Peter Landers

電通グループ佐野傑次期社長　努力惜しまぬ「天才」 - 日本経済新聞 電通グループは13日、中核事業会社である電通の佐野傑社長（55）が社長に昇格する人事を発表した。日焼けした肌に強気の言動。社内では「天才」と呼ばれ、後輩からは「頼れる兄貴肌」と評される。ただ、垣間見えるのはストイックな努力家の顔だ。原点は中学2年生だった。ジャーナリストの田原総一朗氏が書いたルポルタージュ「電通」を読み、黒子として社会を動かす存在に憧れを抱いた。授業終わりのホームルームで「将来

Dentsu, the company criticized for working its employees to death, has picked as its next CEO a guy who does nothing but work. He decided to apply there after reading a book by Tahara Sōichirō that depicted the company as trying to brainwash Japanese people. www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZ...

Dentsu Launches Global Rollout of "Culture For Growth" Program, Supporting Corporate Culture Transformation Efforts - News - DENTSU INC. Dentsu Inc. (President & CEO: Takeshi Sano; Head Office: Tokyo) today announced the full-scale global rollout of “Culture For Growth”*1, a program unveiled in July 2024 that leverages proprietary tool...

Now it is saying its business is "to support corporate culture transformation" at clients. OK. www.dentsu.co.jp/en/news/rele...

In its glory years, Dentsu's bread-and-butter was acting as a broker for scarce prime-time TV ad space. Japanese still watch more broadcast TV than Americans but it is hard to see much enduring value in that business.

This comes just three months after Dentsu said everything was getting better. No wonder the CEO is getting axed.

決算:電通Gが過去最大の赤字、次期社長は佐野傑氏に　海外事業不振で損失 - 日本経済新聞 電通グループの2025年12月期の連結最終損益（国際会計基準）が過去最大の赤字だったことが12日わかった。海外事業の買収に関わる損失が発生し、赤字額は前の期（1921億円の赤字）から大きく膨らむ。配当は初のゼロとする。五十嵐博社長（65）が退任し、中核会社の電通の佐野傑社長（55）が次期社長に就く人事も固めた。新体制で再建を急ぐ。13日に決算や社長人事などを発表する。25年12月期の最終赤字額

It seems Dentsu lost about $2 billion last year, its fifth year out of the last seven in the red. The idea that a Japanese ad agency would run Western ad and PR agencies better than their previous owners was flawed, I daresay. www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZ...

Bafflement with Bezos The whole debacle of the Washington Post brand hara-kiri last week dispatched the myth that a tech billionaire could save serious journalism.

Tina Brown: “The fashion to write off legacy media as a dinosaur trade extinguished by the headwinds of change fails to ask why Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker was able to crisply revitalize that paper of record.”

YouTube video by PIVOT 公式チャンネル 【日経平均3万8千円台の理由】海外投資家の目線で徹底解説／注目の個別銘柄／上昇はいつまで続く／どんな外国人が買っているのか／S&P500の動向など世界の動きと比べていく／アメリカ大統領選による影響は？

Two years ago Jesper Koll predicted the Nikkei would hit 55,000 by 2025. He was off by a few weeks, but as market predictions go, this one was about as good as they get. Today, the Nikkei closed above 55,000 for the first time. Congrats to Jesper. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CX6...

Takaichi inherited much of her ideology from Abe, who said in his memoirs that he believed MOF would rather destroy the nation than see its parochial interests harmed. (MOF disagrees, naturally.) I would watch for what kind of retribution she exacts.

Since then, Asahi and certain bureaucrats have been sniping at Takaichi, suggesting that she misspoke and that business is angry at her. It was the kind of whisper campaign Beijing hoped for, but with the opposite of the intended effect.

Her initial Taiwan comment was barely mentioned by Nikkei but led the Asahi, which suggested that China would react harshly. It did.

If China thought it could peel off Japanese support for Takaichi through relentless attacks … call that a fail.

Something to keep in mind the next time you read a tech journalist claiming that AI is about to discover the next wonder drug. If I've learned anything from @dereklowe.bsky.social, it's that drug discovery isn't so easy.

武田薬品、京大とのiPS細胞共同研究を終了　10年で新薬得られず - 日本経済新聞 武田薬品工業と京都大学iPS細胞研究所（CiRA）は3日、10年間続いたiPS細胞の産学連携研究を2025年度末に終了すると発表した。人材育成や基盤技術の蓄積では成果を残した一方、具体的な新薬にはつながらなかった。終了する共同研究プログラム「T-CiRA」は16年度にスタートし、武田が10年間で200億円の研究費用を提供する、日本の製薬業界では最大規模の産学連携だった。武田には人材交流を通じて

I consider this a failure of journalism more than of medicine. As Yamanaka says, advances in basic research can take decades to translate into patient care. Yet how many hundreds of articles did Nikkei etc. write in the 2010s suggesting clinical advances were imminent?
www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZ...

It took a 19-hour flight but I should be safe from snowstorms and 10-degree (F) weather for the time being.

Two issues with Changi-JFK flight:
1) 17 straight hours in the air
2) Discovering it’s 20 degrees F on arrival (it was 80 when I left my apt)
Shouganai

Nikkei print circulation falls to 1.25 million, down about 6% from 1.33 million a year ago and down more than 50% from a decade ago. We don’t know how many 押し紙 undistributed newspapers they are printing so real circulation may be under 1 million. Still a lot for this day and age.

プルデンシャル生命、顧客500人から着服など31億円　社長辞任へ：朝日新聞 プルデンシャル生命保険の社員ら約100人が、約500人の顧客に対し、金銭をだまし取ったり、お金を借りて返さなかったりといった不適切な行為をしていたことが、同社の社内調査で分かった。顧客から受け取った…

It’s a problem if one employee is stealing money from customers, but if a hundred of them are doing it … maybe that’s your business model?
digital.asahi.com/articles/ASV...

国会図書館、電子化進む　所蔵2割・486万点を一括検索　文献の深掘り容易に - 日本経済新聞 国立国会図書館（東京・千代田）が蔵書のオンライン公開を始めてから25年余り。外国刊行物を除く所蔵資料の2割に当たる486万点が電子化され、デジタルコレクションに収録されている。光学式文字読み取り装置（OCR）の発達により、膨大な蔵書を全文検索し、知りたいことがどの本のどこに書かれているのか簡単に分かるようになった。さまざまな学術分野で研究の掘り下げに役立てられている。「近代以降の文献を調べるに

For how long have Japanese said “Itadakimasu” before a meal? Centuries, right? Nope, first written citation is from 1891.
www.nikkei.com/article/DGKK...

冬の六義園 Rikugien (Komagome, Tokyo) in winter

お正月の万両 Manryō (Ardisia crenata) to mark the New Year in Japan.

元旦のキンギョソウ　New Year’s snapdragon

Singapore food is good, but why isn’t it better? Here are four theories Can Singapore food be better? Are our cooks not good enough? Or is the emphasis on hygiene holding us back? Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

“Food in Singapore is not that good,” according to a Straits Times writer. (Quoted from the text—headline plays down the criticism) www.straitstimes.com/opinion/sing...

大ヒット本「日本人の英語」　ピーターセンさんが語る現代の英語学習：朝日新聞 岩波新書に「日本人の英語」という本がある。昭和末期の刊行で、著者は米国出身でいまは明治大学名誉教授となったマーク・ピーターセンさん。日本人が陥りがちな英語の間違いをユーモラスに解説して、ベストセラー…

79-year-old author of widely read book for Japanese learning English says he's been in Japan for more than 40 years and is still learning new Japanese words all the time. Me too.
www.asahi.com/articles/AST...

A big renovation project may lead to some interesting archeological finds at St. Mary’s Church in Lübeck where Dietrich Buxtehude once served as music director, says today’s Lübecker Nachrichten

Cliche alert: 一丁目一番地, referring to the 1-1 address at the center of a district (e.g. 1-1 Otemachi) as a metaphor for centrality, is now badly overused. Got a little nauseated reading a Nikkei reporter trotting it out yet again. Alternatives: 看板政策、目玉政策, 中心 etc.

It’s a natural mistake but someone with greater knowledge of the Japanese language than Mazda’s male design staff would have been on the alert for idiosyncratic kanji readings. www.mazda.com/content/dam/...

An SUV That Isn’t Built Like a McMansion In a segment that favors immense proportions, the handsome Mazda CX-90 is betting that many drivers want something a little less gargantuan.

The stitching technique kagari-nui can be written 掛縫 but someone at Mazda incorrectly thought the reading of the characters was kakenui. Now this incorrect reading has been enshrined in their marketing and Americans think it is a real Japanese word.

www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...

R.I.P.: Japanese Bank Tower That Embodied Nation’s Industrial Might A bank tower that once stood at the center of Japan’s postwar industrial power will start to be demolished Saturday, one of several boom-era structures being torn down against the will of architectura...

And I just learned that the hotel where I stayed on that first trip, now called the Grand Prince Hotel Shin Takanawa, will close by March 2027 and be torn down. It was designed by architect Togo Murano, whose works often meet the wrecking ball. www.wsj.com/articles/r-i...

品川駅西側2つの歩道橋撤去　巨大駅前広場と環状4号線、進む大改造 - 日本経済新聞 品川駅西口（高輪口）からJR高輪ゲートウェイ駅へと向かう国道15号（第一京浜）の上空を、巨大な駅前広場が覆い、幹線道路の環状4号が横断する――。品川駅前の風景をがらりと変える大改造が、2030年代以降の完成を視野に着実に進んでいる。25年11月16日未明、国道15号を横断する2カ所の歩道橋「品川駅前歩道橋」「高輪歩道橋」の撤去が同時に完了し、整備事業が一歩前進した。京急本線を地上化、品川駅の東西自...

This makes me nostalgic because I used that bridge several times on my first visit to Japan in the late 1980s. Shinagawa's station then was a mere shack compared to today's and now the west exit, too, will be transformed. www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZ...

In reality, we say “menu item,” “dish,” “offering” etc.