Zoho's Sridhar Vembu meets 80-year-old Saito-san, gets impressed by leading Japanese car designer's ‘modest workshop’
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu recently reflected on his meeting with 80-year-old Morihiro Saito-san — leading Japanese car designer. In a social media post, he expressed
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu recently reflected on his meeting with 80-year-old Morihiro Saito-san — leading Japanese car designer. In a social media post, he expressed his admiration for local level engineering skills and emphasized the importance of grassroots innovation for long-term economic growth. Taking to X Sridhar Vembu wrote, “Last week, I was fortunate to visit the workshop (the Tamil word pattarai பட்டறை is so appropriate) of the leading motor designer in the world Morihiro Saito-san,” as he likened Japanese workshop to Tamil concept of “pattarai”. Inspired by Saito's dedication to designing cutting-edge motors at such an advanced age and impressed by hands-on engineering at local level, he argued that every Indian village needs such localized spaces for experimentation, making, and fixing to build a robust manufacturing base.
The post added, “Saito-san is 80+ and still designing advanced motors, some of the most advanced in the world. His modest looking workshop is right next door to a company that builds out those motors in prototype quantities and he works closely with them to get them built.” Calling his visit an industrial “pilgrim”, he said, “With as much devotion as I go to the Thoranamalai Murugan Temple at home. When I saw him at work, I was moved to touch his feet.” Terming Saito-san, the God of motors, he observed that Japan is able to retain its global prominence in so many foundational industries due to its culture and said, "We need to learn from that spirit.
We need to revive our "pattarai" culture of building things - every village in India needs such workshops!" Concluding the post he wrote, "My industrial pilgrimage to Japan has given me new vigor." What did social media say? A user wrote, “I loved the word “ பட்டறை”, where creativity takes birth.” Another user remarked, “The greatest asset of Germany and Japan are (were?) these kind of small scale entrepreneurs. They have a word for it in German: Mittelstand. We need that in India. But you know why it is not there!” A third comment read, “It is nice to know how Japanese entrepreneurs achieve so much with so little.
It would be interesting to understand how they keep themselves financially sound despite regular adversities in business.” Also Read | Full list of carmakers that have assured E20 compatibility A fourth user stated, "If we can learn to be disciplined and dedicated like the Japanese, we would be at a "véré" level. We have the knowledge and skills."
The BriefWire