Michael Kogan
| Michael Kogan | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Native name | Майкл Коган |
| Born |
Michaell Kogan 1917 Odessa, Ukrainian People's Republic |
| Died | February 5, 1984 (aged 67) Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Occupation | Businessman, founder of Taito Corporation |
| Children | 2 |
Michaell “Misha” Kogan (ミハエル・コーガン Mihaeru Kōgan?) (1917 – February 5, 1984) was a Russian Jewish businessman who founded the Japanese games maker Taito Corporation.
He was born in Odessa, but his family moved to Harbin, Manchuria to escape the Russian Revolution of 1917, where he later met Colonel Yasue Norihiro, a member of the Japanese Army's intelligence services and one of the architects of the Fugu Plan, an ill-fated plan to settle European Jewish refugees in Japanese-occupied Manchuria. He moved to Tokyo in 1939, where he spent most of the duration of the war studying at Waseda School of Economics. He moved to Tianjin in 1944 before returning to Japan in 1950, settling in Setagaya, Tokyo.
In 1953 he established the Taito Trading Company (株式会社太東貿易 kabushikigaisha taitō bōeki?) which eventually became Taito Corporation. The company first started out importing and distributing vending machines and then jukeboxes before evolving to manufacture their own.
He died during a business trip in Los Angeles in 1984.
His son, Abba, lives in Monaco. His daughter, Rita, lives in Southern California and is married to Richard Edlund, founder of Boss Film Studios and an Academy Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor. As of 2005 she still maintained an 8.50% holding of Taito stock.
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