Technology
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son was planning his comeback
AND latest Financial Times profile Mayayoshi Son opens with the SoftBank CEO seemingly hitting all-time low, gazing his “ugly” face on Zoom and telling himself, “I haven’t done anything to be proud of.”
Indeed, Son largely disappeared from the general public eye after SoftBank’s Vision Fund suffered huge losses on investments like WeWork. But FT journalist Lionel Barber, whose latest biography of Son is titled “Gambling Man,” writes that while Son gave the impression to be “doing penance,” he was in actual fact “plotting a comeback.”
Now SoftBank is specializing in artificial intelligence and has achieved success by taking integrated circuit design company Arm public.
The profile also includes some amusing personal details, resembling Son’s apparent fascination with Napoleon. When the activist investor mentioned Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg in a 2020 meeting with Son, he reportedly dismissed them as “one-business men.”
“The right comparison for me is Napoleon, Genghis Khan or Emperor Qin,” Son said. “I’m not a CEO. I’m building an empire.”