Fatal Board · VIDEO ESSAY

The Rise and Fall of Toshiba: The $40 Billion Tech Giant That Ruled Every Office, Then Erased Itself

Subscribe to the channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0ps9eCp0y6yP1Xg4sDDFw?sub_confirmation=1 On December 20, 2023, Toshiba stopped trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after 74 years — not bankrupt, not bought by a rival, but dismantled and taken private by its own board. This is the full story of how a company founded in 1875, the company that built the world's first mass-market laptop, invented NAND flash memory, and put the television in your den and the copier down the hall, sold off every part of itself that worked in order to pay for one decision. That decision was made in February 2006, when Toshiba paid $5.4 billion for Westinghouse Electric — four times what the British government had paid for it seven years earlier. Then came Fukushima, the "challenge" culture and the $1.2 billion accounting scandal, the fixed-price nuclear construction contracts at Plant Vogtle and V.C. Summer, Westinghouse's Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017, and an $8.7 billion annual loss. To survive, Toshiba sold its medical imaging division to Canon, its televisions to Hisense, its laptops to Sharp for $36 million — and finally its memory chip business, for $18 billion. That business is now called Kioxia, and it is worth more than Toyota. We cover the Toshiba T1100 at $1,899 in 1985, the engineer Fujio Masuoka who invented flash memory and was paid a few hundred dollars for it, the day three congressmen smashed a Toshiba radio with sledgehammers on the Capitol lawn in 1987, the six weeks in 2008 that killed HD DVD, and the boardroom logic that made every fatal step look reasonable at the time. Reuters - Toshiba delists after 74 years, ending a troubled decade https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/toshiba-delists-after-74-years-ending-troubled-decade-2023-12-19/ A comprehensive report on Toshiba's official exit from the Tokyo Stock Exchange after its private buyout. The New York Times - How Toshiba's $5.4 Billion Nuclear Bet Came Back to Haunt It https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/business/dealbook/toshiba-westinghouse-nuclear-fukushima.html An investigation into the 2006 Westinghouse deal and how cost overruns ruined Toshiba's finances. BBC News - Toshiba chief resigns over $1.2bn accounting scandal https://www.bbc.com/news/business-33604104 A news release covering the corporate culture, inflated profits, and executive resignations following the 2015 audit. IEEE Spectrum - The Unsung Hero Who Invented Flash Memory https://spectrum.ieee.org/fujio-masuoka-history-of-flash-memory The history of Fujio Masuoka, the Toshiba engineer who invented NAND flash memory with little initial recognition. Associated Press - U.S. Lawmakers Smash Toshiba Radio on Capitol Lawn https://apnews.com/article/7679dbfa2337d57a2b97241270ae68df A historical account of the 1987 political backlash after a Toshiba subsidiary sold secret machining tech to the Soviet Union. This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.