The book starts out with Morita's personal history and the very early days of what became Sony. It's a dramatic beginning: Morita's background in physics and position in the Imperial Navy gave him insight into exactly what happened at Hiroshima before the government stated so publicly. His response was to immediately focus on the future, which involved splitting from his centuries-old family business to build a business that will sell... whatever it is you're supposed to sell to a country that's been reduced to ash.

His forward-thinking and optimism in those moments gives me pause and he elaborates on the origin of that mindset later in the book. His explanations put a lot of Japanese history into context.

Much of the rest of the book is focused on how he looks at business, how the Japanese look at business, and how those views differ from Americans. The book is only 300-and-some-odd pages, but the density of knowledge is impressive.

Sony itself is largely on the periphery. Morita will happily discuss the technical side of things, but those details are fleeting, and readers looking for a history of technological evolution (such as myself) aren't going to find much on that topic.

Still though, when someone of Morita-san's stature takes the time to explain things, you'd do well to listen. The book is an amusing read: he has a brisk writing style and is frequently funny. Lots of nuggets of knowledge, not only in business but in life, are packed in here.

I enjoyed my time with the book, even though it wasn't the technical history I was initially looking for.