He Refused to Fire Anyone in 1929. Then Came 1950. | The Man Behind Panasonic

In December 1929, with sales down by half and his warehouse full of lamps nobody was buying, a 35-year-old factory owner lay sick in bed in Osaka. His managers asked to cut the staff in half. He said: not one. Half days, full wages, and everyone goes out to sell. This is the story of Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic: a boy sent alone to Osaka at nine, a light socket his boss called useless, a bicycle lamp nobody would buy, an earthquake, a war, an order from the American occupation to leave his own company, and the 567 people he let go in 1950. What is a promise like that worth when the next crisis is worse? Chapters 0:00 Not even one 0:51 Something he made possible 1:21 A boy and a five sen coin 3:36 A socket nobody wanted 7:10 December 1929 9:39 Tap water and a 250-year plan 11:43 The war, and the bill 12:17 Ordered to leave 14:32 The part that gets told wrong 16:21 Starting again 18:12 May 2025 18:53 What the promise was worth 19:55 Moriguchi, 1989 Who stood by you, at work or anywhere else, when it would have been easier not to? Tell me in the comments - I read every one. Sources Panasonic Holdings, Panasonic Group History (chronicle, 1894-1989) PHP Institute, Konosuke Matsushita's Biography and episodes (konosuke-matsushita.com) Panasonic, Stories Behind Panasonic History, Episode 01: Bicycles (2024) UPI and Panasonic Holdings announcement, May 9, 2025 nippon.com; Wikipedia (Konosuke Matsushita, Sanyo); Daibiru, "Back When Osaka Surpassed Tokyo" His words at the bedside in 1929 are retold from the PHP Institute's account; the order itself is quoted in Panasonic's published English version. Where sources do not say why something happened, the video says so. Images Photographs of Konosuke Matsushita and his company (1904-1961) and period photographs of Osaka and Japan: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Other public-domain and CC0 images from Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons images (author, license): CC BY 2.0: Thomas Quine, urbzoo CC BY 4.0: unknown author CC BY-SA 2.0: Mackenzie Kosut CC BY-SA 3.0: KishujiRapid CC BY-SA 4.0: Asturio Cantabrio, ChrisHamby, Coindesmonnaies, Dinkun Chen, Kenneth C. Zirkel, Pokarin, Project Kei, Tokumeigakarinoaoshima CC0: Jay Wennington jaywennington, Rijksmuseum, Tokumeigakarinoaoshima, 先従隗始, 漱石の猫 License texts: creativecommons.org/licenses Images are color-graded, cropped and animated for this video. Some scenes use period photographs of the same place and time rather than the exact moment described. Infographics are original work of this channel. Voice-over is AI-generated. This channel is not affiliated with Panasonic Holdings. Brand names are used for identification only. #history #entrepreneur #documentary