Toshiba
More info
- Released
- 1939 (merger), roots from 1875
- Type
- Electronics conglomerate
The Japanese conglomerate that invented flash memory, sold it off, and watched it become worth more than everything it kept.
The name is a contraction of Tokyo Shibaura Electric, formed in 1939 when a heavy electrical equipment maker merged with a light bulb company; the short form became official in 1984. That same year engineer Fujio Masuoka presented flash memory, followed in 1987 by the NAND variant now found in every SSD and phone. Toshiba rewarded him modestly, and he eventually sued. In 1985 came the T1100, one of the first laptops people actually carried around.
The rest reads like a list of accidents: the 1987 Toshiba Machine affair (milling machines for Soviet submarine yards), the 2015 accounting scandal, and the 2017 bankruptcy of nuclear subsidiary Westinghouse. To stay afloat Toshiba sold its memory business in 2018; it is now called Kioxia. What remained was taken private in 2023.