Hey guys. Wanted to jump in and address the few typos and that one weird pronunciation. Taking steps to ensure this doesn't happen again. I really should stop working late into the nights! I promise I'll become the "epi-tomey" of quality. Thanks for keeping me in check.
Even though they were caught, just take a look at the punishment. They got suspended sentences. It happens everywhere. financially solid white-collar criminals get away with crime and the little guy found guilty of lesser crimes goes to prison.
The Japanese every time he emailed and mentioned the discrepencies, probably though "Damn it he's blackmailing us with the leverage he has, promote him to keep him quiet!' Until they did that all the way to the CEO, and realised he wasn't blackmailing them but actually wanted to investigate the fraud XD
In Japanese culture saving an organisation from public shame is preferable to doing the right thing, or perhaps more accurately preventing shame is seen as doing the right thing. The Olympus board may have erroneously believed that Woodford would share this same aversion to shame and tried putting him in a position where revealing the company's misdeeds would be a shame shared by him.
Shocking how these white-collar criminals got off with just suspended sentences. It's disheartening to see the stark contrast in punishments for different types of crimes. Kudos to Michael Woodford for his bravery in standing up for what's right. 🙌
Well to be fair this fraud isn't like the worst of the kind of financial frauds. The primary motivation was to keep the company running and employees employed as opposed to personal greed to pocket as much money as possible. Company was paying out their past debts well it's just the way they reported it to investors was essentially lies. Yet company was still operating quite well and it's not like investors lost everything as it happens in other cases of fraud - those who were patient and had trust in the technological department of Olympus and waited a bit through the scandal recouped the temporal losses. In a way this whole day trading stock market creates motivation for this kind of things. Problem is that stock markets are overly sensitive to short term prospects because majority of folks on stock markets are just looking for easy quick bucks. This creates problem that stock markets sometimes can unecessarily bankrupt a successful company that just happened to have temporary financial problems. It could totally be possible that what these olympus CEOs had done might still been the best thing at least for the interest of the Olympus it self after the burst of japan's stock bubble in 1990s they might not been able to achieve what they had achieved by 2010s if they had operating in full transparency. Essentially yes what they did is morally wrong but then also whole stock market often creates the precedent of acting immorally. IMHO stocks should be traded less frequently kind of what we have in Europe where short-term trading gains are taxed and thus promotes long term investments as opposed to this brutal millisecond trading nonsense that FX is where one bad outlook instantly sends stock price down and triggers chain effect of everyone instantly selling stocks just because others are selling it.
Circumventing Financial Regulations, Business and Civil Laws is just part of business... they only get investigated when they make it too obvious, or failed to pay off the right people...
He was REALLY smart to flee Japan. If he'd stayed, the company would have set him up as the fall guy (the foreigner often takes the blame in Japan) and their justice system could have very easily just locked him away with no effort at justice. Japan is a very beautiful and interesting place, but you never want to be staring down its "justice" system, especially as an outsider, especially when a big company is pulling strings to make a problem go away. He _might_ have been fine with all the international attention, but that's a bad gamble.
@@aeroAdvocate Bad thing is, the UK has an extradition treaty with Japan. And Nissan has much more influence with politicians, hence the persecution...err "prosecution". And now we know why Nissan tried to use the justice system against former CEO Ghosn, who had to flee japan in luggage. "Foreigner workers are trouble. Foreigner CEOs exponentially so." - Corporate Japan As a Japanese citizen, this aspect really pisses me off.
I don't know how they thought giving the guy the highest seat of the company would just shut him up 😂 They made it even easier for him to demand answers because you can't just tell the CEO "No, you're not entitled to that information". Usually, the tactic is to demote such people, I had to keep giving the People's Eyebrow each time it was said that they promoted him 🤨
They wanted to set him up by incrimimating him. If Woodford let up on his search he would have presided over the fraud and being just as guilty as the rest of the board. Woodford remained consistent, kept pushing to uncover the fraud and reported his suspisions to the authorities the first time it became necessary, as he was unable to effect change and had enough evidence to bring a real investigation.
I don't know why they thought they could get away with it. Amazing how many fraudsters continue the lie in full knowledge they will be outed sooner or later. Never underestimate the capacity for corporate self harm.
I think it has to do with the Japanese work culture. The higher up you are, the more responsibility you have to save face of the company. I think they thought he would become an ally when he realised what state the company was in, and that now he was entrusted to take care of it... discretely.
@@HasekuraIsuna Doesn't that seem similar to what I said? "You now are responsible for the company, this is as much your fault as ours, keep it under wraps." Seems like a way to pressure someone by giving them a vested interest in not following their own conscience by escalating both the carrot and the stick consequences as obligation and responsibility walk hand in hand.
I live in Japan and was around when the scandal broke. Japanese talked more about Woodford, the foreigner, bringing this shame to light. Yeah, you can’t trust foreigners but with a twist here, playing along with the company’s accounting shenanigans.
@@atanui1no lmao you misunderstood. They were dragging him up to the top because that’s where the chopping block is. The idea is to pin it on him so his neck gets the blade when the guillotine falls instead of any of the others. They also thought they could shut him up in doing that when all it did was enable his investigations further.
@owentill don't forget that these companies had a concept of shame by association. So by promoting him they thought that he wouldn't reveal shit due to the fact that he is the ceo now.
I used to work at Olympus in Japan (I'm Canadian). Theres a big portion of the story that should be considered. Kikukawa inherited this financial problem from the previous CEO's actions, and started because of the bubble burst. He was dead loyal to the company and former CEO and was doing what the directors were telling him to keep the company a float, even if it meant putting his name on the line. He was loyal just like the previous CEO. You need to understand Olympus didnt want to resort to laying off employees since most of them were also affected by the bubble bursting. They were trying to buy time to fix the problem without putting their staff on the street. None of the execs stole any money or benefitted from these actions. The execs were doing this to be loyal to their employees and customers.
Indeed! I think people aren't aware of what a loss of face it is for a bubble era giant to fail to provide. This is how companies were judged then (and somewhat today). An Olympus employee in Japan might've received their house, their car, their kids' higher education, and their vacation packages from their employer. This dependency was a pillar of Japanese culture. To get into a financial situation where you fail to provide means you're no longer an attractive employer or business partner, and it's considered the worst fate imaginable. Writing off money here and there would be considered no problem at all in comparison.
See, this is why lying in any regard overtime is ultimately stupid when you have millions of people depending on your system. The lie goes from one heir to another. Also why diehard company loyalty aint good either. Cause ultimately im guessing someone had to suffer at the bottom.
Another oddity - I worked for a UK plc that got bought by a Japanese company - we all failed the corporate morality test thing we had to do - the question was around basically paying bribes - we all ticked the good grief no box, the correct answer was where the culture was such it may in some circumstances be acceptable - a very different approach!
What do you think happen when a salesman brought his customer to a pub? "oh no no, as an upstanding citizen i can't pay for your drink because that consider a BRIBE" Oh course you failed.
@@quixoticfiend9274: I think this is whereby you need people that are mostly bilingual or are raised from two different cultures. By being friendly with the culture in Japan. It doesn't mean bribery. It just means a super ultra strong set of etiquettes. I.e. An expensed gift box when meeting for the first time. Mostly edibles. Nothing conflicting or whatever. Same as if you took a client to lunch. Kowtow towards one another when meeting, instead of shaking hands. Sometimes, if meeting for the first time, also use business cards and be sincere about your relationship building. Use both hands when giving out the card. Japan... Can be said that, they have one of the highest ultra corporate environments....
Good on Woodford to risk not only his career but personal safety to do things the right way. I'm glad I found your channel because your stories are informative and streamlined without needless filler to stretch out the video. Thank you for the work you put into these to give me insight or just things to think about.
They just couldn't corrupt the dude. They kept promoting him, hoping the new position and power would placate him, but all that did was make him _more_ concerned. Definitely good on Woodford; the man smelled rats and didn't even care when they tried to give him _all of the cheese ever_ as a bribe.
"I guess Japanese business wasn't as clean as most of us thought." Just about any book on Japanese business practices would've painted you a different picture. A Japanese company (historically) took good care (by Japanese standards) of their owners and employees and customers first, their country and partners second, and literally everything else was fair game to be sacrificed for the above. That was known, understood, and expected, and frankly considered a virtue. What Olympus did, until recent times, could've EASILY been spun by the media (and typically was) as them just doing what they needed to do to survive. (To be clear: What's different about Olympus is they got caught. They sure as heck didn't invent these practices.)
To be fair it’s a culture of stagnation and nepotism just like any other. They are literally forcing people to overwork to death. The business culture that I would respect are the Quakers or the Dutch.
Nissan also mirrored a similar issue. The strong confucious and nationalist sentiments of Japan, combined with the chaotic nature of western capitalism that was hastely adopted by Japan in the 1800s meant that while small businesses are the epitome of japanese work ethics, the big companies expose the ugly truth of japanese competitive and fascist culture because there are no longer the traditional checks and balances that humbled the seniors, but rather overdosed them with power whilst the workers and salaymen and juniors and women bare the brunt of having no power while also picking up the slack of outdated ethics in a new world
That’s because the recreational drugs are in direct competition to the pharmaceutical industry. Just look at what they did in the 1930’s to the marijuana tinctures in every drug store around the world!
@@sa34w and it’s just to bad most of the opioid deaths happen in republican states, districts. Just look up where most rehab centers are located! Centers that repuke politicians don’t want to fund!
My dad was an engineer at gyrus after Olympus bought them he moved over to Olympus’s engineering department. After the scandal came out they let him go. My dad was never the same after that. He never had a stable job afterwards. This scandal literally ruined his life.
I watched the Channel 4 interview with Snow live and remember the book having the Tag line from CEO to Whistleblower. Michael even mentioned it was at a time when there were several European CEOs heading up Japanese companies and none lasted. Michael's nickname is South End Samurai! I met him at a book signing in Oxford and bought like 4 copies of his book so I could speak with him longer. Nice guy. Always thought Richard Gere could play him in a film about it all if he could do an English accent. Judging by his Irish probably not.
I remember back when you only had 100,000 subscribers and I was confused because the quality of these videos is really up the with the top talent on YT. So happy to see you get the success you deserve! Keep up these videos! I love listening to these cases from around the world which I would otherwise not have known about.
I have no real interest in business, finance, or corporate affairs, and yet I love these videos. That's how talented you are, and how interesting this channel is. 🥰
I'm a big fan of Olympus cameras, and was very confused when the decision was made to sell off the camera division. Perhaps they weren't selling a lot of cameras (few camera manufacturers do these days), considering how invested they were in medical equipment I didn't think the camera division was losing that much money. I had no idea of the extent of the fraud scandal, I'd only heard little bits that the company was going through corporate troubles. Having learned of the full scale of the scandal now it's no wonder that the camera business had to go. They were drowning in lawsuits.
I think they were getting beaten badly by the duo (Canon, Nikon) and then the trio (Canon, Nikon, Sony). Some story for Pentax, who pivoted to budget medium format.
Yeah, I learned photography on a Olympus E-500 in the late 2000s, and was really disappointed when I was going to buy a new camera in 2013, and found that Olympus had left the DSLR game.
Profit is essentially the sum total of how much everyone along the way has been screwed over. Workers are significantly underpaid, while the product is then overpriced as much as possible. While capitalism could theoretically work in a much more equitable way than it currently does, the reality of what we have now is a set of incentives that rewards exploiting everything and everyone as much as possible. And to make things worse, the system we currently have basically reinforces itself, since the money and power they get are then used to get even more money and power. And both things just continue to consolidate into a smaller and smaller group. All the theoretical models of capitalism rely heavily on the ridiculous assumption that humans are rational actors and that they make their purchasing decisions based on a perfect understanding of all available information. Of course this not even close to how real life works. And companies in reality spend extremely large amounts of money to ensure customers arent making rational purchasing decisions and only have access to the information the company wants them to have. Their ideal situation is for consumers to be as uninformed as possible while also not caring in the slightest how uninformed they are. If you've seen the marketing and hype behind big videogame releases you've seen exactly how this goes. Where people are clamoring to preorder a digital game, that has potentially unlimited supply and cannot go out of stock based on a single trailer, thats not even in-game footage. They will buy the game completely unaware of its actually qualify before its even finished in development, giving up their ability to actually make the company earn their money through making a good game. 85% of the time the game is a mess when its finally launched. But instead of learning from this and waiting to make an informed purchase the next time a situation like this happens, they will instead do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to either convince themselves the game was actually good or that somehow next time will be different (despite this happening over and over year after year).
@@e2rqey I get what you are saying but this is part of the equation as well: The interest based economy is inherently regressive. Banks are given discounted loans which they loan out at higher interest to Americans. However, loans to poor people are more risky and so poor people are charged more interest than wealthy people. And while wealthy people use the loans for investments, poorer people use it to smooth out their finances when they don't have money (and sometimes for investments like a house)- which means they pay more when they are most in need. Inflation built into this system impacts people who don't have as much of savings in assets- aka poor people who have less investments. They say inflation is promotes economic growth, but waged based incomes lag behind inflation. Meaning that the poorer people are basically getting paid less until the adjustment (maybe that's part of what fuels this growth, paying people less. Could be a smaller part though). On top of that, when the wages go up the tax brackets lag way waaay more than all of this. So poorer and middle class people are pushed into higher tax brackets despite not really making any more than before. Capitalism has to have a social welfare component managed by the government to keep poor people from going under. However, the interest based economy means the rich and poor gaps grows and taxes are increasingly regressive (and everynow and then corrected, though that hasn't really happened much). To balance it's budget the government also issues government securities to manage this interest based economy. Call it bonds or whatever, it's still a loan with interest. In order to pay it back with interest without crazy inflation the economy has to grow. If the economy does not grow faster than the loan, America would not be able to be able to maintain it's unbalanced budget without runaway inflation. The whole cycle continues and continues and this is despite economic innovation increasing productivity like crazy. We make more food, mine more resources, have more trade than ever before by large margins. But no one has enough savings for anything. We can't afford a couple years without economic growth because this system cannot sustain itself almost by design. American people are in debt, American government is in debt, only the rich and companies are not in debt. Everyone else pays interest and bears the weight of inflation. The companies you blame, might have some blame. But companies that make bad products don't do as well as companies that make good products. Sometimes they get too big or complacent and the government needs to step in (and you're right that doesn't happen enough- especially in capital intensive industries or industries that require difficult to get government permits). But the growing wealth disparity at least. I'd blame interest. It's not just Islam, Chirstianity also used to be against interest- they just changed their interpretation (I think, you'd have to check on that, I learned that second hand and haven't verified it yet). There are probably other angles other than yours and mine too, but I'm just really not about these loans everywhere for everything that is basically only impacting the poor. And the inflation that is deliberate that obfuscates incomes, tax brackets, and I'm sure more too
@@e2rqeyAll that you described is called ''confirmation bias'' in behavior science. People buy things they don't need and than (after the purchase) come with ''reasons'' why their purchase made sense. And yes, people are not rational in almost anything; no-one buys rationally anything because humans don't need anything more than food, shelter and habitat to survive, so the rest is just wants. And all the ''wants'' are emotional; what the commercial companies have to do is just cater to those emotions.
I was honestly expecting this video to be about a different Japanese company, a used car company called Big Motor , that was also recently caught conducting fraudulent business practices including insurance fraud. I hope Coldfusion will do an episode on that case, as well.
Woodford had every reason to be afraid for his life. Because some of the individuals involved in the Olympus scandal had Yakuza connections, something that wasn't told in this video.
This was a great video that exposed the negative side of Olympus. The cost of keeping a fake image of success was astounding. This portrait of fraud at such a wide scale uncovered by Woodford showed that at least one person at Olympus had morals.
Here I thought they were promoting him to use him as the "Fall Guy" and the former CEO would just Dip and Retire. Meanwhile Woodfard would be New CEO, therefore he'd be responsible for the company and all it's finances now, sparking a "Wow our old CEO was so much better, look at all the stuff that got unraveled WHICH JUST SO COINCIDED to your instatement as CEO" But nah, Olympus was drinking the Stupid Juice and hoping Promoting him would silence him...despite it giving him more access to the companies finances/power? Ok Olympus.
He is definitely Australian. But… Nope Australians pronounce it correctly. My sense is he saw the word in the thesaurus. Probably a good policy to not say a word unless you know how to pronounce it, if your job is pronouncing words.
Speaking as a "boots on the ground" seller and end-user of Olympus products in the 80s-90s..this whole thing was shattering to us. Not only did it affect the perception of Olympus' business practices ..but the whole spectrum of the previously unquestioned mystique of Japanese corporate integrity. As a user of Olympus Imaging Division camera products,,(also a seller serving government accounts) I watched this innovative leader lose its respected status and fall into a development abyss that was years behind the competition. How the company was able to recover and innovate with it's photography products from the early 2000s (where it literally changed the camera market) and into 2019 where it sold off the "imaging division" should be a video on some channel....
Great video and very detailed yet simple to understand and learn a lot from, thank you! On a side note, constructive feedback: I noticed quite a few typos in the text of various portions of the video, hopefully you already took note of this and do more text-proofing in future episodes. This is the first time I notice the typos by the way, maybe an oddity?
I misread the thumbnail and I was thinking "Wow, I've never heard of this Olympics controversy before". I felt pretty dumb when you started talking about the Olympus financial scandal.
This is why I’m Petrified by the stock market…. I’ve been in the market for about 5 years and no matter how “cute” and “stable” a company looks on paper…. They almost ALWAYS are doing something weird behind the scenes. Olympus, Volkswagen, and so many more look so FAR from a risky looking company and then Lo and behold 🤦🏽♂️. They do this just to pass off on investors
What is so frustrating to me is that olympus made absolutely fantastic cameras but didnt care to innovate to keep up with others like canon, minolta, or nikon. By the 90s they were lagging significantly in the consumer photography segment. They had some innovation as digital was catching on but they never managed to really take any market share back. They were leaders with mirrorless digital cameras, but then fell behind AGAIN. With the sale of their imaging wing, its unlikely they'll ever return to glory, just like minolta.
It's so weird that many Japanese companies try to cover up scandals by giving a raise. Really speak to corporate culture that rather avoid shame and fixing the real problem.
Only after i posted this did I notice your typos warning, had a good laugh, still really love your channel. Aquisitions, depanding, accouting, advisary, comanies !!!!! Your proofreader on holiday?????😂 These are the ones I noticed.
Great video - I always enjoy them Mr Dagogo ( and your music too!) Nice to hear someone got a big payout for being an honest whistle blower! I like the idea of Woodford being promoted to the top to shut him up and that just gave him much better access to the very material he was suspicious about and wanted no part of. A serious misjudgment of what patriarchal company loyalty, compared with the rule of law, might mean to a non-Japanese employee and a Japanese one. Basically though, Olympus was and is a good company. I remember my uncle bought one of those half frame 35mm cameras in the 1960s . We were amazed you could get 72 pictures out of one roll of film . Doesn't seem much now but in pre-digital days the cost of each extra shot was a consideration not just an afterthought as it is today. By the way, I hope you don't think you live in the "antipodes" as opposed to the "antipodees!"😂
Hey man loved the video but a bit concerned - some sections seemed like they were being read from sources but no sources were shown on screen, would be great if we could get a source list in the description 😁
did we watch the same video? almost everyone involved got suspended sentences. i dont know what you could possibly be referring to with 'held accountable'. nobody was held accountable. the company wasn't even delisted.
Yo dagogo, as usual, another top notch video from your channel, but i cant help but notice 4-5 typos in the text of the video. you might want to check with your editor to be careful next time.. :)
You are one of the only yt channels that when a bew video arrives, i dont even read whats about. I just stop, click and watch, wherever i am. Thanks for all this years.
Japan also got behind due to internal (Japanese only) company deals instead of granting foreign companies deals that were far more sensible from a financial as core business pov. Maybe what is explained in the video is the root cause of the topic in video.
Absolutely LOVE your channel and video's Dagogo. One of my favourites and one I consistently watch and yes Im subscribed. You might though, just want to take a look at the multiples of typo's and spelling errors in onscreen text. For such a well produced and informative RUclips channel, it does you a disservice. Im not sure who is editing/proofreading but they're not doing too well. Thanks though for yet another great story!
Woodword is cool. He knows that when he got promoted, he is closer to the crime gang so he decided to drop more and more bombs to get away. If he keep silent until another whistleblower come, he will get convicted as well. Good move from the man.
I don't think Woodford is this angel, that he is portrayed to be. Imo, he knew about all this financial engineering and blackmailed them (not sure if blackmail is the right word, maybe coerced? ) into giving him what he wanted. Until there was a falling out between them and him. And he ending up not getting what he wanted, he blowed the whistle. Also it should be noted that through out all this debacle, he benefitted the most both during his time in the company and specially after blowing the whistle. In most cases there is no good or bad. I would like to make it clear that, I don't have a strong opinion of him being either bad or good. But I am sceptical about him being portrayed as a good person without any hesitancy.
Thank you ! I totally agree ! If someone blackmails and threatens the integrity of your company, you don’t just promote them to CEO, you'd fire them first things first. As often with these stories, it's easier to make out good guys and bad guys. I reckon he figured the fraud would eventually get found out, and decided to blow the whistle in order to not take the fall
@@Mimi-qj1kmyou would not fire them first, you'd try to bribe them first. If that failed, then you'd consider firing. If you fired them right off the bat, they'd blow the whistle
I know him personally he was both my boss and was a close friend of my ex-wife’s family. It’s hard to believe but he really is that good around honest Boy Scout…. Olympus KeyMed’s captain America lol😂
It looks to me like it’s a thing in Japan, that powerful people on top of companies run things with gang-like practices. They cover up for each other and the law protects them. Look at what happened to Carlos Ghosn at Nissan.
Ghosn's mistake was that when the executives promoted him and asked him to eat the kitten (figuratively) to prove his loyalty, he ate the kitten. That's how a corrupt culture corrupts otherwise neutral parties. Eat the kitten, and you now have a barrel to your head which your compatriots can use against you when (not if) you fall out of line. Don't eat the kitten, and you are persona non grata. Ghosn chose to dance with the other Nissan executives and paid dearly for compromising his ethics.
My introduction to Olympus was the magneto-optical drive that I acquired way back in the 90s. I might even still have some of those old disks somewhere. 230MB! At the time it was groundbreaking. And then the Zip drive came out. Despite being less than half the size, it was obviously the more popular format. Surf Wisely.
I could see why someone might think they could bribe someone with a promotion to keep them quiet, but promoting a potential whistleblower to COO is pretty stupid even by fraud standards
From this video, it does appear that Woodford played his cards extremely well. It seems as if he took Olympus (and the executives) for a long ride with negotiations which secured him more and more power within the company. And once he was ready to drop the bomb, he had a good understanding that he could run over to the UK for protection from the Japanese (having received some death threats). Ultimately, he had a good understanding that the revelation of the scandal would likely benefit him. Something to realise about this is that this fraud does appear to be less about individual monetary gain, but about preserving the company and its employees. Hence, the suspended sentences for the top dogs involved. The top executives were passed on this fraud from the previous generation. Like Woodford, they had a choice of whether to expose it or continue with it for the next decade and it will disappear. They chose to preserve Olympus (though it should be noted, it would've been much harder for them to expose the fraud safely than Woodford). Woodford, perhaps because he is a foreigner/outsider, chose the option to downsize the company by 50-75% and the corresponding number of employees. Of course, Woodford did the right thing, but at what cost.
@@breezytarantino392 Aftermath of the event covered by the video. Large hits to stock prices and subsequent downsizing of the company (aka loss of presumably mostly Japanese jobs). How Michael benefits - primarily from the fame and connections he gets from the ordeal. He also got to rise to CEO of a major company and would have had financial gain after paid settlement and whatever else.
I think that Woodford is also covering up something as it is very odd that he would be CEO and yet still know nothing. Also, it does seem that he might have used his information to be getting promotions, or at least that Olympus' bribes worked, as, if all he cared about was the truth, why did he not go to the press instead of continuing promotions.
I just feel like the fact that he made it to CEO is understated. Imagine being CEO and yet not knowing about billion dollar fraud, that is very suspicious.
And again, the reason it seems he went to the press was when they fired him, making it seem like the only thing holding him back was when he was fired.
This is really cool mate! This shows that Japan although how it is portrayed very cute and innocent, still can be wretched like other countries. That may make no sense grammatically but I'm tired lmao
I love this channel. It is so interesting and informative. Just a heads up on the QA side: please proofread the titles/captions more carefully. Pretty ugly typos in this one. "Advisary"? "Should of been"? Come on. You can (and should) do better! Details matter. Keep up the great work.
Like nearly all ColdFusion videos, this got a thumbs-up from me. But there were far too many misspellings and typos in the titles of this episode - not up to ColdFusion quality. I suggest you get someone you trust to independently verify, no need to take my word for it. And fix so we can continue to enjoy this splendidly researched content.
Hey guys. Wanted to jump in and address the few typos and that one weird pronunciation. Taking steps to ensure this doesn't happen again. I really should stop working late into the nights! I promise I'll become the "epi-tomey" of quality.
Thanks for keeping me in check.
I always find your video's of high quality, I didn't even notice any mistakes besides Petmate. Keep up the great videos!
10pm to 2am is the critical period for good sleep, I learned somewhere.
Lovely
Nobody’s perfect, your videos are still great though 👍
You're doing great. Your voice is very soothing. Keep it up!
Even though they were caught, just take a look at the punishment. They got suspended sentences. It happens everywhere. financially solid white-collar criminals get away with crime and the little guy found guilty of lesser crimes goes to prison.
Banzai!!!
It simply taught them that crime does indeed pay. @@christopherludlam1602
Money is power.
Have to get working class people into power, but hard to be sure as well, those can become super corrupt themselves
Worth the chance because the ones in power are already super corrupt.@@mcmarkmarkson7115
The Japanese every time he emailed and mentioned the discrepencies, probably though "Damn it he's blackmailing us with the leverage he has, promote him to keep him quiet!' Until they did that all the way to the CEO, and realised he wasn't blackmailing them but actually wanted to investigate the fraud XD
How to hide your fraud to the Benny Hill theme
Maybe they wanted to promote then frame him and get him involved so he really can't speak then
@@Ace.20"We're all guilty in this now yeah" "Uh not really just you guys"
Wadya mean "We"? As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger when surrounded by Indians ( as they used to be called)
In Japanese culture saving an organisation from public shame is preferable to doing the right thing, or perhaps more accurately preventing shame is seen as doing the right thing. The Olympus board may have erroneously believed that Woodford would share this same aversion to shame and tried putting him in a position where revealing the company's misdeeds would be a shame shared by him.
Shocking how these white-collar criminals got off with just suspended sentences. It's disheartening to see the stark contrast in punishments for different types of crimes. Kudos to Michael Woodford for his bravery in standing up for what's right. 🙌
The golden rule; He who has the gold, makes the rules….Some things never change over the centuries.
and this is on the rare instances where they ACTUALLY gets punished, many financial fraudster never even got any punishment at all.
But in a society as Japan such a blemished reputation might as well mark a dead end to your career.
Well to be fair this fraud isn't like the worst of the kind of financial frauds. The primary motivation was to keep the company running and employees employed as opposed to personal greed to pocket as much money as possible. Company was paying out their past debts well it's just the way they reported it to investors was essentially lies. Yet company was still operating quite well and it's not like investors lost everything as it happens in other cases of fraud - those who were patient and had trust in the technological department of Olympus and waited a bit through the scandal recouped the temporal losses. In a way this whole day trading stock market creates motivation for this kind of things. Problem is that stock markets are overly sensitive to short term prospects because majority of folks on stock markets are just looking for easy quick bucks. This creates problem that stock markets sometimes can unecessarily bankrupt a successful company that just happened to have temporary financial problems. It could totally be possible that what these olympus CEOs had done might still been the best thing at least for the interest of the Olympus it self after the burst of japan's stock bubble in 1990s they might not been able to achieve what they had achieved by 2010s if they had operating in full transparency. Essentially yes what they did is morally wrong but then also whole stock market often creates the precedent of acting immorally. IMHO stocks should be traded less frequently kind of what we have in Europe where short-term trading gains are taxed and thus promotes long term investments as opposed to this brutal millisecond trading nonsense that FX is where one bad outlook instantly sends stock price down and triggers chain effect of everyone instantly selling stocks just because others are selling it.
If you steal a couple of thousand dollars, you'll rot behind bars. If you steal millions, you tend to get called "good businessman"
Yet only 2 were ever actually sent to prison. Proving once again that financial manipulation is not a crime.
If you are rich
Japanese justice system is trash
Circumventing Financial Regulations, Business and Civil Laws is just part of business... they only get investigated when they make it too obvious, or failed to pay off the right people...
not even sent to prison, they got suspended sentences
@@acmhfmggru22 years is insane
He was REALLY smart to flee Japan. If he'd stayed, the company would have set him up as the fall guy (the foreigner often takes the blame in Japan) and their justice system could have very easily just locked him away with no effort at justice. Japan is a very beautiful and interesting place, but you never want to be staring down its "justice" system, especially as an outsider, especially when a big company is pulling strings to make a problem go away. He _might_ have been fine with all the international attention, but that's a bad gamble.
People always be like...
People with money be like that plus some more...
Exactly. Like Carlos Ghosn.
ANYONE takes the blame in Japan, that's how their police "solve" all their crimes
Actually, it's anyone under the boss in Japan who takes the blame.
@@aeroAdvocate
Bad thing is, the UK has an extradition treaty with Japan. And Nissan has much more influence with politicians, hence the persecution...err "prosecution".
And now we know why Nissan tried to use the justice system against former CEO Ghosn, who had to flee japan in luggage.
"Foreigner workers are trouble. Foreigner CEOs exponentially so."
- Corporate Japan
As a Japanese citizen, this aspect really pisses me off.
I don't know how they thought giving the guy the highest seat of the company would just shut him up 😂 They made it even easier for him to demand answers because you can't just tell the CEO "No, you're not entitled to that information". Usually, the tactic is to demote such people, I had to keep giving the People's Eyebrow each time it was said that they promoted him 🤨
They wanted to set him up by incrimimating him. If Woodford let up on his search he would have presided over the fraud and being just as guilty as the rest of the board. Woodford remained consistent, kept pushing to uncover the fraud and reported his suspisions to the authorities the first time it became necessary, as he was unable to effect change and had enough evidence to bring a real investigation.
I don't know why they thought they could get away with it. Amazing how many fraudsters continue the lie in full knowledge they will be outed sooner or later. Never underestimate the capacity for corporate self harm.
I think it has to do with the Japanese work culture. The higher up you are, the more responsibility you have to save face of the company. I think they thought he would become an ally when he realised what state the company was in, and that now he was entrusted to take care of it... discretely.
@@HasekuraIsuna Doesn't that seem similar to what I said? "You now are responsible for the company, this is as much your fault as ours, keep it under wraps." Seems like a way to pressure someone by giving them a vested interest in not following their own conscience by escalating both the carrot and the stick consequences as obligation and responsibility walk hand in hand.
They were greedy and probably expected him to be greedy as well, and easily bought off.
“Hey this is weird, can I get an explanation”
“How about a promotion instead?”
Trust me, it’s believable. Corporations are very very corrupt places
I THINK HE DESERVES A... PRRRRRROMOTION!
Olympus be handing out promotions like Oprah
Oh thank you for the promotion.
I live in Japan and was around when the scandal broke. Japanese talked more about Woodford, the foreigner, bringing this shame to light.
Yeah, you can’t trust foreigners but with a twist here, playing along with the company’s accounting shenanigans.
A CEO whistleblower is quite unique! Well, he was fired before blowing the whistle, but he was intending to blow the whistle while he was CEO!
Blackmailed his way to the top. I wouldn't trust him.
@@atanui1no lmao you misunderstood. They were dragging him up to the top because that’s where the chopping block is. The idea is to pin it on him so his neck gets the blade when the guillotine falls instead of any of the others. They also thought they could shut him up in doing that when all it did was enable his investigations further.
@@owentillif that’s true then they would have done it already instead of firing him .
@@Johnqasgt they were just waiting for the shit to hit the fan lol
@owentill don't forget that these companies had a concept of shame by association. So by promoting him they thought that he wouldn't reveal shit due to the fact that he is the ceo now.
I used to work at Olympus in Japan (I'm Canadian). Theres a big portion of the story that should be considered. Kikukawa inherited this financial problem from the previous CEO's actions, and started because of the bubble burst. He was dead loyal to the company and former CEO and was doing what the directors were telling him to keep the company a float, even if it meant putting his name on the line. He was loyal just like the previous CEO. You need to understand Olympus didnt want to resort to laying off employees since most of them were also affected by the bubble bursting. They were trying to buy time to fix the problem without putting their staff on the street. None of the execs stole any money or benefitted from these actions. The execs were doing this to be loyal to their employees and customers.
Indeed! I think people aren't aware of what a loss of face it is for a bubble era giant to fail to provide. This is how companies were judged then (and somewhat today). An Olympus employee in Japan might've received their house, their car, their kids' higher education, and their vacation packages from their employer. This dependency was a pillar of Japanese culture. To get into a financial situation where you fail to provide means you're no longer an attractive employer or business partner, and it's considered the worst fate imaginable. Writing off money here and there would be considered no problem at all in comparison.
Except that it is a publicly owned company. Anyone holding shares would have lost 75% of the value when this came out.
See, this is why lying in any regard overtime is ultimately stupid when you have millions of people depending on your system. The lie goes from one heir to another. Also why diehard company loyalty aint good either. Cause ultimately im guessing someone had to suffer at the bottom.
@@hellojuned Sure! But what doesn't make sense?
@@hellojunedright, you saved the bank and kept everyone employed.
Another oddity - I worked for a UK plc that got bought by a Japanese company - we all failed the corporate morality test thing we had to do - the question was around basically paying bribes - we all ticked the good grief no box, the correct answer was where the culture was such it may in some circumstances be acceptable - a very different approach!
Is that how le British empire was built, by not paying bribes?
What do you think happen when a salesman brought his customer to a pub?
"oh no no, as an upstanding citizen i can't pay for your drink because that consider a BRIBE"
Oh course you failed.
@@tangoalpha1905no, by enslaving people, sooo
You literally can't run a company in many countries if you refuse to pay bribes. It's the cost of doing business throughout Africa and Asia.
@@quixoticfiend9274: I think this is whereby you need people that are mostly bilingual or are raised from two different cultures. By being friendly with the culture in Japan. It doesn't mean bribery. It just means a super ultra strong set of etiquettes. I.e. An expensed gift box when meeting for the first time. Mostly edibles. Nothing conflicting or whatever. Same as if you took a client to lunch. Kowtow towards one another when meeting, instead of shaking hands. Sometimes, if meeting for the first time, also use business cards and be sincere about your relationship building. Use both hands when giving out the card. Japan... Can be said that, they have one of the highest ultra corporate environments....
Good on Woodford to risk not only his career but personal safety to do things the right way. I'm glad I found your channel because your stories are informative and streamlined without needless filler to stretch out the video. Thank you for the work you put into these to give me insight or just things to think about.
We need men like that in gov't. positions, and society in general.
They just couldn't corrupt the dude. They kept promoting him, hoping the new position and power would placate him, but all that did was make him _more_ concerned. Definitely good on Woodford; the man smelled rats and didn't even care when they tried to give him _all of the cheese ever_ as a bribe.
"I guess Japanese business wasn't as clean as most of us thought." Just about any book on Japanese business practices would've painted you a different picture. A Japanese company (historically) took good care (by Japanese standards) of their owners and employees and customers first, their country and partners second, and literally everything else was fair game to be sacrificed for the above. That was known, understood, and expected, and frankly considered a virtue. What Olympus did, until recent times, could've EASILY been spun by the media (and typically was) as them just doing what they needed to do to survive.
(To be clear: What's different about Olympus is they got caught. They sure as heck didn't invent these practices.)
I don't think it's a coincidence that it's a non-Japanese who pointed out the fraud.
To be fair it’s a culture of stagnation and nepotism just like any other. They are literally forcing people to overwork to death. The business culture that I would respect are the Quakers or the Dutch.
Japan has a rather long criminal history of violence and pillaging. Don't let their newfound façade after eating two A-bombs deceive you.
Nissan also mirrored a similar issue. The strong confucious and nationalist sentiments of Japan, combined with the chaotic nature of western capitalism that was hastely adopted by Japan in the 1800s meant that while small businesses are the epitome of japanese work ethics, the big companies expose the ugly truth of japanese competitive and fascist culture because there are no longer the traditional checks and balances that humbled the seniors, but rather overdosed them with power whilst the workers and salaymen and juniors and women bare the brunt of having no power while also picking up the slack of outdated ethics in a new world
Yes, you're exactly right. I'm glad you pointed this out!
Billions in fraud - Suspended sentences.
Possession of drugs - Up to ten years inside.
That’s because the recreational drugs are in direct competition to the pharmaceutical industry. Just look at what they did in the 1930’s to the marijuana tinctures in every drug store around the world!
Dugs destroy a society, financial crimes aren’t as destructive
@@sa34wDrugs usually destroy the user. Financial fraud destroys trust in the economy. Savings of good people evaporate.
@@sa34wother way around bud. Funicular crimes hurt society a lot
@@sa34w and it’s just to bad most of the opioid deaths happen in republican states, districts. Just look up where most rehab centers are located! Centers that repuke politicians don’t want to fund!
There’s something hilarious about them continually promoting Woodford to shut him up until he was at the highest position then firing him.
My dad was an engineer at gyrus after Olympus bought them he moved over to Olympus’s engineering department. After the scandal came out they let him go. My dad was never the same after that. He never had a stable job afterwards. This scandal literally ruined his life.
Sorry to hear that. It's the impact that the public don't really get to hear about.
Imagine if the scandal didn't happen and they succeed on deleting their bad debt. Everyone would be around working normally.
@@durian111 Last time someone did
It use bankruptcy
I watched the Channel 4 interview with Snow live and remember the book having the Tag line from CEO to Whistleblower. Michael even mentioned it was at a time when there were several European CEOs heading up Japanese companies and none lasted.
Michael's nickname is South End Samurai! I met him at a book signing in Oxford and bought like 4 copies of his book so I could speak with him longer. Nice guy. Always thought Richard Gere could play him in a film about it all if he could do an English accent. Judging by his Irish probably not.
One of the best documentary channel on RUclips. Much thanks and keep them coming.
Continue to share the truth and bring the details to light, its always appreciated and digested with deep interest
I remember back when you only had 100,000 subscribers and I was confused because the quality of these videos is really up the with the top talent on YT. So happy to see you get the success you deserve! Keep up these videos! I love listening to these cases from around the world which I would otherwise not have known about.
I have no real interest in business, finance, or corporate affairs, and yet I love these videos. That's how talented you are, and how interesting this channel is. 🥰
Truly, this channel is exceptional ❤
People like stories that's all
"Where's the money?"
"Shut up, you're the boss now"
Absolutely blasted by the justice system... with suspended sentences...
It's actually really nice to hear about an honest man rooting out corruption in a company. A rare tale these days.
I think you should do a video about Juventus FC in Italy. They’ve been caught in financial wrong doing multiple times and not to mention match fixing.
I'm a big fan of Olympus cameras, and was very confused when the decision was made to sell off the camera division. Perhaps they weren't selling a lot of cameras (few camera manufacturers do these days), considering how invested they were in medical equipment I didn't think the camera division was losing that much money. I had no idea of the extent of the fraud scandal, I'd only heard little bits that the company was going through corporate troubles. Having learned of the full scale of the scandal now it's no wonder that the camera business had to go. They were drowning in lawsuits.
Yes, it's OM-System now. I bought a couple years ago an OM-10 mark II and it's a wonderful camera!
I think they were getting beaten badly by the duo (Canon, Nikon) and then the trio (Canon, Nikon, Sony). Some story for Pentax, who pivoted to budget medium format.
Yeah, I learned photography on a Olympus E-500 in the late 2000s, and was really disappointed when I was going to buy a new camera in 2013, and found that Olympus had left the DSLR game.
@@thegorn you forgot Fuji
Lots of companies steal without us knowing
And then when people steal from the rich they go to jail
Profit is essentially the sum total of how much everyone along the way has been screwed over. Workers are significantly underpaid, while the product is then overpriced as much as possible. While capitalism could theoretically work in a much more equitable way than it currently does, the reality of what we have now is a set of incentives that rewards exploiting everything and everyone as much as possible. And to make things worse, the system we currently have basically reinforces itself, since the money and power they get are then used to get even more money and power. And both things just continue to consolidate into a smaller and smaller group.
All the theoretical models of capitalism rely heavily on the ridiculous assumption that humans are rational actors and that they make their purchasing decisions based on a perfect understanding of all available information.
Of course this not even close to how real life works. And companies in reality spend extremely large amounts of money to ensure customers arent making rational purchasing decisions and only have access to the information the company wants them to have.
Their ideal situation is for consumers to be as uninformed as possible while also not caring in the slightest how uninformed they are.
If you've seen the marketing and hype behind big videogame releases you've seen exactly how this goes. Where people are clamoring to preorder a digital game, that has potentially unlimited supply and cannot go out of stock based on a single trailer, thats not even in-game footage.
They will buy the game completely unaware of its actually qualify before its even finished in development, giving up their ability to actually make the company earn their money through making a good game. 85% of the time the game is a mess when its finally launched. But instead of learning from this and waiting to make an informed purchase the next time a situation like this happens, they will instead do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to either convince themselves the game was actually good or that somehow next time will be different (despite this happening over and over year after year).
All tbh
@@e2rqey I get what you are saying but this is part of the equation as well:
The interest based economy is inherently regressive. Banks are given discounted loans which they loan out at higher interest to Americans. However, loans to poor people are more risky and so poor people are charged more interest than wealthy people. And while wealthy people use the loans for investments, poorer people use it to smooth out their finances when they don't have money (and sometimes for investments like a house)- which means they pay more when they are most in need.
Inflation built into this system impacts people who don't have as much of savings in assets- aka poor people who have less investments. They say inflation is promotes economic growth, but waged based incomes lag behind inflation. Meaning that the poorer people are basically getting paid less until the adjustment (maybe that's part of what fuels this growth, paying people less. Could be a smaller part though). On top of that, when the wages go up the tax brackets lag way waaay more than all of this. So poorer and middle class people are pushed into higher tax brackets despite not really making any more than before.
Capitalism has to have a social welfare component managed by the government to keep poor people from going under. However, the interest based economy means the rich and poor gaps grows and taxes are increasingly regressive (and everynow and then corrected, though that hasn't really happened much). To balance it's budget the government also issues government securities to manage this interest based economy. Call it bonds or whatever, it's still a loan with interest. In order to pay it back with interest without crazy inflation the economy has to grow. If the economy does not grow faster than the loan, America would not be able to be able to maintain it's unbalanced budget without runaway inflation.
The whole cycle continues and continues and this is despite economic innovation increasing productivity like crazy. We make more food, mine more resources, have more trade than ever before by large margins. But no one has enough savings for anything. We can't afford a couple years without economic growth because this system cannot sustain itself almost by design. American people are in debt, American government is in debt, only the rich and companies are not in debt. Everyone else pays interest and bears the weight of inflation.
The companies you blame, might have some blame. But companies that make bad products don't do as well as companies that make good products. Sometimes they get too big or complacent and the government needs to step in (and you're right that doesn't happen enough- especially in capital intensive industries or industries that require difficult to get government permits). But the growing wealth disparity at least. I'd blame interest. It's not just Islam, Chirstianity also used to be against interest- they just changed their interpretation (I think, you'd have to check on that, I learned that second hand and haven't verified it yet).
There are probably other angles other than yours and mine too, but I'm just really not about these loans everywhere for everything that is basically only impacting the poor. And the inflation that is deliberate that obfuscates incomes, tax brackets, and I'm sure more too
@@e2rqeyAll that you described is called ''confirmation bias'' in behavior science. People buy things they don't need and than (after the purchase) come with ''reasons'' why their purchase made sense. And yes, people are not rational in almost anything; no-one buys rationally anything because humans don't need anything more than food, shelter and habitat to survive, so the rest is just wants. And all the ''wants'' are emotional; what the commercial companies have to do is just cater to those emotions.
I was honestly expecting this video to be about a different Japanese company, a used car company called Big Motor ,
that was also recently caught conducting fraudulent business practices including insurance fraud. I hope Coldfusion will do an episode on that case, as well.
Very interesting & I never heard about this scandal at Olympus before. Kudos to Michael Woodford for standing firm and doing the right thing! 👍👍👏👏
Woodford had every reason to be afraid for his life. Because some of the individuals involved in the Olympus scandal had Yakuza connections, something that wasn't told in this video.
I get so excited when a new video comes out. Love you guys
This was a great video that exposed the negative side of Olympus. The cost of keeping a fake image of success was astounding. This portrait of fraud at such a wide scale uncovered by Woodford showed that at least one person at Olympus had morals.
Beware of falls prophets and saints.
Here I thought they were promoting him to use him as the "Fall Guy" and the former CEO would just Dip and Retire. Meanwhile Woodfard would be New CEO, therefore he'd be responsible for the company and all it's finances now, sparking a "Wow our old CEO was so much better, look at all the stuff that got unraveled WHICH JUST SO COINCIDED to your instatement as CEO"
But nah, Olympus was drinking the Stupid Juice and hoping Promoting him would silence him...despite it giving him more access to the companies finances/power? Ok Olympus.
That's ALMOST how epitome is pronounced
I was surprised. Maybe that is how Australians pronounce it?
He is definitely Australian.
But… Nope Australians pronounce it correctly. My sense is he saw the word in the thesaurus.
Probably a good policy to not say a word unless you know how to pronounce it, if your job is pronouncing words.
Australian here.
That ain’t how we say it.
Speaking as a "boots on the ground" seller and end-user of Olympus products in the 80s-90s..this whole thing was shattering to us. Not only did it affect the perception of Olympus' business practices ..but the whole spectrum of the previously unquestioned mystique of Japanese corporate integrity. As a user of Olympus Imaging Division camera products,,(also a seller serving government accounts) I watched this innovative leader lose its respected status and fall into a development abyss that was years behind the competition. How the company was able to recover and innovate with it's photography products from the early 2000s (where it literally changed the camera market) and into 2019 where it sold off the "imaging division" should be a video on some channel....
👍 Excellent presentation & narration. Thank you!
17:30, have been looking for a dreamy tune like this for ages, thanks for citing the details!
Great video and very detailed yet simple to understand and learn a lot from, thank you!
On a side note, constructive feedback: I noticed quite a few typos in the text of various portions of the video, hopefully you already took note of this and do more text-proofing in future episodes. This is the first time I notice the typos by the way, maybe an oddity?
It's always nice to see that people like Micheal Woodford is an honest business man. Quite rare these days. Thank you sir !!
I misread the thumbnail and I was thinking "Wow, I've never heard of this Olympics controversy before". I felt pretty dumb when you started talking about the Olympus financial scandal.
Your videos are the most quality detailed in RUclips. Thanks for keeping us with the work
Michael Woodford, a real rarity!!!
This is why I’m
Petrified by the stock market…. I’ve been in the market for about 5 years and no matter how “cute” and “stable” a company looks on paper…. They almost ALWAYS are doing something weird behind the scenes. Olympus, Volkswagen, and so many more look so FAR from a risky looking company and then Lo and behold 🤦🏽♂️. They do this just to pass off on investors
Amazing video, as usual! There are quite a few typos in the text, you may wanna check on your editor :)
I am following your channel almost 3 yrs. You always provide quality content. Keep it up bro
Read about this in Swedish newspaper many years ago. Insane story.
What is so frustrating to me is that olympus made absolutely fantastic cameras but didnt care to innovate to keep up with others like canon, minolta, or nikon. By the 90s they were lagging significantly in the consumer photography segment. They had some innovation as digital was catching on but they never managed to really take any market share back. They were leaders with mirrorless digital cameras, but then fell behind AGAIN. With the sale of their imaging wing, its unlikely they'll ever return to glory, just like minolta.
It's so weird that many Japanese companies try to cover up scandals by giving a raise. Really speak to corporate culture that rather avoid shame and fixing the real problem.
In the government you just get a promotion.
Off topic
At 4:40 the scene of people crossing the road, there's a couple crossing backwards!!!
Any idea why?
Curious
KPMG upset they didn't receive the $700m payment 😂
Dude your music at the background is the best. Fan of your ColdFusion music, still can't believe you do music for fun.
It's happening now too in several companies, small and big.
Only after i posted this did I notice your typos warning, had a good laugh, still really love your channel.
Aquisitions, depanding, accouting, advisary, comanies !!!!!
Your proofreader on holiday?????😂
These are the ones I noticed.
Great video - I always enjoy them Mr Dagogo ( and your music too!)
Nice to hear someone got a big payout for being an honest whistle blower! I like the idea of Woodford being promoted to the top to shut him up and that just gave him much better access to the very material he was suspicious about and wanted no part of. A serious misjudgment of what patriarchal company loyalty, compared with the rule of law, might mean to a non-Japanese employee and a Japanese one.
Basically though, Olympus was and is a good company. I remember my uncle bought one of those half frame 35mm cameras in the 1960s . We were amazed you could get 72 pictures out of one roll of film . Doesn't seem much now but in pre-digital days the cost of each extra shot was a consideration not just an afterthought as it is today.
By the way, I hope you don't think you live in the "antipodes" as opposed to the "antipodees!"😂
Hey man loved the video but a bit concerned - some sections seemed like they were being read from sources but no sources were shown on screen, would be great if we could get a source list in the description 😁
I wish U.S. corporate fraudsters would be held accountable like these guys.
did we watch the same video? almost everyone involved got suspended sentences. i dont know what you could possibly be referring to with 'held accountable'. nobody was held accountable. the company wasn't even delisted.
Uh, sorry to tell you this, but the US is far more aggressive in arresting fraud than almost all of its contemporaries 🤣
I must know the track playing at 3:17! That song is an ABSOLUTE VIBE. Mad props to you on both your music and documentaries!
Yo dagogo, as usual, another top notch video from your channel, but i cant help but notice 4-5 typos in the text of the video. you might want to check with your editor to be careful next time.. :)
Makes one wonder about Carlos Ghosn and Nissan. Please do a story on the details of how that all came about.
Great episode. Started well but ended horribly. Shows greed, fraud are universal.
Another one nicely done. Thanks for the content.
Maybe it's also time for me to send an email to our CEO. 🤣
You are one of the only yt channels that when a bew video arrives, i dont even read whats about. I just stop, click and watch, wherever i am. Thanks for all this years.
Japan also got behind due to internal (Japanese only) company deals instead of granting foreign companies deals that were far more sensible from a financial as core business pov. Maybe what is explained in the video is the root cause of the topic in video.
Subscribed to your second channel! Sorry it took me so long. I'm glad you plugged it. It's amazing
Absolutely LOVE your channel and video's Dagogo. One of my favourites and one I consistently watch and yes Im subscribed. You might though, just want to take a look at the multiples of typo's and spelling errors in onscreen text. For such a well produced and informative RUclips channel, it does you a disservice. Im not sure who is editing/proofreading but they're not doing too well. Thanks though for yet another great story!
You and Coffeezilla uploading scam videos on the same day, we're eating good tonight!
Good episode, this guy got it rough for working so hard, imagine spending your life rising in a company only to discover this sort of rot
as always: brilliant! thanks for another fascinating story!
15:41 that's not how you pronounce epitome 😂
A good man, he saved them from further disaster. It's disgusting how they tried to destroy their company all because of greed.
Thank you for posting on my birthday Dagogo this is the best gift ever!
Woodword is cool. He knows that when he got promoted, he is closer to the crime gang so he decided to drop more and more bombs to get away. If he keep silent until another whistleblower come, he will get convicted as well. Good move from the man.
Thanks for posting ❤
Love the content forever brother!
I lost my job with them back in 2015 with all this. Never knew this much about it before though! What a great video
I don't think Woodford is this angel, that he is portrayed to be. Imo, he knew about all this financial engineering and blackmailed them (not sure if blackmail is the right word, maybe coerced? ) into giving him what he wanted. Until there was a falling out between them and him. And he ending up not getting what he wanted, he blowed the whistle. Also it should be noted that through out all this debacle, he benefitted the most both during his time in the company and specially after blowing the whistle. In most cases there is no good or bad.
I would like to make it clear that, I don't have a strong opinion of him being either bad or good. But I am sceptical about him being portrayed as a good person without any hesitancy.
Thank you ! I totally agree ! If someone blackmails and threatens the integrity of your company, you don’t just promote them to CEO, you'd fire them first things first. As often with these stories, it's easier to make out good guys and bad guys. I reckon he figured the fraud would eventually get found out, and decided to blow the whistle in order to not take the fall
So True 👌
@@Mimi-qj1kmyou would not fire them first, you'd try to bribe them first. If that failed, then you'd consider firing. If you fired them right off the bat, they'd blow the whistle
I know him personally he was both my boss and was a close friend of my ex-wife’s family. It’s hard to believe but he really is that good around honest Boy Scout…. Olympus KeyMed’s captain America lol😂
Now I'll be reminded of this story everytime I look at my old Olympus Film SLR camera.
The OM-1 is a very good camera, though
absolutely love your videos! thank you! (but I think your titles should read "advisory" and epitome is pronounced epitoe-mee :) )
so many typos in the text overlays...
What type of company promotes someone asking what is wrong with a company thinking maybe he would just forget because he is so happy he got promoted.
It looks to me like it’s a thing in Japan, that powerful people on top of companies run things with gang-like practices. They cover up for each other and the law protects them. Look at what happened to Carlos Ghosn at Nissan.
Ghosn's mistake was that when the executives promoted him and asked him to eat the kitten (figuratively) to prove his loyalty, he ate the kitten.
That's how a corrupt culture corrupts otherwise neutral parties. Eat the kitten, and you now have a barrel to your head which your compatriots can use against you when (not if) you fall out of line. Don't eat the kitten, and you are persona non grata. Ghosn chose to dance with the other Nissan executives and paid dearly for compromising his ethics.
As if it is any different in other countries?
This is some south park level shit. Guy is asking questions and everyone on the board was like, yeah let's make him the CEO that might shut him up.
😂🤣😂🤣
Is there a western analogue of this sort of corporate punishment where individuals are held responsible?
My introduction to Olympus was the magneto-optical drive that I acquired way back in the 90s. I might even still have some of those old disks somewhere. 230MB! At the time it was groundbreaking. And then the Zip drive came out. Despite being less than half the size, it was obviously the more popular format.
Surf Wisely.
05:06 and 05:18 *accounting
06:24 inconsistency between text and speech regarding the name.
10:56 *company's
12:44 *faced
13:00 *across
14:53 *district
15:00 and 16:53 *executives
Dagogo’s aware of the errors. You can read his post.
@@CJBroonie His comment was made after I made this comment.
3:55 is this the guys official photo for Olympus? That's a hilarious photo for an executive of a camera company.
I could see why someone might think they could bribe someone with a promotion to keep them quiet, but promoting a potential whistleblower to COO is pretty stupid even by fraud standards
I like sashimi…
From this video, it does appear that Woodford played his cards extremely well. It seems as if he took Olympus (and the executives) for a long ride with negotiations which secured him more and more power within the company. And once he was ready to drop the bomb, he had a good understanding that he could run over to the UK for protection from the Japanese (having received some death threats).
Ultimately, he had a good understanding that the revelation of the scandal would likely benefit him.
Something to realise about this is that this fraud does appear to be less about individual monetary gain, but about preserving the company and its employees. Hence, the suspended sentences for the top dogs involved.
The top executives were passed on this fraud from the previous generation. Like Woodford, they had a choice of whether to expose it or continue with it for the next decade and it will disappear. They chose to preserve Olympus (though it should be noted, it would've been much harder for them to expose the fraud safely than Woodford).
Woodford, perhaps because he is a foreigner/outsider, chose the option to downsize the company by 50-75% and the corresponding number of employees.
Of course, Woodford did the right thing, but at what cost.
how it wouldve benefited michael? + can you tell something about the aftermath of this event?
@@breezytarantino392
Aftermath of the event covered by the video. Large hits to stock prices and subsequent downsizing of the company (aka loss of presumably mostly Japanese jobs).
How Michael benefits - primarily from the fame and connections he gets from the ordeal. He also got to rise to CEO of a major company and would have had financial gain after paid settlement and whatever else.
They would have done him the same as Ghosn
I used to love my Olympus OM10 film SLR camera back in the 1980s.
It was the very epitome of quality and reliability.
I think that Woodford is also covering up something as it is very odd that he would be CEO and yet still know nothing. Also, it does seem that he might have used his information to be getting promotions, or at least that Olympus' bribes worked, as, if all he cared about was the truth, why did he not go to the press instead of continuing promotions.
I just feel like the fact that he made it to CEO is understated. Imagine being CEO and yet not knowing about billion dollar fraud, that is very suspicious.
And again, the reason it seems he went to the press was when they fired him, making it seem like the only thing holding him back was when he was fired.
As CEO, he could easily go to the press.
„ The cat was out of the sack.“ Wow never heared that in English. It is the same in my language . 👍🏽😂
This is really cool mate! This shows that Japan although how it is portrayed very cute and innocent, still can be wretched like other countries. That may make no sense grammatically but I'm tired lmao
wait until you read about unit 731
I think we need to read up on your Japanese history.
Wasn't making them seem all soft and friendly a ploy to fix their reputation after the war in the first place?
Pearl Harbor enters the chat ✅
I've worked with Japanese people before, they aren't as honorable and noble as the media likes to portray them.
Thanks for sharing it. Good work. ✌️
I love this channel. It is so interesting and informative. Just a heads up on the QA side: please proofread the titles/captions more carefully. Pretty ugly typos in this one. "Advisary"? "Should of been"? Come on. You can (and should) do better! Details matter. Keep up the great work.
We definitely need more people like Woodford leading big companies
Even Giants fall from Olympus
Like your mom
Why has this taken 12 years to be resurrected after the full story was in the FT in 2012 ????
Like nearly all ColdFusion videos, this got a thumbs-up from me. But there were far too many misspellings and typos in the titles of this episode - not up to ColdFusion quality. I suggest you get someone you trust to independently verify, no need to take my word for it. And fix so we can continue to enjoy this splendidly researched content.