Background

Ethnicity: Masayoshi Son's parents were Korean. Son is a 3rd generation Zainichi Korean, a term for ethnic Koreans who have permanent residency status in Japan.

Masayoshi Son was born on August 11, 1957, in Tosu, Saga, Japan, into a second-generation Zainichi Korean family. Son was one of four brothers, and his father worked at restaurants, farms, and fisheries. His original name was Son Jeong-ui, signifying his family's Korean roots, but they took the Japanese name Yasumoto to fit in when Son was a child. Masayoshi Son has long been discriminated against by the Japanese people because he is ethnically Korean.

Education

Even as a child Son wanted to make a name for himself by 20 years old and was interested in Computer chips. As he grew he was convinced these tiny things would usher the next technological revolution. In 1972, when he was 16, Son met one of his idols: McDonald's Japan founder Den Fujita, who encouraged him to go study in the United States.

Intelligent and curious from a young age, he was fascinated with America and went to the United States for a short-term study abroad program when he was 16. Son went to Serramonte High School just south of San Francisco. He completed his high school and enrolled at Holy Names University. Then after two years at a local college, he transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, and majored in economics.

As a student at the University of California, Berkeley, Masayoshi Son decided to earn his own living expenses by inventing the talking electronic translating machine. The 19-year-old economics student from Japan had no experience inventing anything, no funds, and no technological expertise, but he had a great will and potential and that has helped him to achieve the results.

While a student at Berkeley, Masayoshi Son drew up a lifetime plan to build a major business in his 40s and 50s and hand the reins over to his successor in his 60s. His major was economics and computer science. Son graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Career

While an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, Son imported early consoles of Pac-Man and Space Invaders and leased them to local bars and restaurants in Northern California, notably Yoshi’s, a well-known music venue which began as a north Berkeley restaurant but now exists as a larger jazz club in downtown Oakland. Son reportedly made his first million dollars through these arcade games.

Son also created the pocket translator and sold it to Sharp Electronics. He patented the device and apparently cold-called companies until Sharp agreed to buy it for what would now be a $1 million. Son returned to Japan after graduating from Berkeley in 1980 and founded SoftBank - the name is short for "bank of software." From the start, Son focused on how he could help change society with technology.

Despite having no software to sell, the young entrepreneur was able to strike an exclusive deal with both Osaka electronics retailer Joshin and top Japanese software developer Hudson. The deals proved to be very profitable and within years SoftBank rose to the top of the emerging computer industry in Japan by grabbing around half of the nation’s retail market for computer software by 1984.

Son’s spectacular success brought him comparison to Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation; Morita Akio, longtime head of Sony Corporation; and Honda Soichiro, founder of the automobile- and motorcycle-manufacturing company that bore his name. Son, however, differed from the others because he alone expanded his business by using aggressive merger-and-acquisition tactics.

In 1984 Softbank was covering 50% of the retail market in the country for computer software and at the same time, new business opportunities were being explored, moving into telephone-routing devices and broadband internet service. In fact, Son just threw money into technology companies, with over 600 being bought or sold and some of them led to major losses like Kingston Technologies which lost $1 billion for Softbank.

Not all investments were failures, in 1995 a small company entitled Yahoo asked for $5 million to develop its search engine and Masayoshi Son, after hearing out their project, offered them $100 million. The success of the company motivated Son to venture into other areas and he became involved in a telephone-routing device, magazine publishing, the Comdex trade show, and broadband internet service. However, not all of his ventures were successful. He lost almost a billion dollars on Kingston Technologies in the late 1990s.

He faced a major loss in 2000. During the dot com crash, he lost approximately $70 billion - and gained the inglorious distinction of losing the most money in history. However, even a loss this big could not break his spirit and he determinedly worked towards rebuilding his fortune. In 2000, he invested $20 million in Alibaba, a new Chinese e-commerce company. This proved to be a wise investment as over the years Alibaba registered phenomenal growth and Alibaba’s initial public offering in 2014 valued SoftBank’s stake at more than $50 billion.

In 2001, he formed Yahoo! BroadBand with Yahoo! Japan in which he owned a controlling interest. Eventually Yahoo! BB acquired Japan Telecom, the then-third largest broadband and landline provider, and is now Japan's leading broadband provider. SoftBank attempted to enter the booming mobile market for years before it was able to buy out Vodafone Japan for around $15 billion in 2006.

Even though Vodafone Japan was on the verge of collapse at the time of its acquisition, Son managed to establish himself as a formidable force in the Japan Mobile industry. His SoftBank Mobile is today Japan’s most profitable telecom firm. In 2013, he took over a majority of Sprint Nextel, an American telecommunications holding company, for $22 billion - the biggest foreign acquisition by a Japanese firm to date. Currently, Sprint is the fourth-largest wireless network operator in the United States.

Masayoshi Son had earlier announced that he will be handing over reigns to his successor Nikesh Arora on his 60th birthday (August 2017), but he changed his mind and said, "today as the information industry stands on the cusp of a full-scale global transformation, I have realized that there are still many things that I myself must achieve. So for the next five to ten years, I will continue to lead the Company personally."

SoftBank has forecast an annual loss of $6.9 billion, its first in 15 years, and a $16.7 billion investment loss in its $100 billion Vision Fund, for the year ending March 2020.

Achievements

• 

  Son established SoftBank Group Corp., a multinational telecommunications and Internet corporation with operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, Internet, technology services, and finance among other ventures. Masayoshi Son has an estimated net worth of the United States $32.4 billion.
  
  Many compare Son to the likes of Akio Morita (head of Sony), Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft), and Soichiro Honda (founder of Honda). He is however different in his entrepreneurial style which is his forceful merger and acquisition strategies. His diversification policies have made Softbank a leader of hardware manufacturing, software development, and the foremost service providers in the country. The corporation is continually expanding in new fields.

Politics

Son makes generous contributions to the Republican Party and its candidates, including Donald Trump.

Views

Masayoshi Son is a well-known philanthropist. He has played an integral part in the recovery strategy during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. He was also instrumental in establishing solar power projects in Japan. Following the 2011 tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, he donated around 10 billion yen ($120 million) to relief organizations and also pledged all his future salary to help support the victims. On June 3, as protests over racial injustice and the death of George Floyd swept the globe, SoftBank announced the launch of a $100 million fund to invest in entrepreneurs of color.

Quotations: "Have passion, have a dream, for your own life. Life is only one time."

"Entrepreneurship, you will only understand it if you experience it for yourself. It’s not something I can explain in words."

"When employees just handle daily routines within their abilities, they are doing nothing more than a simple task. But putting workers in a totally unfamiliar environment, giving them a mission and asking them to use absolutely any means necessary to bring their company to a new level of growth - this can really challenge and inspire them."

"When you hit an obstacle, do not mourn it. Because it provides growth opportunities."

"The most effective means of solving problems when solving problems is to continue thinking deeply until a solution is made."

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Den Fujita

• Politicians

  Donald Trump

• Sport & Clubs

  golf, baseball

Connections

Son is married and has two children, but he keeps his family life private. He married Masami Ohno, the daughter of a prominent Japanese doctor, while they were both students at the University of California, Berkeley.

Spouse:

Masami Ohno

Brother:

Taizo Son

Taizo Son is an entrepreneur who has founded companies including GungHo Online Entertainment and Movida Japan. He's worth an estimated $1.2 billion, according to Forbes. Masayoshi Son was an early investor in his brother's company.

Friend:

Rupert Murdoch

Acquaintance:

Larry Ellison

Acquaintance:

Bill Gates

Acquaintance:

Steve Jobs

Acquaintance:

Donald Trump

Son has publicly met with President Donald Trump on a few separate occasions, including at Trump Tower in New York a month after Trump was elected.

At a June 2018 groundbreaking ceremony in Wisconsin for a new manufacturing facility for Foxconn, Trump praised SoftBank for increasing its investments in the United States companies.

Friend:

Jack Ma

References

• Masayoshi Son on Facebook
• Masayoshi Son on Twitter