Great Figures of the World Series | Episode 29: Hiromasa Ezoe, Founder of Recruit, the Man Who Created Japan's Human Resources and Information Industry

In this world,
there are people who make products.
There are people who build factories.
There are people who build stores.

However,

“people who created the mechanism for encounters”

are few.

Companies are looking for talent.
Students are looking for jobs.
Landlords are looking for tenants.
Examinees are looking for schools.

However,
those who need each other cannot meet.
He felt a strong sense of discomfort with this strange phenomenon.
And he spent his life,

“creating a mechanism to connect people and opportunities through information”

continuously.

Hiromasa Ezoe
The man who created the information distribution industry.
1936-2013 | Founder of Recruit.

【Why is the world so inconvenient?】

Born in Kagoshima Prefecture in 1936.
His father was a naval officer.
After the war, the family moved to Tokyo.

From a young age, Ezoe was a bit different.
Rather than the products themselves,
he was interested in the mechanisms.

Why is it like this?
Why does everyone think it's natural?
He always had questions.

In later years,

he said, “I liked finding the inconveniences in the world.”

【The sense of discomfort found at the University of Tokyo】

He entered the Faculty of Education at the University of Tokyo.
There, he saw a certain scene.

Students were looking for part-time jobs.
Companies wanted to hire students.
However, there was no information to connect the two.

It is hard to believe now, but
at that time, it was difficult to even find job information.
Ezoe thought.

Companies want people.
Students want jobs.

Then, why not just compile the information?

This sense of discomfort was,
the origin of the later Recruit.

【The birth of Recruit】

In 1960, Ezoe, who was doing advertising sales for a university newspaper,
published a booklet collecting job advertisements from companies.
This would become the later Recruit.

Many entrepreneurs at the time,

made products.
Built factories.
Increased stores.

But Ezoe was different.
What he handled was,
not goods, but information.

【Wanting to eliminate information asymmetry】

Ezoe's philosophy was extremely simple.

Companies know.
Students do not know.
Landlords know.
Tenants do not know.
Universities know.
Examinees do not know.

This information gap,
creates the inconveniences of the world.

Then,
why not organize the information and deliver it to those who need it?

From this idea,

job information magazines,
housing information magazines,
education information magazines,
travel information magazines,
marriage information services,
used car information services,

were born one after another.

【Cannot hire excellent talent】

Recruit at the time of its founding was an unknown company.

Excellent students go to large companies.
Go to banks.
Go to trading companies.

They do not come to Recruit.
Ezoe did not think of himself as a genius.

Rather, he thought he was ordinary.
That is precisely why he needed excellent talent.

So he questioned common sense.
It was an era before the Equal Employment Opportunity Law.

Women could not become career-track employees.
People of Korean descent in Japan were also at a disadvantage in hiring.

But Ezoe thought.
There are people who are capable but not hired.
Then, why not hire them?

He actively hired highly educated women and talent of Korean descent.
The purpose was not ideology.
It was rationality.
He wanted excellent talent.

【Try it first】

Ezoe hated meetings.
Look at the market rather than long discussions.

When employees proposed new businesses,
he did not ask for detailed plans.
Try it first.

He would say.
The reason was simple.

The market is outside the meeting room.
Therefore, at Recruit,
failure is allowed.

But not challenging is not allowed.
This culture created the later Recruit.

【Create opportunities for yourself】

There is a famous saying at Recruit.

“Create opportunities for yourself, and change yourself through those opportunities.”

This is not a company motto.
It was Ezoe's own view of life.

Business manager in his 20s.
Subsidiary president in his 30s.
Independence was also welcomed.

When employees quit,
he would send them off with a “Good luck.”

As a result,
Recruit came to be called a “management training school.”
Later,

it produced many entrepreneurs such as
Susumu Fujita
and Soichiro Minami.

【The dream called Appi Kogen】

Ezoe was a fierce ski enthusiast.
When he visited European resorts,
he received a huge shock.

Ski resorts,
hotels,
golf courses,
restaurants,
shopping facilities,

everything was integrated.
Could this be done in Japan? That is what he thought.
And he developed Appi Kogen in Iwate Prefecture.

Many people thought it was reckless.
But Ezoe had conviction.
Value is created where people gather.

Actually, this was,
the same idea as the job information magazine.

Connecting people and companies.
Connecting people and schools.
Connecting people and housing.

And,

connecting people and places.
In Ezoe's mind, it was all the same.

【The Recruit Scandal】

In 1988, the Recruit scandal was uncovered.
It became one of the largest political scandals in the postwar period.
Ezoe resigned, and later a guilty verdict was finalized.

On the other hand, opinions on this incident are still divided today.
Amidst the practices of the politics, business, and bureaucracy of the time,
was Ezoe targeted?
Was he a victim of the times?

There is also that perspective.
However, one thing is certain.

Because of the incident,
his achievements do not disappear.

[The Future Ezoe Saw]

In the 1980s, the internet had not yet arrived.
There were no smartphones.
Google and Amazon did not exist.

However, Ezoe was already trying to create a system to gather:

・Job information
・Housing information
・Education information
・Travel information

in one place and deliver it to those who needed it.
In other words, what he was trying to build was an "information distribution infrastructure."

In fact, many of the services that spread in later years, such as:
・Job sites

・Housing portals

・Travel booking sites
・Matching services
are extensions of the models Recruit created with paper media.
What is even more interesting is that Jeff Bezos, who would later found Amazon, worked at a Recruit group company in his younger days.

Even if Bezos was not a direct subordinate, he was exposed to the philosophy Recruit held of:
・Gathering information
・Organizing it
・Delivering it to those who need it
Amazon was not a company that sold books.

It was a company that organized information.
Recruit was not a job advertising company either.

It was a company that distributed information.
There is a mysterious commonality between the two.
Ezoe is not the "Japanese Bezos."

Looking at it chronologically, it is actually the opposite.
He was a pioneer who tried to realize the platform philosophy of the internet age during the age of paper.

[Who He Was Fighting Against]

What Hiromasa Ezoe was fighting against was not other recruitment companies.
What he was truly fighting against were:
・Lack of information

・Information disparity
・Systems where people could not meet
・Fixed ideas based on academic background and seniority
・Organizational cultures that disliked challenges
・Lack of life choices
He did not want to create job advertisements.

He wanted to create a system where people and opportunities could meet.

[Was This a Strategy?]

Looking only at the results, it is a success story of a company called Recruit.
However, there is a consistent pattern in his actions.

He was always thinking about:
"Why can't people who need each other meet?"
That is why he did not create products.

He created places where people and opportunities could meet.
Discovering inconveniences in the world

↓
Finding information disparity
↓
Organizing information
↓
Delivering it to those who need it
↓
Increasing choices
↓
Creating new markets
↓
Changing human behavior
↓
Becoming a social system
Furthermore,

Delegating authority to young people

↓
Creating a culture of challenge
↓
Creating new businesses
↓
Nurturing entrepreneurs
↓
Spreading to society
In other words, Ezoe was not selling products.

He was designing opportunities.

[Summary]

Hiromasa Ezoe was not a man who created a job advertising company.
He was a man who created an information distribution industry.
He owned no factories.

He owned no resources.
He did not build machines.
However, he used the power of information to connect people with people,

and created new markets.

Companies and students.
Schools and examinees.

Landlords and tenants.
People and jobs.
People and places.
He connected them all.
What he invented was not a product.


"Life's choices themselves"

.

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