Hisao Taki

Hisao Taki left Mitsubishi Metal after four years to run his late father's company, built one of Japan's first public information terminals at Tokyo Station in 1985, and launched Gurunavi in 1996 just as the internet arrived. He also devised pair go and gave billions of yen to national universities, including his alma mater Tokyo Tech. That is the kind of engineer-brained, methodical work ethic that quietly holds industries together, and I have a lot of time for people like that.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Hisao Taki is a Japanese businessman born on February 3, 1940. Born in Shibuya, Tokyo, he graduated in mechanical engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, took over his father's company NKB, and in 1996 founded the restaurant search site Gurunavi. He has been recognized for his contributions to society with the Blue Ribbon Medal (Konju Hosho), one of Japan's official government commendations. He devised pair go and was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 2020.

Name (English)

Hisao Taki

Name (Japanese)

滝久雄

Reading

たき ひさお

Born

February 3, 1940 (age 86)

Origin

Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

Occupation

Businessman

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Dragon

University

Tokyo Institute of Technology

Awards & achievements

• Blue Ribbon Medal (Konju Hosho) — year unknown

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BB%9D%E4%B9%85%E9%9B%84
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11565066

Tags

• Businessman

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.