Name: 孫正義がシリコンバレーをどう揺るがすか (How Masayoshi Son is Shaking Up Silicon Valley)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:55:37.000Z
Duration: 6 min 6 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

Masayoshi Son is one of the most influential dealmakers of our time.

“This is Masa of Softbank from Japan.”

基礎受動態

Son, who goes by Masa, is considered by some as one of the most brilliant risk takers in

$32 billion for chipmaker ARM, $9 billion to Uber, $4.4 billion into WeWork.

Others think the chief executive of Softbank is a wreckless daredevil with a spotty track record.

After the dotcom crash he lost more money than anyone has ever lost in history.

But love him or hate him, he’s shaking up Silicon Valley and global investing.

Has Masa just been lucky, or is he actually a genius when it comes to investing in the

I think the jury is still out but one thing you cannot

deny Son is that he certainly seems to have foresight.

Bloomberg tech reporter Pavel Alpeyev has been covering Masa and Softbank for the last decade.

One famous example is… a few years prior to Apple’s launch of the iphone, Son was

visiting with Steve Jobs in California and offered him sketches of a prototype device

that combined the functionality of the ipod and a mobile phone.

Knowing Apple was developing the iphone, Jobs refused.

So Masa got him to agree to exclusive rights for their product in Japan, bringing Softbank,

This wasn’t his first big business deal however.

While attending the University of California at Berkeley he invented a digital translator

and sold it to Sharp for 100 million yen or about $1 million.

Using that money, he founded Softbank which is a household name in Japan that aires popular

commercials with Tommy Lee Jones and a dog.

For a brief period during the dot-com bubble, Masa was the world’s richest man ...before

At the center of his reputation is one very important transaction -- In 2000 he made a

$20 million investment in an unknown Chinese startup called Alibaba...

"I could tell from the way he talks that he has charisma, has leadership.”

Softbank’s stake in Alibaba is now worth $138 billion -- one of the most lucrative

So if you assume that a track record of one is just lucky, then it certainly casts doubt

Nowadays, Masa is aggressively making investments… on a massive scale… in tech.

He invested in 100-or-so startups in 2017, including two of the most valuable-- Uber

With both, he used a similar maneuver to close the deal.

Son went publicly on record saying that the company was considering investing in Uber

or Lyft… you know a not so subtle hint at ‘take the money or we’ll find someone

He’s known to invite founders to Tokyo for a formal meeting, followed by a meal… and

then offers them a massive amount of money.

The picture that we get is that when Son comes into the room, at this point, his business

people know your company through and through, and he's there to make an offer.

Although he doesn’t acquire controlling stakes in any of the companies and is generally

Softbank’s money still comes with comes with one important condition...

Like he told San Diego based robot company Brain Corp… basically he wants them to reach

As Masa pours money into one startup after another...

He has also been lining up some generous backers for Softbanks’s $100 Billion Vision Fund

-- the largest investment fund in history to finance technology startups.

He got pledges from Apple’S Tim Cook, Qualcomm, Foxconn and 1 unexpected place: the Middle East.

What’s interesting is the main backer of the fund is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,

Not all investors are on board with his vision.

They point to SoftBank’s stock in Alibaba and other assets, which are worth more than

19 trillion yen but SoftBank’s market cap is only 9.8 trillion yen.

That's just evidence that a lot of investors are not buying Son's future.

Critics not only don't believe Son can pick the next Alibaba; they're convinced he's going

Whether a believer or not in Masa’s strategy…

The investments he’s making now are not like those he made during the 90s dotcom bubble.

They are companies which have already proven that they can survive.

In the end whether Son deserves to be called a genius investor rather just one with

very deep pockets, will probably depend on his ability to not just deliver a decent return,

but also the kind of societal impact that he aspires to.