Putting zaibatsu coal money into domestic electrical machinery (1915)

A founding that was really a placement of capital

The character of this founding lies in the fact that capital earned by a zaibatsu in coal — a mature industry — was redirected into the immature field of domestic electrical machinery, which Japan was still importing. Yasukawa Keiichiro put up the money and left the running of it alone; his son Daigoro, an engineer, chose electrical machinery. Separating the supplier of capital from the bearer of the technology, and moving that capital out of the industry that was actually earning, was the decision. That it began from the ideal that a good product will sell marks it as a company started by an engineer.

That ideal came back as seventeen years of losses, stopped by the wall of the incumbents. Taking on Hitachi and Shibaura Seisakusho head-on as a full-line heavy-electrical maker was beyond a newcomer’s means. The company survived only because zaibatsu capital earned from coal went on absorbing the losses. Where to place the money you have made, and how long to keep company with an ideal — Yaskawa’s history begins with the questions this founding decision left behind.