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Masaru Ibuka (井深大 Ibuka Masaru, April 11, 1908 in Nikkō City, Japan - December 19, 1997 in Tokyo) was a Japanese electronics industrialist. He co-founded what is now Sony. He graduated in 1933 from Waseda University where he was nicknamed "genius inventor." After graduating, he went to work at Photo-Chemical Laboratory, a company which processed movie film. In 1945, he left the company and founded a radio repair shop in Tokyo. In 1946 Ibuka and Akio Morita co-founded Sony Corporation, originally named Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation (prior to 1958). Ibuka was instrumental in securing the licensing of transistor technology to Sony from Bell Labs in the 1950s, thus making Sony one of the first companies to apply transistor technology to non-military uses. Ibuka served as president of Sony from 1950 to 1971, and then served as chairman of Sony between 1971 and 1976. Ibuka left Sony in 1976, but maintained close ties as an advisor until his death in 1997 of a heart attack. Ibuka also authored the book Kindergarten is Too Late (1971), in which he claims that the most significant human learning occurs from ages 9 months to 3 years and suggests ways and means to take advantage of this.
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