Who comes to mind when we say “a person closely associated with Kyoto” ?
The answer is sure to vary, as Kyoto has been the center of Japan for more than 1,000 years and has produced many of Japan’s leading entrepreneurs in modern times and beyond.

We are a start-up company operating an NFT marketplace, and more than 90% of our business concept is derived from the culture that has long been cultivated here in Kyoto.
I would like to mention Steve Jobs (1955-2011) as a person who was also influenced by Kyoto, although he is way out of my league.

His love for Kyoto is well known in Japan through various media, including his official biography “Steve Jobs” (Walter Isaacson, 2011 issue) and a special program on NHK. His last visit to Kyoto during his illness was in July 2010, exactly 14 years ago.

According to “Geijutsu Shincho” (October 2022 issue), Jobs in his young and lesser known, told a Japanese Buddhist monk, whom he had known for many years, “This is the proof of enlightenment! ” and showed him the circuit board of the “Apple I”.

His favorite Japanese painting was displayed on the center screen of the first-generation Macintosh, first unveiled in 1984, and cutting-edge Japanese technology, such as machining, was used in the design of Apple products in the 2010s.

Jobs loved old Shigaraki and Iga ceramics with their so-called wabi and sabi styles and was also a collector of new woodblock prints, and it is said that even on his sick bed he displayed the work of Kawase Hasui (1883-1957), at the beginning of this article.

Looking back at the pictures and videos of Jobs, who always presented his products with a proud smile, it seems that the source of his strong entrepreneurial spirit and creativity came from his pure and single-minded desire to always have at hand what he sincerely considered beautiful.

I can’t help but feel that his obsession with beauty is somehow the same as the traditional Japanese spirit of craftsmanship, on the other hand, when he was 29 years old, he left this comment:
“Japan is very interesting. The Japanese are creating something different with an amazing degree of perfection based on foreign technology. But they will not survive in the world of personal computers. Personal computer technology is developing so fast that while the Japanese are perfecting it, the world is moving into another dimension.” （PLAYBOY, February 1985 issue）

This may indeed have been the case in Japan for the past 30 years. However, hoping to somehow prove to this great entrepreneur that this will not be case in the future, I attended one of Japan’s largest start-up events in Kyoto last week. I would like to report more details when the time is right.

Image Source: National Diet Library, “NDL Image Bank”
“Pagoda of Honmonji Temple at Ikegami”, Kawase Hasui Woodblock prints 2, Published by Watanabe Gahanten, Showa period, 1935