and why AI use in Japan is more widespread than you probably expect. But you know, David tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, we're sitting here with David Ha, the co-founder and CEO of Sakana AI. So, thanks for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it. David: Awesome. Yeah, it's actually really great to have a chat with you, Tim. I mean, as you know, I've been following your podcast for more than a decade before I started a company. Tim: I mean, I love to hear that. I honestly do. Nothing makes me happier. David: Yeah. I mean, I have no idea that I would start a company like 10 years ago. Tim: Let's start with the founding, because the Sakana AI team is really an interesting test case in Japan, I think. So, the founding team itself, it's a mixture of foreigners and Japanese. Tell me about it. Tell me how it came to be, how the three of you got connected and thought this was a good idea. David: It's a really unique, I would say, experiment. I founded this company a little bit less than three years ago. It's myself, David Ha, and Llion Jones, my colleague at Google, who was one of the co-inventors of the transformer architecture, the T in ChatGPT. And when you start a company in Japan, it cannot just be two foreigner guys, especially if you want to be the frontier AI company in Japan. But luckily, I was able to recruit my friend Ren Ito, who used to work at Mercari. And he was sent to Mercari Europe as well to run Mercari, one of the original unicorns. Tim: So, how did you know Ren? David: We worked together at different startup events before. Earlier, also, I worked at another startup briefly called Stability AI. At that time, Ren was working in the UK for that company, and I was working as a contractor remotely in Japan. So, we connected there. Tim: And you were kind of like, hey, I've got a better idea. David: Yeah, something like that. The best way to meet co-founders and colleagues is when you're working at other startups. And when you're working at other companies. Tim: I...
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    1 時間 8 分
  • Why Japanese Femtech is so different

    Why Japanese Femtech is so different
    2026/05/25
    Things don't always go as planned. In fact, they usually don't. Four years ago, femtech was both a rapidly-growing product category and a nationwide movement vocally championed by politicians, industry, and the media. As the market began to grow, however, Japan's incumbents took note and took action. The femtech social movement began to decouple from the products. Today we talk with Amina Sugimoto about the future of femtech in Japan, the fragile nature of public promises in the face of corporate lobbying, the likely impact of Prime Minister Takaichi on femtech, and how, despite aggressive lobbying by the incumbents, foreign femtech products are starting to enter the Japanese market. There is a lot of important advice for anyone thinking of entering the Japanese market. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes What femTech means in Japan Why its hard for men to invest in femtech -- even when they want to The transformation of femtech in Japan Massive social and political support does not always translate to sales How Japanese incumbents (still) stifle innovation The core challenge in introducing new innovation in Japan Prime Minister Takaichi's likely impact on femtech in Japan What other innovators should learn from femtech in Japan WHat's next for femtech in Japan Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Fermata Follow Fermata on Twitter @hello_fermata Friend Amina on Facebook The Kegg Crowdfunding Page Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs. I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. FemTech is, well, it's just different in Japan. FemTech in Japan is part market disruption, part social movement, part technological innovation, and part bureaucratic red tape. It's something that everyone seems to get behind and support, but at the same time, that support is often slow, sometimes very slow, to translate into real action. Well, today we sit down once again with Amina Sugimoto, founder of Fermata. And Amina is absolutely on the forefront of Japanese FemTech, women's health, and the regulatory challenges that these products face in Japan. Now, since we last had the chance to catch up with Amina three years ago, Fermata has had a change of fortunes and a change of strategy. Amina saw the growing social movement that powered FemTech in the early days start to decouple from the technology and take on a life of its own. And so she restructured Fermata, shrinking the team of 35 down to a small core team, and then refocusing and rebuilding. Amina and I talk about why FemTech is having so much trouble crossing the chasm in Japan, what happens when Japanese incumbents decide they don't want you in their market, and what's really going to be at stake for women's health in Japan over the next five years. But you know, Amina tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, we're sitting here with Amina Sugimoto, the founder of Fermata, and one of the most active advocates for FemTech in Japan. So, thanks for sitting down with us and welcome back. Amina: Thank you so much for having me again. I'm super excited for this. Tim: So, we've got a lot to cover because so much has happened in I guess the last three years since you were on the show last. Just to kind of set the stage, like the word FemTech, it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So, what is FemTech? Amina: So yeah, it does mean a lot of different things for different people. Initially, the term itself, people started using it around 2017, I think 18-ish. And it used to be a term that being used between investors and entrepreneurs. And at the time, a lot of sort of entrepreneurs working in sort of women's health, they were having a hard time getting investment. So, they came up with a term to communicate with investors. And it literally sort of back then means the latest technology being applied on women's health. So, it was very broad back then. Tim: So originally, it was more of a financing, an investor-focused term, rather than a consumer-focused. Amina: Yes. It really was. Tim: Interesting. Amina: Because back then, FemTech, edotech, I think all these terms started to sort of appear. Back then, and it still is, the majority of people working in finance are men. And it's not like men's fault, but it's just difficult to communicate about the industry. Like this product is for menstruation, this product fertility, rather than saying that the FemTech sounded a bit easier for investors to sort of... Tim: And I see what you mean. It's not really discrimination exactly. It's just investors tend to invest in what they know. Amina: Or what they like, or what... Tim: What they understand, I mean. Amina: Exactly, exactly. So, there was a gender imbalance within the investor world. And so the term then was used to raise money. Tim: But now it's taken on a much, much ...
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    36 分
  • The real Luddites would have loved AI

    The real Luddites would have loved AI
    2026/04/27
    Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most innovative founders and VCs. This is our 250th episode, and I wanted to give you something special; something I have been thinking about more and more as my career in startups and venture capital has developed. Leave a comment Today we are going to talk about a group of people who are perhaps the most reviled and maligned by technologists and innovators worldwide. People who stand in opposition to everything innovators hold dear. Today we are going to talk about the Luddites — those individuals who through a combination of ignorance and shortsightedness opposed technology and change. But that’s not really true. The Luddites were not who you think they were. In fact, almost everything you have ever been told about them is wrong. In truth, the Luddites were not really opposed to new technology. Not even when it threatened their livelihoods. There is growing concern today about AI taking our jobs, but if AI had emerged 220 years ago, the Luddites would have embraced it. Far more important, they would have held a much better understanding of the true dangers posed by today's new business models than do most of the AI advocates or critics talking about it today. Although the Luddites are accused of opposing the very technology that resulted in the incredible progress and the rise of living standards that we have experienced over the past 200 years, that’s simply not the case. In fact, as you’ll see, although the higher living standards and shared prosperity enabled by the technology of the industrial revolution are undeniable, we actually have the Luddites, and not the technology, to thank for that. The Luddite in the Mirror So who exactly were the Luddites? You have probably heard that they were cloth workers in late 18th century England who, early in the industrial revolution, saw their livelihoods threatened by the new textile factories, and they tried to shut down those factories by destroying automated looms and other textile equipment. That much is completely true. The important question, however, and the one with a wildly misunderstood answer is “Why?” “Why were the Luddites breaking machines and shutting down textile factories?” The mythology is that Luddites rejected the new technology because they benefited from the old system. Rather than embrace technology which would lift millions out of poverty, lengthen lifespans, and lead to greater shared prosperity, the Luddites selfishly wanted the world to stay as it was. They were backward-looking rubes who simply could not see the bigger picture. And that, all of that, every single word of that, is simply wrong. If anything, the Luddites were alarmed because they saw the big picture far too clearly. So let’s take a quick step back into the world of the Luddites and see just how much like us they really were. And also see that although the technologies are completely different, how the new business models of the industrial age changed society in very much the same ways as the new business models of our emerging AI age. As the industrial revolution was gaining momentum in the closing decades of the 1700s, textiles were one of England’s most important and profitable exports, and they were manufactured using what was called the “domestic system.” Textile workers worked with their own machines in their own workshops. Some of the more enterprising had multiple machines and employed others. The work was distributed, done mostly at home, and the finished product delivered to merchants. This system is where the English term “cottage industry”comes from. By and large, these clothworkers did not have leisurely or even particularly comfortable lives, but it was a better living than agricultural work and much better than most of the newly emerging factory jobs. What these clothworkers did have, however, and what they were very afraid of losing, was a degree of economic freedom. The freedom to negotiate fair prices with their customers and, based on those negotiations, the freedom to decide what and how much they would produce. These proto-Luddites had no problems with machinery or technology. They used and maintained machinery. They experimented with and developed technology. What they objected to was not the new technology, but the new business models. To understand the Luddite’s position here, we need to understand that new technology was not the only thing powering England’s industrial expansion. These new factories were also powered by some of the most horrific forms of child labor imaginable. Children as young as six were forced to work 14 to 16-hour shifts crawling under machinery to recover scraps of cloth and reaching into running machines to untangle threads and remove debris. Some business owners even made deals with the government to take orphans off public hands and put them to work in their factories. And to be absolutely clear, these children were not paid....
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    33 分
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