Last year I spent some time translating the career blog of Japanese Internet high-flyer Takafumi Horie. I enjoyed his posts because he was straight forward with people. A lot of people would use the word arrogant but I thought there was definitely some value in his advice and that he just didn't mince words. In a shocking twist, yesterday he was arrested under suspicion of cooking the books for his company, LiveDoor. Lets be honest here, the man is innocent until proven guilty. But if there is any shred of truth to what is being written and reported out of Tokyo then it is a sad end for a man who was willing to be so direct with others. Japan is not a country that forgives a fall from grace easily. Certainly Horie's outspoken attitude will not help him and could even hurt.
I will be watching with a lot of interest. He has two blogs. One is a CEO Diary (liverdoor 社長日記) and it is still up. The last post is for yesterday (Monday 23rd) afternoon. I will translate it and post it later. That post currently has over 5000 comments and 300 trackbacks. So you can see how much coverage this is getting. His other blog is his career and recruiting blog which is also still up.
UPDATE: Nice coverage here from (who else?) The New York Times.
I picked up on your earlier posting about Horie whom I hadn't heard of before you introduced him. You've really got the scoop on this one in the English-speaking blogosphere. At least from my point of view.
Posted by: Canadian Headhunter | Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 03:53 AM