Global InformationMasayoshi Son information
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Masayoshi Son | |
|---|---|
孫 正義 | |
 Son in 2008 | |
| Born | Masayoshi Yasumoto (安本 正義)[1] 11 August 1957 Tosu, Saga, Japan |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist |
| Known for | Principal founder of Softbank |
| Title | Chairman and CEO, SoftBank |
| Spouse | Masami Ohno |
| Children | 2 |
Masayoshi Son (Japanese: 孫 正義, romanized: Son Masayoshi, Korean: 손정의, romanized: Son Jeong-ui; born 11 August 1957) is a Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. A third-generation Zainichi Korean, he naturalized as a Japanese citizen in 1990.[2] He is the founder, representative director, corporate officer, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG),[3] a strategic technology-focused investment holding company, as well as chairman of UK-based Arm Holdings.[4]
As an entrepreneur, he achieved notability in PC software distribution, computing-related book and magazine publishing, and telecommunications in Japan, starting in the 1980s and booming throughout the 1990s and 2000s.[5][6] Poor investment decisions of Masayoshi Son's SoftBank Group led to a panoply of losing[7] investments across the history of the company.[8][9][10][11] Since Son founded SoftBank in 1981, he has made many investments, but the vast majority of those deals failed, and his reputation as an investor rests almost solely on his $20 million initial investment in Alibaba Group in 2000, a stake that had grown to a paper valuation of about $50 billion[12] just before the Alibaba IPO[13] in 2014.[14] SoftBank's 27 percent stake in Alibaba was worth $132 billion[15] in 2018, including additional purchases of the stock since 2000.[16][17] 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. However, after a number of high-profile setbacks, Son's investing strategy in the first and second SoftBank Vision Funds established in 2017 and 2019, has been described as one reliant on the greater fool theory.[18] A controversial figure,[19][20][21] Son has been called a gambler,[22] mocked by some specialized media[23] and dubbed the worst investor ever.[24][25] Known for his eccentricity[26] and criticized because of his hubris,[27][28] his sanity has been questioned in the media prompting him to reply with humorous assent.[29][30][31][32][33][34]
In 2013, Son was placed 45th on the Forbes magazine's list of the World's Most Powerful People.[35] In the 2018's ranking, he was placed on the 55th position.[36]
As of 2023, Son ranks 69th[37] on the Forbes's list of The World's Billionaires and is #239[38] on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He had for many years the distinction of being the person who had lost the most money in history (more than $59bn[39] during the dot com crash of 2000 alone, when his SoftBank shares plummeted),[40] a feat surpassed by Elon Musk[41][42][43] in the following decades.
- ^ "SoftBank's Son stands up to anti-Korean bigotry in Japan". Nikkei Asia. 27 August 2015.
- ^ "[인물 프로필] 거지소년 손정의(孫正義) 재일교포 일본서 돈 번 비결, 소프트뱅크 세계 최대 IT 재벌 인생 스토리" [[Person Profile] Son Jeong-ui]. 글로벌이코노믹 (in Korean). 4 July 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- ^ Ltd, Arm. "Board of Directors". Arm | The Architecture for the Digital World. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
- ^ "Masayoshi Son's $58 Billion Payday on Alibaba". Bloomberg.com. 8 May 2014. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
- ^ Webber, Alan M. (1 January 1992). "Japanese-Style Entrepreneurship: An Interview with Softbank'S CEO, Masayoshi Son". Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012. Retrieved 10 June 2023.
- ^ "SoftBank's Masayoshi Son won iPhone exclusivity after pitching Apple cellphone to Steve Jobs". AppleInsider. 13 March 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2023.
- ^ Chadha, Amrit (4 August 2020). "Lost Vision: The Many Failures of Masayoshi Son". The Pangean. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
- ^ "SoftBank's Top 10 Worst Startup Investments - ValueWalk". www.valuewalk.com. 10 March 2020. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
- ^ 'Too much guts, sometimes I lose a lot of money', SoftBank's Masayoshi Son tells Alibaba's Jack Ma, retrieved 8 May 2023
- ^ "SoftBank Vision Fund Posts Record Loss Despite Masayoshi Son Foreseeing Disaster". Observer. 11 May 2023. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
- ^ "As SoftBank's Masayoshi Son jumps on the AI bandwagon, where will he take his chip business?". Yahoo Finance. 20 June 2023. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ "Alibaba IPO highlights SoftBank's value dilemma". Reuters. 22 September 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2023.
- ^ Pisani, Bob (27 August 2014). "Alibaba IPO likely happening late September". CNBC. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ "Alibaba IPO: Why List in the U.S.?". Investopedia. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ Merced, Michael J. de la (13 July 2018). "Investing in SoftBank Is Becoming a Bet on Its Founder's Deal-Making Prowess". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ "Inside the eccentric, relentless deal making of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son". Los Angeles Times. 2 January 2018.
- ^ "Mega-IPO to rekindle the 'bromance' behind Alibaba's rise". CNBC. 27 August 2014. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ Williams, Oscar (11 August 2022). "The dangerous approach of SoftBank's Masayoshi Son". New Statesman. Retrieved 2 September 2022.
- ^ "Masayoshi Son: Inside the eccentric world of the controversial Japanese billionaire investor". The Independent. 15 January 2018. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
- ^ Mistry, Jigar (22 November 2022). "SoftBank: Fallacies of past performance; learnings from SoftBank". The Economic Times. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
- ^ "SoftBank blazes a trail in losing money on tech bets". Financial Times. 13 November 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
- ^ Pollack, Andrew (19 February 1995). "A Japanese Gambler Hits the Jackpot With Softbank". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
- ^ "Some suggested slides for SoftBank". Financial Times. 10 November 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2022.
- ^ "First Bitcoin, Now WeWork: Is Masayoshi Son the Worst Investor Ever?". CCN.com. 26 September 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
- ^ "SoftBank's Woes: A Deep Dive". ARPU!. 24 May 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
- ^ "Inside the Eccentric, Relentless Deal-Making of Masayoshi Son". Bloomberg.com. 2 January 2018. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
- ^ Schleifer, Theodore (6 December 2017). "SoftBank's Masayoshi Son is about to make either himself or you look like a fool". Vox. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
- ^ Chowdhury, Hasan. "SoftBank's founder compared himself to Jesus and Yoda. His tech fund lost a record $32 billion this year". Business Insider. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
- ^ Sherman, Alex (19 May 2019). "Masayoshi Son claims to have a 300-year vision, but his bets suggest he's making it up as he goes". CNBC. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ The David Rubenstein Show: Masayoshi Son, retrieved 6 May 2023
- ^ Nimmo, Jamie. "Inside the wild world of Softbank's Masayoshi Son". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ "Masayoshi Son's 'crazy' act wears thin". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
- ^ Pham, Sherisse (7 December 2016). "The 'crazy' Japanese billionaire who met Donald Trump has a 300-year plan". CNNMoney. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
- ^ Nolan, Beatrice. "SoftBank CEO says he had a crisis that left him in tears for days and made him question his achievements". Business Insider. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ Caroline Howard. "No. 45: Masayoshi Son - In Photos: The World's Most Powerful People: 2013". Forbes. Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
- ^ "Masayoshi Son". Forbes. Retrieved 12 May 2023.
- ^ Forbes.com Retrieved 13 May 2022
- ^ "Bloomberg Billionaires Index". Bloomberg.com. 18 May 2023. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
- ^ "The biggest and fastest net-worth losses of our time". fortune.com. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- ^ Sorkin, Andrew Ross (13 December 2010). "A Key Figure in the Future of Yahoo". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 21 May 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
- ^ "Elon Musk becomes first person ever to lose $200 billion". 1 January 2023. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- ^ "Elon Musk breaks world record for 'worst loss of fortune,' Guinness says". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
- ^ "How Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and the World's 500 Richest Billionaires Lost $1.4 Trillion in a Year". Bloomberg.com. 29 December 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2023.