Akio Morita (January 26, 1921 – October 3, 1999) was a Japanese businessman and co-founder of Sony along with Masaru Ibuka.
Akio Morita was born in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. His family was heavily involved in sake and soy sauce and produced their products on the western coast of Chita. He was the eldest of four siblings and he was trained to take over the family business. However, he was interested in and wanted to pursue his passion for math.
Akio, however, found his true calling in mathematics and physics, and in 1944 he graduated from Osaka Imperial University with a degree in physics. He was later commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and served in World War II. During his service, Morita met his future business partner Masaru Ibuka in the Navy's Wartime Research Committee.
In September 1945, Ibuka founded a radio repair shop in the bombed out Shirokiya Department Store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. Morita saw a newspaper article about Ibuka's new venture and, after some correspondence, chose to join him in Tokyo. With funding from Morita's father, they co-founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, the forerunner of Sony Corporation) in 1946 with about 20 employees and initial capital of ¥190,000.
In 1949, the company developed magnetic recording tape and, in 1950, sold the first tape recorder in Japan. Ibuka was instrumental in securing the licensing of transistor technology from Bell Labs to Sony in the 1950s, thus making Sony one of the first companies to apply transistor technology to non-military uses. In 1957, the company produced a pocket-sized radio (the first to be fully transistorized), and in 1958, Morita and Ibuka decided to rename their company Sony Corporation (derived from "sonus"—–Latin for "sound"—–and Sonny-boys the most common American expression). Morita was an advocate for all the products made by Sony. However, since the radio was slightly too big to fit in a shirt pocket, Morita made his employees wear shirts with slightly larger pockets to give the radio a "pocket sized" appearance.
Morita became president of Sony in 1971, taking over from Ibuka who had served from 1950 to 1971. In 1975, Sony released the first Betamax home videocassette recorder, a year before the VHS format came out.
Ibuka retired in 1976 and Morita was named chairman of the company.
Morita founded Sony Corporation of America (SONAM, currently abbreviated as SCA) in 1960. In the process, he was struck by the mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time.[8] When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Morita-Akio
https://biography.yourdictionary.com/akio-morita
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/business-leaders/akio-morita