In Japan, your corporate affiliation often dictates your social standing.

This is absolutely true in the US as well, by the way. People will treat you differently if you work for a FAANG company. People take a lot of pride in telling others they work for one. And we even have a word for someone who used to work for Google, for instance.

Yeah, a friend of mine from college works for Waymo (Google-adjacent) and I've overheard wives of local friends bugging their husbands to try and work him for an in.