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

  • This is Masa of Softbank from Japan.”

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

  • venture capital.

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

  • The list goes on.

  • 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.

  • $70 billion.

  • We almost went bankrupt.

  • Somehow I survived.”

  • 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

  • future of technology?

  • So is he a genius investor?

  • 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,

  • and Masa, a lot of success.

  • 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

  • 99% of his deals failed.

  • 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...

  • And a young founder named Jack Ma.

  • "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

  • venture investments of all time.

  • One could potentially be lucky.

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

  • on Son's ability to pick winners.

  • Nowadays, Masa is aggressively making investmentson a massive scalein tech.

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

  • and Didi.

  • 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 Lyftyou know a not so subtle hint attake the money or well find someone

  • else who will.

  • Masa has a distinct deal-making style.

  • He’s known to invite founders to Tokyo for a formal meeting, followed by a mealand

  • 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

  • hands-off

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

  • Like he told San Diego based robot company Brain Corpbasically he wants them to reach

  • their goals at an accelerated rate.

  • 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,

  • who contributed $45 billion.

  • “45 minutes $45 billion...

  • One billion dollars per minute”.

  • 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

  • to squander what he already has.

  • 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.

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

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