Chung Ju-yung

It was the best decision I ever made.

Akhil Morita, founder of Sony, said that to the purchasing officer at Bolova, one of the most famous brands in America at the time, while turning down an order for 100,000 radios.

That order was worth several times what his entire company could produce.

Nobody had heard of Sony.

We were brainstorming the challenge with the task of being original and audacious in our thinking.

One of the civilian representatives in our group was a brilliant electronics engineer who was in charge of his own company in those days, a man who was destined to have a great deal of influence in my life, Masaru Ibuka.

He's 13 years my senior, but he was to become my very close friend, colleague, partner, and co-founder of the company we would create, the Sony Corporation.

And then in July and August of 1945, there were raids of the Tokyo-Yokohama area almost every day and every night.