If you’re spending 10% on unproductive expenses (like offices), you will lose to superior capital allocators. What is a business? It’s a capital allocation vehicle.If a company spends 10%+ it’s a big red flag.

Spend less than 1% of operating profit on your headquarters offices.

Invest your income into assets, R&D, and education. The people spending their money on designer clothes and luxury cars have compounding costs (the opposite of compounding returns).

When you see a company spending its money on lavish dinners or other luxuries, it’s a leading indicator that the company will go bankrupt.

Akio was able to pinpoint bad managers because many of their subordinates would request to be moved. This allowed employees with bad managers to get a new manager without having to quit and go to a different company.

Sony set up a system where employees working in one department could confidentially apply for another department.

You can get critics for a very low cost-get the best one you can as early as possible. Interestingly, this critic later became the president of Sony. Akio hired a student to critique the Sony tape recorder and test Sony products.

Avoid boring people-people who haven’t read a lot or lived exciting lives.

Get used to being uncomfortable-it trains your brain to be comfortable in any situation. When at home, don’t use a heater or a fan. Work out even when you don’t feel like it. Akio said it was made to be a portable music player.

His employees said nobody would buy it since it couldn’t record audio. The Walkman was a variation of a tape recorder but it had no recording capability. Akio pushed for the Walkman to be created even though his whole company pushed back on the idea. Radical new products often receive backlash even if they’re amazing.If you’re going to sell high-quality, high-priced products, you need an affluent market-a rich and sophisticated country.Everyone was shocked that they could make such high-quality products in such poor conditions. However, at that old building, they were producing high-quality tape recorders. It was falling apart and could collapse at any time. Sony’s first office was a bombed-out building.If you want to learn business, start a business and talk to businessmen. If you want to learn a language, move to that country and talk to the natives. The employees wore war uniforms because they couldn't afford clothes. Its first office was a bombed-out building that was falling apart and could collapse at any time. Sony was founded after World War II by Akio Morita.

Made in japan akio morita and sony