Gen Kanai | Tech in Japan: How Google Won, eBay Lost, and Why Twitter Couldn’t Lose, & Lessons Learned Growing Mozilla in Asia

In this episode of The Negotiation, we had the opportunity to talk to someone who has decades of experience working with some of today’s top tech company’s in both Japan and China, Gen Kanai. Gen is a Japanese-American who has worked with Toyota USA, Sony USA, Sony Japan, Digital Garage, Mozilla, and most recently, Animoca Brands. Throughout this discussion, Gen gives us a history lesson on why eBay failed and Yahoo won with an auction platform in Japan, and how Google won in Japan in spite of itself simply because Yahoo Japan chose them as their preferred search engine instead of the Yahoo US – favored, Bing. We talk about how Twitter has been such a large success in Japan and that anonymity is an underlying reason why. We also discuss the impact China can have on a US-based tech company through a look back at why, after a trip to China, Snapchat’s CEO demanded changes to their platform that their user-base simply wasn’t ready for. We end the show with some important takeaways on how to be success-ready when entering Asian markets like China or Japan. Enjoy!