Why Japan needs Meiji-style hired foreigners for AI, Kyoto Fusioneering, MUFG, and SIers vs. FDEs | Build with Japan #2

"Leave it to Silicon Valley to put a sexy name on something that's existed for decades."In the second episode of Build with Japan, Coral Capital Partner Rie Yano and Founding Partner & CEO James Riney go inside Coral's seed bet on Kyoto Fusioneering. It's the "picks-and-shovels" fusion company whose customers include many of the big reactor projects being announced abroad. James tells how Coral landed the deal by writing about fusion before anyone pitched them. The teammate who led the investment loved fusion so much that he ended up joining the company to run it. James also explains why he thinks fusion gets cracked in the 2030s and why Kyoto Fusioneering could become a $10 billion-plus company.Also:• MUFG setting criteria for defense lending, and the nemawashi playbook behind it: government-related capital first, then the megabanks, then everyone else• Why AI startups go global sooner, and why Japan is the largest software market open to American companies (Factory's $200M raise and new Japan GM Seiji Sasaki)• A modern-day oyatoi gaikokujin: James's pitch for Japan to bring in frontier AI researchers, the way Meiji Japan paid foreign experts after Perry's black ships• Japan's immigration reality check: foreign residents up from 1 million to 4 million, a points system, and why tourists (10 million to 40 million) drive most of the backlash• Takahiro Anno's viral "My Shelf Life as an AI Researcher Is One Year," Telexistence's English-first hiring, and CADDi's $1.2B Series D• SIers vs. FDEs: why Japan's system integrators were doing "forward deployment" all along, and why James thinks the pendulum will swing backConnect with us:James Riney:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesriney/https://x.com/james_rineyRie Yano:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rieyano/https://x.com/rieglobe?lang=en Coral Capital: https://coralcap.co/?lang=en