Founder of Japan's first US$1b startup travelled round the world

Tokyo

IN 2012, Shintaro Yamada was 34 years old, single and frustrated with his job. So he quit a comfortable position in Tokyo and set out to see the world.

He made a point of travelling on the cheap and mixing with the locals. He stayed at US$5-a-night hostels without hot water, hitching motorbike rides and hopping local buses between destinations. Over six months and 23 countries, he hiked the world's largest salt flat in Bolivia, stayed in a nomad's home at the edge of the Sahara desert, tracked the turtles of the Galapagos Islands and visited the tree in India where Buddha found nirvana.