[4] After graduating from Waseda University[6] in 1933, Masaru went to work at Photo-Chemical Laboratory, a company which processed movie film, and later served in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II where he was a member of the Imperial Navy Wartime Research Committee.

In September 1945, he left the company and navy, and founded a radio repair shop in the bombed out Shirokiya Department Store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.

[7][8] In 1946, a fellow wartime researcher, Akio Morita, saw a newspaper article about Ibuka's new venture and after some correspondence, chose to join him in Tokyo.

[18] Ibuka also authored the book Kindergarten is Too Late (1971), in which he claims that the most significant human learning occurs from birth to 3 years old and suggests ways and means to take advantage of this.

[citation needed] The book's foreword was written by Glenn Doman, founder of The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, an organization that teaches parents about child brain development.