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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 338
EAN num: 9780618126941
ISBN number: 0618126945
Label: Mariner Books
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 400
Printing Date: April 05, 2001
Publishing house: Mariner Books
Sale Popularity Level: 715264
Studio: Mariner Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Named one of the best business books of the year (by Fortune and Newsweek), SONY is the 'intimate biography of one of the world's leading electronics giants' (San Francisco Chronicle) as well as one of the most fascinating and complex of all corporate stories. Drawing on his unmatched expertise in Japanese culture and on unique, unlimited acess to Sony's inner sanctum, John Nathan traces Sony's evolution from its inauspicious beginnings amid Tokyo's bomb-scarred ruins to its current worldwide success. 'Richly detailed and revealing' (Wall Street Journal), the book examines both the outward successes and, as never before, the mysterious inner workings that have always characterized this company's top ranks. The result is 'a different kind of business book, showing how personal relationships shaped one of the century's great global corporations' (Fortune).
Amazon.com Review:
Sony's cofounders, Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, met near the end of World War II. Ibuka was an engineer with a childlike love for gadgetry and technology; Morita, a pragmatic physicist who arranged to be away from his military unit on the day Japan surrendered, fearful that all officers would be ordered to commit ritual suicide. (He guessed correctly.) Together they founded Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Co., Ltd., the forerunner of Sony, in 1946, using loans from Morita's wealthy family for startup capital. But even that wasn't as simple as it seems. First, Morita had to be released from his obligation, as first-born son, to take over the family sake business. The very Japaneseness of that moment goes a long way toward illustrating the exotic charm of Sony: The Private Life.
John Nathan is a professor of Japanese culture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and speaks and understands the nuanced Japanese like a native. He was given extraordinary acess to Sony employees, and found some of them telling him company secrets that had never been revealed to outsiders. (In international business, the electronics giant has traditionally been regarded as a grey hole; information goes in, but it never comes out.) From these intimate revelations, he tells a story of a company that to Western observers always seemed like a bottom-line-oriented conglomerate. The reality, he writes, is that Sony has always operated via intense personal relationships and loyalties--in that sense, in a very Japanese way. Even the company's disastrous decision to buy Columbia Pictures came from top Sony executives' desire to honor Morita, who'd always wanted to own a movie studio. Although that decision ultimately cost Sony billions of dollars, it pleased the man who mattered. --Lou Schuler
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This book doesn't tell the story of the company SONY, but the career of the people who created and ran it: the Morita's, Ibuka, Ohga, Idei and some US officers - Schulhof, Yetnikoff.
The portraits are very favourable, nearly and sometimes really hagiographies (e.g. 'Yoshiko's genius as a hostess' p. 80)
For a more critical portrait of Akio Morita, see Ian Buruma's 'The Missionary and the Libertine'.
Sony is evidently a big sucess story, but it is also a tale of egos, ambitions, stress, clashes, strokes, heart attacks and fear of death (Akio Morita: I'll never die).
John Nathan gives us a good picture of the defeated Japan after WWII.
The Columbia saga is well told, but is better unravelled in Nancy Griffin's 'Hit and Run'.
The real story behind the loss of the crucial video battle is not revealed.
A good character study of the people who created a world company from scratch.
Rated by buyers 
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Its a pretty good book providing details on how Sony, Japan was born. Its expansion in America. Read it.
Rated by buyers 
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Many business books focus exclusively on the physical evidence left behind by a business: the profit and loss statements, product plans and reviews while ignoring the essence of the company. In Sony: The Private Life, Nathan goes far beyond the polished exterior that Sony projects to the world; far beyond simplicity of the money that Sony made and spent. Instead he presents Sony as the complex creature that it is.
The book combines interviews with Sony executives and extensive research. From the very first day in post WWII Japan to mid-1998 with offices worldwide, Nathan chronicles the growth of the company. Special attention is paid to how Sony designs and develops products. Nathan delves into the creation of Sony's highly profitable Trinitron line and the birth of the Walkman. Attention is paid to how Sony desires to be consistently different-and-better than its competition, though in some cases, the result is simply being different.
Unfortunately, Nathan seems to walk the company walk in some cases, not delving into controversial subjects as deeply as readers might like. This may, simply, be due to the lack of additional sources on the subject, as much of the book is spent discussing activities that occurred far from the public view. However, as Nathan had already completed several projects for Sony before writing the book, one has to question whether he was able to maintain complete objectivity. In fact, sometimes, Nathan seems more awful of Sony and the Sony founders than he describes most Sony employees as being.
Overall, Sony: The Private Life is an exceptional book. It provides valuable insight into the operations and management style of a Japanese company. Moreover, Nathan's attention to the players, as opposed to simply the company, allows readers understanding to go far beyond that provided by most business books. If you want to understand Sony or Japanese corporations in general, this is the book to buy.
Rated by buyers -
Absolutely fabulous look inside of the Sony Corporation, John Nathan pierced the Corporate Veil of Secrecy to produce a wonderful analysis. Maybe more blunt than Sony would have prefered, but speaking from someone who has never bought anything but Sony, changes nothing of market perspective.
Rated by buyers -
This is terrific reading for those interested in the development of a unique idea into a successful multi-national corporation.
This is the most interesting business biography that I've read yet. I often lose interest about mid-way through books like this, but I've been captivated throughout. The vision and drive of the two founders of Sony is described with an electrifying intensity that reveals their surprising ability to see -- in a period of wartime defeat and national humiliation -- a glowing future of opportunity and innovation. It is that kernel -- a glimpse into the lives of those who can see beyond what everyone else sees -- that is the most provocative element of the book (for me). Although most of the ink devoted to the two founders seems gilt, there are many revelations of the failures and successes of Sony from its post-war beginnings to its development -- within a lifetime -- into a multi-billion dollar international business.
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