DISCO Corporation: Micro-Economies Where You Pay for a Desk, Meeting Rooms and Bet on Ideas

“We’ve created a free economic zone, just like what exists outside the company.”

Imagine you have to pay for a meeting room or desk at work. A place where salespeople pay factory workers to build goods and designers pay engineers to develop designs. A company that has its own internal currency inspired by a game like Final Fantasy. That is the norm at one semiconductor company in Japan. 

Dai-Ichi Seitosho Co. (DISCO) is the leading precision cutting equipment manufacturer for the semiconductor industry. It’s a public company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of ¥1.07t company—that’s ~$9.5b.