The Delphi Roar: December 14, 2024
Dear Members and Advisers!
Another year draws to its close. For the Delphi community, it was a good year. Members are generally thriving (despite the shock of several members dealing with newly arrived private equity owners); we welcomed 5 new members and nobody left. Indeed, this year was when I first fully realized how many members had been with Delphi for over a decade. This fact perhaps reflects our business philosophy, which has always sought first to satisfy existing members, rather than chase new members (although of course we have to do this as well, for survival, even though it’s difficult and time consuming).
Japan always seems to reward looking after existing customers, partly because a deflationary economy makes growth difficult, so striving for excellent service to existing customers is the logical way forward.
This week, we have several photos of exploratory trips to Hachiojima, south of Tokyo in the Pacific; and Makinohara in Shizuoka. After two intense but quite small offsites (the “Sushi in Zushi” outings in February and June 2024), we are looking further afield to add more options and possibilities.
It was personally very refreshing, as all my work, events and members tend to be within the Yamanote line, so opportunities to get to know the rest of Japan have been few and far between.
Seen in the Network
“Japan’s belief in relationships is so extreme, it’s sometimes even funny. I was told by my hospital that if my kids ever have an emergency, their ambulance will be accepted immediately, because that is the hospital they were born in! This was immensely comforting, albeit weird by global standards, because as you know, Japanese ambulances often drive around for hours looking for a hospital to accept you.”
“From a global business perspective, innovation is over. We are all exhausted by the rubbish coming onto the market under the rubrik of MVP “minimum viable product. I think the world of business is entering a different cycle, where quality and attention to detail are essential. I think this is great for Japan, which is brilliant at both.”
“I used to party with Adam Newman. He was actually a bit like a Jesus - a genuinely beautiful human being, deep, with an incredible vision. The best salesman of the last 50 years. But he was unable to pick a good COO. Instead, he hired thousands of people, purely because he liked them, who spent their time traveling the world First Class and doing nothing. He loved these people, but he often could not find a role for them.”
“I meet young founders in Japan every day. I love them. One of them gave me the idea of how to expand my business, and he was 25 years old. You may argue that they are not a big enough group. I don’t care. The American Revolution was started by 100 people. The Meiji Revolution by 50. The Weimar Republic was started by one guy going on a balcony and announcing the Republic was here. You just need a catalyst!
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“The great thing about kids is that, once you have got used to them, you have a good reason to ditch your immature daydreams, and focus on the present.”
“ESG is such an interesting area. It was originally started as a way of improving capitalism by making markets more efficient, by pricing in costs which had been ignored by companies, such as pollution and labor exploitation. And it’s on that level that it’s most transformative, NOT on the level of ethical decisions about whether to invest in Israeli banks, for example, I believe.”
