When Copying Technology Was Not Useful

In the early 1960s, Keiske Yawata moved from Japan to Silicon Valley to promote NEC's Californian activities.

Yawata recalls that, on one of his first nights in Silicon Valley, he was in a bar full of semiconductor guys from many different companies.

"I could almost see dollar signs above their heads as the information moved around," remembers Yawata, "this was impossible in Japan. But I soon realised that you could not copy the work of others, because they would be on to the next development. The technology was moving so fast, it was not useful to copy."