It was one of the most infamous companies in Japan, rocking the nation with a corporate scandal that ousted a prime minister and then nearly collapsing under a mountain of debt. Now, Recruit Holdings Co. is back, reinvented by a group of employees who quietly turned the magazine publisher and job placement firm into an internet giant that touches the lives of almost every consumer in the world's third-biggest economy. If Recruit were a U.S. company, it would be like having LinkedIn, Zillow, Yelp, eHarmony, Booking.com, "We are there, every time people choose to do things," said Masumi Minegishi, Recruit's 55-year-old chief executive officer. As the biggest internet companies compete for world domination with apps that track consumers and use artificial intelligence to crunch data and provide tailored services, Recruit is Japan's leading contender.