Kazuo Inamori

Kazuo Inamori was one of those people who make you rethink what "businessman" even means. He started Kyocera in 1959 with pocket change and a ceramics breakthrough, then casually went and founded what became KDDI just to shake up Japan's telecom monopoly. Most guys with that resume would be insufferable, but he spent his whole life preaching altruism, "do the right thing as a human being," and the famous formula where mindset multiplies effort and ability. Then he came out of retirement in his late 70s to rescue a bankrupt Japan Airlines for basically free, and actually pulled it off. Oh, and somewhere in there he became a Buddhist monk. I find him genuinely moving, less a tycoon than a stubbornly sincere teacher who cared more about how you live than how you profit.

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.

Kazuo Inamori (January 21, 1932 – August 24, 2022) was a Japanese industrialist and entrepreneur born in Kagoshima City, Kagoshima Prefecture. In 1959 he founded Kyoto Ceramic Co., Ltd. (now Kyocera Corporation), and in 1984 he established the telecom venture that would become KDDI Corporation. He is also widely credited with leading the turnaround of Japan Airlines as its chairman from 2010, after the carrier had filed for bankruptcy protection. A prolific author on management philosophy, he led Seiwajuku, a study group for young business owners, and received the World Entrepreneur Award in 2009.

Name (English)

Kazuo Inamori

Name (Japanese)

稲盛和夫

Reading

いなもりかずお

Born

January 21, 1932 – August 24, 2022

Origin

Kagoshima City, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

Businessman / Entrepreneur / Author

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Monkey

Agency history

Kyocera Corporation — President and Representative Director (from 1966)
Kyocera Corporation — Chairman (from 1986)
Kyocera Corporation — Honorary Chairman
Japan Airlines Co., Ltd. — Chairman and Representative Director (2010–2013)

Active years

1959–2022

Elementary school

Kagoshima Municipal Nishida Elementary School

Junior high

Kagoshima Private Middle School (old system)

High school

Kagoshima Gyokuryu High School (municipal; first graduating class)

University

Kagoshima Prefectural University (later merged into Kagoshima University), Faculty of Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Debut

1959 — Founded Kyoto Ceramic (now Kyocera) with eight colleagues from Shofu Industries

Awards & achievements

• 1968 — 1st Small and Medium Enterprise Research Center Award
• 1972 — 18th Okochi Memorial Production Prize
• 1974 — 16th Agency for Science and Technology Director-General Award
• 2009 — World Entrepreneurship Forum, World Entrepreneur Award
• 2019 — Honorary Citizen of Kagoshima Prefecture (first-ever recipient)

Timeline

1. 1932Born in Kagoshima City
2. 1955Graduated from the Faculty of Engineering of Kagoshima Prefectural University and joined Shofu Industries
3. 1959Founded Kyoto Ceramic (now Kyocera)
4. 1984Founded DDI (now KDDI), Japan's first private telecom carrier, with Kyocera funding; established the Inamori Foundation (the Kyoto Prize followed in 1985)
5. 1997Entered the Buddhist priesthood and was ordained at Rinzai sect Enpuku-ji temple
6. 2000KDDI was formed through the merger of DDI, KDD and IDO
7. 2010Assumed the chairmanship of the bankrupt Japan Airlines and led its reconstruction
8. 2013Stepped down as Chairman of Japan Airlines
9. 2022Died of old age at his home in Kyoto at age 90

Spouse

Asako Inamori (fourth daughter of Woo Jang-choon)

Hobbies

• Reading
• Exploration of management philosophy

Specialties

• Management
• Ceramics technology

Motto

Altruistic mind / Live each day with utmost sincerity

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttps://www.kyocera.co.jp/inamori/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A8%B2%E7%9B%9B%E5%92%8C%E5%A4%AB
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q982623

Tags

• From Kagoshima Prefecture
• Founder of Kyocera
• Founder of KDDI
• God of Management
• Amoeba Management
• Kyoto Prize
• Japan Airlines Turnaround
• 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.