Profile
松下幸之助（まつした こうのすけ、1894-1989）は、パナソニック（旧・松下電器産業）を一代で築いた実業家。「経営の神様」と呼ばれ、PHP研究所や松下政経塾を設立し、経営哲学・人生哲学の著述でも広く知られる。
Konosuke Matsushita (November 27, 1894 – April 27, 1989) was born into a farming family in Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture, the youngest of eight children (three sons and five daughters). After his family’s fortunes collapsed, he was sent to Osaka at age nine to work as an apprentice, first at a brazier shop and then a bicycle shop, before becoming an apprentice electrician at Osaka Electric Light Company at fifteen.
In 1917, at 22, he left Osaka Electric Light to strike out on his own, and in March 1918 he founded Matsushita Electric Housewares Manufacturing Works (now Panasonic Corporation) in Osaka’s Kita ward. An improved electrical socket and a bullet-shaped bicycle lamp of his own design became popular, and the business grew rapidly. On May 5, 1932, he gathered his employees and delivered what became known as his “tap water philosophy” speech, declaring that the company’s mission was to overcome poverty by supplying abundant, high-quality goods as cheaply and inexhaustibly as tap water — and he designated that day “Year One of Knowing Our Mission.” After the war, he weathered his company’s designation as a zaibatsu and a public purge order, rebuilding the business from there.
In 1946 he founded the PHP Institute, spreading his management and life philosophy through a monthly magazine and books under the banner “Peace and Happiness through Prosperity.” His 1968 essay collection “Michi wo Hiraku” (Opening the Way) became a long-selling classic with more than 5.7 million copies sold. In 1979 he invested roughly 7 billion yen of his personal fortune to establish the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, training future leaders. Known as “the god of management,” he passed away on April 27, 1989, at the age of 94.