21Mar/19Off
Billionaire Has a New Goal for His 17,000 Workers: Learn to Code
Less than a decade after stunning workers at his Japanese tech giant with an edict to learn English, billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani wants to do the same with computer programming.
Rakuten Inc. may soon expect its more than 17,000 employees to know how a computer compiles a program and understand the difference between a CPU and GPU (one is the brains of a PC, the other runs the graphics). Underpinning that is a mandatory, entry-level ability to code.
“If you’re working for Toyota, for example, you know how the automobile works -- basic structure of the engine, suspension and so forth,” Mikitani told Emily Chang of Bloomberg Television. “So if you work for an IT services company, you need to have the basic knowledge of what’s in the computer.”
An ability to write Python code or dissect the differences between fourth- and fifth-generation wireless networks isn’t something that most tech companies would treat as a prerequisite for a non-operations role. While the World Economic Forum estimates that more than half of workers are going to need significant training by 2022, few seem to be following the lead of companies such as Nokia Oyj, which has plans to make familiarity with machine learning mandatory.