SoftBank founder and Vision Fund creator
Appears in 1 documentary
Masayoshi Son stands as one of the most audacious and controversial figures in modern venture capital, a man whose appetite for massive bets has reshaped entire industries while leaving behind a trail of spectacular wins and devastating losses. Born in 1957 to Korean immigrants in rural Japan, Son overcame significant ethnic discrimination to build SoftBank into a $100 billion investment juggernaut that would fundamentally alter how the world thinks about startup valuations and growth-at-all-costs mentality.
Son’s journey began with an early recognition that the future belonged to technology and information. After studying at UC Berkeley in the late 1970s, he returned to Japan with grandiose ambitions, founding SoftBank in 1981 as a software distributor. His first major coup came through an early investment in Yahoo Japan, which generated returns that established his reputation as a visionary investor. But it was his prescient bet on a little-known Chinese entrepreneur named Jack Ma in 2000 that would define his legacy—Son invested $20 million in Alibaba when most Western investors couldn’t grasp its potential, a stake that would eventually be worth over $100 billion.
This early success with Alibaba created what some observers call the “Masayoshi Son effect”—a belief that his ability to spot transformative companies bordered on supernatural. The myth grew stronger with successful investments in companies like ARM Holdings, the British chip designer that powers most of the world’s smartphones. By 2016, Son felt confident enough to launch the Vision Fund, the largest pool of venture capital in history, backed primarily by Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth.
The $100 billion Vision Fund represented more than just a large investment vehicle—it was Son’s attempt to accelerate the future itself. His philosophy centered on the “information revolution,” a belief that artificial intelligence and data would transform every aspect of human existence within decades. To achieve this vision, Son was willing to deploy capital at a scale that made traditional venture capitalists look conservative.
The Fund’s approach fundamentally distorted startup ecosystems worldwide. Companies that might have raised $50 million suddenly found themselves offered $500 million or more, with Son famously making investment decisions after brief meetings, sometimes based on gut instinct rather than traditional due diligence. This spray-and-pray approach with massive checks inflated valuations across Silicon Valley and beyond, creating what critics called a “SoftBank premium” that forced other investors to either match inflated prices or be shut out of deals entirely.
WeWork became the most visible symbol of this investment philosophy gone wrong. Son invested over $10 billion in Adam Neumann’s co-working company, pushing its valuation to $47 billion despite fundamental questions about its business model. When WeWork’s IPO collapsed in 2019, it exposed the risks of Son’s bet-big-on-everything approach and marked the beginning of a broader reckoning with growth-at-all-costs investing.
Son’s impact extends far beyond his individual wins and losses—he helped create the modern unicorn economy where billion-dollar valuations became commonplace rather than exceptional. His willingness to pour unprecedented amounts of capital into unproven business models accelerated the development of ride-sharing, food delivery, and co-working sectors, while simultaneously creating unsustainable expectations for growth and profitability.
The WeWork debacle and subsequent struggles of other Vision Fund investments have tarnished Son’s reputation, but his influence on venture capital remains undeniable. He proved that patient capital deployed at massive scale could create entirely new markets, even as he demonstrated the dangers of prioritizing growth over sustainable business fundamentals. Today, as the startup world grapples with a return to profitability-focused investing, Son’s legacy serves as both inspiration and cautionary tale about the power and peril of visionary capitalism.
Provides detailed insight into how Masayoshi Son's investment philosophy enabled WeWork's inflated valuation.
Chronicles Son's role as WeWork's primary enabler and the Vision Fund's disastrous due diligence process.
At its peak, WeWork was valued at $47 billion. Adam Neumann cashed out over $700 million before the IPO collapsed. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2023 with a valuation of essentially zero. Not one investor who enabled this was held accountable.