Who is yoshikazu tanaka? Why was tanaka interested in social networking? · tanaka heard about friendster in 2003. Born in mitaka-city, tokyo, tanaka developed a keen interest in high technology and its impact on social relations during his school years. He was surprised by the success that friendster got in such a short period of time. He was greatly influenced by alvin tofflers book power shift. However, he realized he needed some real world work experience first. · yoshikazu tanaka ’ s journey from a young entrepreneur to the billionaire founder of gree, inc. Tanaka was able to set his social network apart from the well established japanese brands mixi and dena by concentrating on mobile games and making partnerships with major internet service providers. When did yoshikazu tanaka start gree? Is a compelling story of innovation and resilience. How did yoshikazu tanaka set his social network apart? · he was also greatly inspired by the japanese version of wired magazine. · in 2003, he was inspired by friendster , the popular social network with a large number of users from both the us and asia. Realizing the immense growth potential of a social network, he was motivated to start a company in the space. He watched how tech companies like amazon, ebay and yahoo experienced such phenomenal growth and he wanted to experience that with his own company. Tanaka was fascinated by the online social networking concept as the. With an estimated net worth of around $1. 5 billion, he has significantly influenced the mobile gaming industry and shaped japan’s digital landscape. He wanted to create a social network like friendster in japan, so he coded the first version of what is now gree out of his tokyo apartment.