[3] The morphing of his own telecom company SoftBank Corp. into an investment management firm called SoftBank Group Corp. made him noted worldwide as a stock investor. He also owns a house worth $ 117 million in Woodside, California. Alibaba, of course, has ended up becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world, and Softbanks stake has now grown to an astonishing $130 billion, a 2240x return on his original investment. Reaching him requires driving into a leafy enclave filled with mansions overlooking Palo Alto before passing through a gated entrance into a sprawling compound where waiting attendants escort you inside. In Japan, his father ran a video game parlour, so he imported early consoles of Pac Man and Space Invaders to the US, and leased them to local bars and restaurants on a profit sharing basis. As a student studying economicsat UC-Berkeley forty years ago, he convinced Forrest Mozer, a professor who had invented a talking calculator for the blind, to join him in building a pocket translator. In his attempt to make up for SoftBank Group Corp.'s record 3.16 trillion yen ($23.4 billion) net loss this quarter, Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son offered two gifts to investors. Masayoshi Son (Japanese: , romanized:Son Masayoshi, Korean: , romanized:Son Jeong-ui) (born 11 August 1957) is a Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. Jul 27, 2018 The most expensive home ever sold in California never actually went on the market. Japan in which he still owned a controlling interest. It Also Has an Undervalued Stock", "Softbank Group shares slide 3% after Didi, Arm, Grab triple setback", "SoftBank Is Cutting More Deals With Fewer Staff Than Ever (1)", "SoftBank cuts 15% of jobs from Vision Fund arm", "SoftBank Vision Fund posts record $27 billion loss as tech stocks plummet", "Klarna's Slashed Valuation Creates Losers and a Few Winners", "SoftBank CEO 'ashamed' of pride in past profits as record losses prompt cost cuts", "SoftBank suffers as Son's bets on China tech backfire", "The SoftBank Experiment Has Failed. He began building up and selling businesses while at university in the U.S., netting millions. [citation needed], Son attended the University of California, Berkeley. Masayoshi Son is going to bolster the coffers of his SoftBank Group with a $34 billion gain from cutting its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. BroadBand in September 2001 with Yahoo! But a quick payday from a blockbuster IPO falls short of Sons towering rhetoric. Investors in Son's Vision Funds include Apple, Qualcomm, Foxconn, the family office of billionaire Larry. The billionaire said many . Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. Kiyoshi OtaBloomberg/Getty Images. Mighty Flower by Dr. Annabelle Manalo-Morgan is released with Forbes Books. Select from premium India Media Murdoch of the highest quality. MASAYOSHI SON: "In my home in my basement I have a computer-simulated course. For three minutes, Son, Its persistence like this thats helped the young fan become the most influential player in Indias startup ecosystem. You dont have to talk to me. Masayoshi Son, the tech tycoon who has spent billions of Saudi money, is staying away from the kingdom's major investment summit this week. [20], Son graduated from Berkeley with a B.A. Bachelor of Arts/Science, University of California, Berkeley. After gorging on a record 183 deals last year, Masayoshi Sons SoftBank has come down to earth amid deteriorating economic conditions that have erased billions of dollars from the valuations of technology startups. This third-generation Zainichi Korean is also famous for his philanthropic work. [79][80][81] In 2022, SoftBank Vision Fund posted a record 3.5 trillion yen loss ($27.4 billion) for its financial year ended on 31 March 2022 as the valuation of its stock portfolio plummeted. The Wall Street Journal reports that Son, chairman of Sprint and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., has purchased a house in the Kansas City area. 5,285 stories Apple. Son spent more than $100 million on a 9-acre estate in Silicon Valley with a 9,000 square foot mansion. But its not just Snapdeal, Paytm and Flipkart Softbank also is the biggest investor in Ola, and is also an early investor in InMobi. You can keep on working, whatever youre doing. 2021 [46] As of 2019, it aimed to nearly double its portfolio of AI companies from 70 to 125. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 Son is best known for his investment company Softbank. Apply for our private membership with exclusive events and benefits for industry leaders. The Journals report said that Son, who lives in Japan, didnt plan to move to the Kansas City area house full time. Sons fund would go on to lead a $200 million investment round in Plenty after the meeting. Aron told him it could one day capture much of the worlds data. The son of FC Barcelona legend Ronaldinho, Joao Mendes, still hasn't officially signed for the club according to a report. In the past, that meant telecoms and internet firms. Son capitalized on the rise of personal computing in the 1980s and bet so heavily on the dot-com boom of the 1990s that he is said to have at one point owned 25%of the Internet. Worried due to Fukushima nuclear disaster, he started investing in the direction of a nationwide solar power network. Near the top of that list is WeWork, an eight-year-oldstartup that provides trendycoworking spaces in 80cities worldwide. (, SoftBank Keeps Minting Billionaires Despite WeWork-Sized Misses (, SoftBanks Epic Losses Reveal Masayoshi Sons Broken Business Model, Bloomberg (23 August 2022), Forbes Magazine's List of The World's Most Powerful People, "[ ] () , IT ", "Masayoshi Son's $58 Billion Payday on Alibaba", "Inside the eccentric, relentless deal making of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son", "The dangerous approach of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son", "Masayoshi Son: Inside the eccentric world of the controversial Japanese billionaire investor", "SoftBank: Fallacies of past performance; learnings from SoftBank - The Economic Times", "SoftBank blazes a trail in losing money on tech bets", "A Japanese Gambler Hits the Jackpot With Softbank", "First Bitcoin, Now WeWork: Is Masayoshi Son the Worst Investor Ever? He effortlessly straddles the Japanese and Western business worlds, a quality that stood him in good stead while making business deals with his foreign counterparts. Masayoshi Son is no stranger to vast sums of money. At the suggestion of Japan's Mc Donald's president Den Fujita Son studied computer science. 4,841 stories Al Jazeera . Barnard wasnt the only one to have an anxiety-inducing moment in the house. 30 photos Located at 6405 Wenonga Road in Mission Hills, Kan., the 12,360-square-foot home includes 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, a custom kitchen, giant wine cellar, spa facilities and a master bedroom. Son, who. Softbankbecame the primary shareholder in Yahoo, and set up Yahoo Japan, its Japanese subsidiary. David Armstrong , EXAMINER MEDIA WRITER. Son pondered that pitch for 30 seconds before saying OK and shaking Arons hand, sealing a deal to lead a $250 million investment round in the startup. SoftBank has been deploying more than $130 billion of investment capital on a bewildering array of startups across the globe. our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. During his negotiations with Uber, Son casually told reportersthat hed be just as happy investing in Lyft instead. anonymously (anonymous users cannot post links). Matt Barnard remembers time moving slowly in that side room as he awaited his chance to convince a man he described as larger than life to bet on his indoor farming startup, Plenty. Masayoshi Son is a Korean-Japanese multibillionaire technology entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist who was born on August 11th, 1957. [18], Masayoshi Son was born as the second of four sons in Tosu (, Tosu-shi), a city in the eastern part of Saga Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan.[1][19][20][21]. Credit Karma Success Story, About Founder & FAQs, BYD Auto | Success Story of the Leading Automotive Company, Naveen Tewari | Indian entrepreneur in mobile advertising and technology platform, Tony Robbins | Struggle story of an American author, Mother Teresa | Story of angle of the slums, Sunitha Krishnan | Success story of a Social Activist, Cristiano Ronaldo | Highest paid athlete of the World. Sonbet $374 million on Yahoo between 1995 and 1998, and at its peak, his investment had led to a 50-fold gain. Its launched a $100 billion Vision Fund, through which it aims to steer the course of technological development for the planet. Masayoshi Son owns real estate worth $45 million in Tokyo and real estate worth $117.5 million in the Silicon Valley, according to Business Insider. Son said, I probably would have become much more conservative, just as other Japanese. His company has shed more market value in the past . [citation needed] In June 2020, Son stepped down from the Alibaba board. I walk into this immaculate and impressive home and manage to almost break a chandelier.. Follow the community book club for monthly book picks that help APIs better understand their identity and culture. It has a technologically advanced golf range with the same weather and temperature as worlds leading Golf courses. Son appeared to play that card very publicly last year. Here's What Comes Next", https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-23/softbank-s-23-billion-loss-looks-like-more-wework-fun, "Masayoshi Son owes $4.7bn to SoftBank following tech rout", "Masayoshi Son Now Owes SoftBank $5.1 Billion on Side Deals", "Masayoshi Son, SoftBank's worried visionary", "SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, the 'crazy guy who bet on the future", "10 Things You Didn't Know About Masayoshi Son", "Serial Entrepreneur Taizo Son Finds A Welcoming Laboratory For His High-Tech Ideas", "Softbank's Son pledges 120 million salary for quake relief", "Masayoshi Son: The CEO who lost $70bn in a day before conquering the world", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Masayoshi_Son&oldid=1141670169, UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Articles containing potentially dated statements from December 2022, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 05:52. 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