One of the world’s richest billionaires, Masayoshi is best known for his contributions in the fields of technology, investments, and philanthropy. A fine example of his entrepreneurial success is the Japanese multinational group company SoftBank (headquartered in Minato, Tokyo) that he founded in 1981. He leads the company as the chairman and CEO. Still, what makes him stand out from others is his global outlook and new generational thinking. At the time he started up, Japanese business mainly followed traditional models reliant on manufacturing corporations and corporate families; employees worked for salaries in one company for their lifetime.
During such atmosphere, Masayoshi Son’s high-tech Softbank Corporation emerged as a flag bearer of the new-age entrepreneurship in Japan. There is a story that Masayoshi started up with a small office and two part-time employees. One morning he tried to give them a speech and stated they should listen to him as he is company president. He said that the company would clock 75 million USD in sales and in five years, would serve 1,000 dealer outlets, dominating the PC software distribution. Those two people quit their jobs, thinking he was crazy. But in next one and a half years, Softbank bagged 200 dealer outlets as clients.
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Softbank Competitors | Softbank CEO Email & Contact
SoftBank founder Son’s twitter handle is @masason. You can try sending an email to him at [email protected]. Some of the rival companies of the tech giant are:
- NTT Group
- KDDI Corporation
- Tencent
- Sequoia Capital
Masayoshi Son’s Net Worth & Salary
As of 2021, his net worth was estimated to be 36.3 billion USD, the telecom and investment conglomerate SoftBank’s Son is one of the wealthiest people in Japan and the top billionaires in the world. The tech titan is said to have about a 27% stake in the company. Besides, his other assets include a 50 million USD three-story mansion in Tokyo, a home in the Silicon Valley neighborhood in Woodside, California, which he bought for 117 million USD. He also has a professional baseball team in Japan called the SoftBank Hawks. Besides, his Tokyo home features a 3 million USD electronic golf range that can simulate weather and temperature of the real golf courses.
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Quite interestingly, before reclaiming success, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi lost about 70 billion USD during the dot-com bubble in 2000. It is one of the highest financial losses in history made by any person. However, he defied all odds to emerge as a winner.
Masayoshi Son’s Career & Education – Company, University, & College
He founded the multinational conglomerate holding company Softbank in 1981. At present, he is company’s Chairman, President and CEO. Son’s Softbank investment vehicle Vision Fund Investments gives a boost to companies specializing in the internet of things, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Through this, he has invested in Doordash, Uber, Grab, Coupang, Didi, Paytm, Oyo, PolicyBazaar and many others.
He also leads SoftBank Mobile as CEO and UK-based Arm Limited (cloud services and internet solutions provider) as chairman. The ambitious entrepreneur has always been keen about expanding his business. Led by passion and vision, he was able to build a telecommunications and media empire in about a decade. In the mid-1990s, he turned SoftBank into one of the top satellite television providers in the country. He also managed a stock brokerage firm at that time. Still, these achievements were not satisfactory for him.
He went on to introduce the largest search engine in Japan called Yahoo! Japan in alliance with Yahoo! In 1995, SoftBank became a public limited company, earning him the billionaire status quickly. In next 5 years, his main focus was expansion, which helped SoftBank to evolve into a biggest internet tech company globally by 1999. It was during this period he invested in then-fledgling companies like Alibaba, Nippon Credit Bank, and others.
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However, before this, he had created a multilingual translation device with a bunch of college friends in America. The tool was sold to a Japanese electronic products company Sharp Corporation for nearly 1 million USD. It became a part of Sharp Wizard series. Masayoshi used the money to file for the patent. When he was studying in Berkeley University, he worked on computer games that were used in cafeterias, dorms, cocktail lounges, and restaurants and earned another 1 million USD. In addition, he built game software while studying. He formed the company called Unison World. After coming back to Japan from the US, he sold it to a ceramics and electronics company Kyocera for about 2 million USD.
When he was only 16, he and his family traveled to California, USA from Japan. Although he did not have a grip on the English language, Son could complete his education in computer science and economics from UC Berkeley. According to some sources, Japan McDonald’s Den Fujita had advised him to take this path.
Masayoshi Son Wiki – Age, Wife, Family, & More
Born on 11 August 1957 in Tosu, Saga, Japan, SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi (age 64) belonged to the third generation of ethnic Koreans with Japanese citizenship. Son’s grandfather Son Jong-kyung came to Japan at the time of Japanese colonialism. His father Son Sam-heon was a fish dealer and pig farmer. Son and his family were very poor. He has three brothers; of them, the youngest sibling Taizo is known for series of entrepreneurial ventures and investments, such as a venture capital firm Mistletoe and GungHo Online Entertainment.
Son met his wife Masami Ohno in university and has two daughters from the marriage. They live in Tokyo. He is friends with Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Tadashi Yanai and Rupert Murdoch. Furthermore, he donated 120 million to 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami victims. He also said that he will support the cause until he retires.
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