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What Does Masayoshi Son Want?
00:30:08
The man behind SoftBank has now teamed up with OpenAI to invest up to $500 billion in American AI infrastructure over the next four years. Masayoshi Son has a vision for the future of the world. But what does that vision look like?
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- [00:01]
Lionel Barber
It's a vision of a society transformed, or soon to be transformed by artificial general intelligence. I think he's now talking about superintelligence, where, I mean, frankly, the robots are going to be smarter than the human beings and they're going to take over an awful lot of tasks. And what he wants to do is insert himself in the middle of this system.
- [00:30]
Mary Long
I'm Mary Long and that's Lionel Baltimore Barber. He's the former editor in chief of the Financial Times, where he worked for several decades. He's also the author of the new book Gambling Man, a biography about Masayoshi San, the storied founder and CEO of SoftBank. My colleague Ricky Mulvey caught up with Barber for a conversation about what makes Masayoshi san tick, his skills as a salesperson, life at the Vision Fund, and some important questions for anyone who's tempted to put their life savings into SoftBank. Heads up that this interview was recorded in early January before it was announced that SoftBank would be working to fund Stargate, the joint AI infrastructure venture between OpenAI, Oracle and others. That announcement doesn't change any of the information shared in this conversation, but we think it does make it all the more relevant. We hope you enjoy fools.
- [01:25]
Ricky Mulvey
As we dive into your biography. There's plenty of current events to talk about with Masa's son, but there is an easy place to start with your book because you describe him as a fool with the capital F is a jester. And for the fools listening, I know they'll be interested to hear why. It's something we take seriously here at the Motley fool is you want to be foolish with a capital F. So why is Masa's son a fool?
- [01:47]
Lionel Barber
Well, in the great King Lear tradition, the fool is the person who speaks truth to power, but also is the kind of the fly in the ointment. And in Japan, which is a very hierarchical society, top down, they're very ordered. They don't like people who take big risks. Masa is the person who is running counter to the mainstream and in that sense, and it was actually me quoting a top Japanese businessman who sort of said, you know, he is the jester. Joshu Doshioki, which it's a terrible Japanese accent to describe that role of the outsider who is got runs against the current. So praise be the fool.
- [02:36]
Ricky Mulvey
And I think there is something interesting that changes in this because there is a part where he is the outsider and he is the fool, where he's very little known. And then later he becomes someone comparing himself to Genghis Khan and even, even maybe Jesus Christ. At which point, I don't know if you can say that person is a f school anymore. You're definitely in the inside once you're making those, those comparisons to historical figures.
- [02:58]
Lionel Barber
Yeah, Napoleon, let's not forget him. He was also small and he was also an outsider. Corsican, who became the emperor of France and the emperor of Europe. And Masa is an empire builder. I mean, remember, he's got an businesses which stretch across the globe. You know, he invested, invested in Alibaba in China. He invested in Yahoo in America. He built a computer publishing business. He's got big assets in Britain. So this is a guy who really does see himself in historical terms, but also he is somebody who loves to make sure that people underestimate him. And in that sense, casting himself as a bit of a joker and a fool is a good way to throw people off the scent.
- [03:42]
Ricky Mulvey
We'll go to the COVID now of your book, which is that you give him this, this heavyweight title, the champion, the world's greatest disruptor. You could put a few people in that category. Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Elon Musk, Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford. I'm sure I'm baiting you with some of those names, but why give him that heavyweight championship belt of the world's greatest disruptor when this is someone. He built an empire. He got more money into a fund than anyone else before, but he didn't invent anything. He wasn't building electric cars. He wasn't bringing light bulbs to America or the world.
- [04:17]
Lionel Barber
Yeah, he's not Steve Jobs in that he didn't produce the Apple Mac or the iPhone and these fantastic products. And he's not Henry Ford, the great manufacturing innovator. But you don't have to be that. You can be a middleman. You can be the gateway for technology to come into Japan, and then you can take on the Colossus. No mean thing. Ntt Nippon Telegraph was the most valuable company in the world in 2000 in Japan. And look, he then smashed up the party in Silicon Valley in the venture fund industry. Okay, you could say he was hosing away billions and he lost away money. But in that sense, I think he deserves the title of the world's greatest recent disruptor, not least because he's not very well known. And that's the big secret about this book.
- [05:10]
Ricky Mulvey
He is someone who should be known by. When we talk about great investors on the show, we often go to folks like Warren Buffett or even Benjamin Graham. It's sort of that older school value investing style approach. You say that basically you write. I shouldn't say. You say basically you write directly that quote, his instincts as an investor were far superior to his skills is a trader. There's two questions there, Lionel. First, what made him in your view, a great investor that deserves more attention in that regard?
- [05:41]
Lionel Barber
Well, he was the richest man in the world in February 2000 for three days. But he got to the top and he came back and he's had several moonshots that have come off. Take Alibaba, he spent 20 million, then 80 million. $100 million bet turns into $130 billion. He didn't sell out like Goldman Sachs. He bought ARM holdings which is this by the way going to be the vehicle for developing the super chip to rival Nvidia's ARM? He paid $32 billion. It's now worth 140 billion. Not bad. Similarly, Yahoo, he invested in early and as a result was able to invest during the dot com bubble in 400 plus companies. So I think he has been a very good investor with a couple of caveats. I mean we work, we're not going to skate over that. I don't. And also just to be clear, Ricky, I think he is not Warren Buffett. And Warren Buffett is a far superior investor, much more savvy and has not had these wild ups and downs that that MASA has. And significantly, and I describe this in detail when MAHSA goes all the way to Omaha to on a Sunday arrives there to see Warren Buffett and ask him to invest in the Vision Fund. Mr. Buffett says no thank you after about 20 minutes. Yeah, long way to go around the world.
- [07:13]
Ricky Mulvey
I want to get to his skills as a salesperson in a bit. One of the things that also that we, we focus on here at the fool is you want to be, you want to be good at investing but you're not a trader. So we'll get to the trading side of this. What makes Masa son a less great trader?
- [07:29]
Lionel Barber
Well, I mean if you look what he did when he was trying to mount a comeback during the COVID pandemic where he almost got wiped out, I mean had the wework losses. He starts, sets up this in house hedge fund and starts trading billions on options trading. Right. Futures derivatives. By the way, he's just also sold out on Nvidia. He did have 5% of Nvidia back in 2017. 18. He sells out in 19. He would have made a lot of money. He'd stuck with that. But this Options trading. Okay. He makes 7 billion in a few weeks, and then he runs up losses of, I don't know. SoftBank's very sensitive about this. Some say as much as 9 billion. I'm going net. He's down 6 billion in a matter of months. That's pretty bad trading.
- [08:26]
Ricky Mulvey
Yeah. The thing that he is truly great at, and I want to make sure we stay on this for a bit, is his skills as a salesperson. You mentioned that he was not able to get Buffett's attention when he flew out to Omaha. Warren Buffett, very polite, giving him a tour of the headquarters. I think he got to meet all 12 people at the Berkshire Hathaway office.
- [08:46]
Lionel Barber
I think he only met Mr. Buffett who was there, especially there on a Sunday. I mean, nobody else was in the building, as far as I could tell.
- [08:54]
Ricky Mulvey
Yeah, my bad. However, he is able to get a lot of money from Mohammed bin Salman. So if I were, I'm not saying I am, this life might be kind of nice. I think it'd be difficult, but it might be kind of nice if I were royalty in the Gulf. And Masa Son has come to meet with me to try to get me to give him billions and billions of dollars for the Vision Fund. What's that meeting life like? What's. What's he telling me to give up those billions of dollars?
- [09:24]
Lionel Barber
The secret to success can be summed up in four letters. Fomo, the fear of missing out. And with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, that's what he does. He says, if you invest with me, I'm going to introduce you to all the significant movers and shakers in the tech ecosystem. You'll get in early with the likes of Uber and Lyft and all these companies growing up in Silicon Valley. And Mohammed bin Salman, mbs, as he's known, is desperate to modernize the desert kingdom, wean himself, wean the country off oil. And he wants to modernize. And he sees Mahsa positions himself as the modernizer. And if you don't give me the money, by the way, I am going to ask you for $45 billion. He thinks I'm going to miss out. I'm prepared to spend that money. And by the way, if you've got the public investment fund, Saudi Aramco going public, and that's what you want to sell to investors, you're going to raise a couple of trillion, then maybe, maybe $45 billion is chump change. Maybe not quite.
- [10:43]
Ricky Mulvey
I would have a difficult time saying anything in the tens of billions is chump change in the lower numbers of billions. Sure, we can call that chump change. One of the things though is there are savvy players on both ends of this. And one of the things that, that the Vision Fund has is that it basically functions is a dividend stock where it's paying its limited partners a fixed 7% regardless of fund performance. And for those listening, a 7% dividend. You're talking about old school companies, you're talking tobacco stocks, you're talking Verizon, Pfizer, These are these high dividend companies. And you don't see a lot of high growth tech companies paying out large dividends like this. There are tech companies paying smaller dividends now, but these large dividends are not paid out because a lot of these companies need room to run, to make mistakes and to chase high growth opportunities. Why is this promise put into the fund?
- [11:44]
Lionel Barber
Well, Ricky, you've actually nailed the key point about the Vision Fund, which is that even though the Saudis, and by the way, also the Gulf states, the UAE or United Arab Emirates, that's Abu Dhabi, better known as Abu Dhashi, they want to get into the tech business and in these stocks, but they want some security. And that 7% coupon dividend annually guaranteed, I mean that's their security. And anything else is on top of that. But second point, he therefore is actually very quite stretched. And it also means that it's not a classic venture fund because venture funds don't give that guaranteed return it's supposed to be. It either works or it doesn't. And that's the third difference is guess what? Wework that they invested in, he won't let it go bankrupt. When the IPO is called off, Masa says, okay, I'll make you sweet to the Gulf investors. So all this actually means that although he was competing force feat with Silicon Valley venture funds and force feeding these companies with cash, it wasn't at all a classic venture operation.
- [13:20]
Ricky Mulvey
When you said it stretched the fund, what does that mean at a granular level for the lieutenants that are trying to make these investment decisions at SoftBank when they have to get this constant 7% yearly return for their investors, very.
- [13:33]
Lionel Barber
Simply, it means craziness. It means ill discipline. It means that the investors, believe it or not, and I report this in the book, were actually latterly being measured about how much money they were putting out through the door rather than looking at returns. It was all done in a tremendous rush, as one of the top SoftBank Vision Fund people told me. And do you know something? And we're going to talk about this, what he's doing now, I think he has drawn some lessons from that hubristic period of the Vision fund, sort of 2016-22.
- [14:19]
Ricky Mulvey
We can get to that. Because one of the things throughout Master Son's career that he is intensely skilled at is creating a vision and having people buy into that vision directionally. He's been correct on a number of very big things. Mobile, Internet, telecoms in Japan, the Internet in his deals with Yahoo, and creating. Basically seeing what's going on in Silicon Valley and creating distribution deals in Japan. And then beyond that, even, even with computer trade shows where he understands the purpose, like overpaying for networking may not be overpaying if you're running the networking show now, the vision is AI. He says $100 billion is coming into the U.S. you have our President Donald Trump, saying, We'd like $200 billion. Why not negotiate that way? When you talk to him, you interviewed him for the book to the best you can. What is his vision for AI? What's. What's the Masa sun vision of AI over the next few decades?
- [15:27]
Lionel Barber
Well, I want to talk about ar, but let me just reinforce what you were saying, which is quite right, that he's ridden this technological wave and he's been fundamentally right about the direction of technology, which has shaped modern societies, you know, irreparably. I mean, he's like, you know, we talked about him being the fool, but I would like. I think he's more a Forrest Gump like character who's sort of there always at, you know, either the microchip or the Internet, mobile Internet, and, you know, venture capital, turbocharging these companies with money. And now it is AI. And in the conversation that I had with him in Tokyo, the fourth interview, he kind of sketched some of the vision. And really, it's a vision of a society transformed by, or soon to be transformed by, artificial general intelligence. I think he's now talking about superintelligence, where, I mean, frankly, the robots are going to be smarter than the human beings and they're going to take over an awful lot of tasks. And what he wants to do is insert himself in the middle of this system. So there's going to be a lot of focus on logistics, autonomous vehicles, distribution, robotics. And he's investing in these companies all around the world, particularly in America, though. And I think the other big play, which we're going to hear a lot about in 2025, is the development of A super chip to rival Nvidia's. And we know that Nvidia has transformed in the last 10 years into a company worth 3 trillion plus dollars. I'm not saying that Masa will get to that scale, but he certainly wants to get into that business of super chips to power the AGI revolution.
- [17:27]
Ricky Mulvey
And what's interesting is he doesn't want to do that by investing in a public company that may be doing that already. Nvidia. It reminds me of a story when he wanted to invest in Yahoo in the earlier Internet days and Jerry Yang is trying to turn him down. Masa son wants to overpay and basically he says, you know what, if you don't want me to invest in your company, I'm going to bring up this other company and just try to kill you. And I wonder, looking at his history and seeing what's going on with this next superchip, do you think a little bit of that's going on with him trying to create the new chip for artificial superintelligence if he's not investing in Nvidia?
- [18:02]
Lionel Barber
Well, you have to remember Ricky, that the big vision in 201819 was to merge Nvidia with Arm holdings which was the designer. The British based was called a big operation in California. Designer of huge numbers of different chips supplied to the likes of Apple, Qualcomm. And he wanted to merge the design skills of Nvidia with the kind of technical superpower state qualities of. Sorry. He wanted to merge the design expertise of arm, which was a supplier to all the major big tech companies with Nvidia that would have these advanced graphics chips. So it was a sort of horizontal and vertical integration play. When regulators block that, he's now saying, okay, I'm actually going to compete. But I, I, I think he's also a frenemy of Nvidia. He's never going to go head to head. He likes the frenemy game.
- [19:17]
Ricky Mulvey
You mentioned that you, you interviewed Masayoshi Son four times. You've interviewed a number of world leaders and one of the things you like to do when you're interviewing a big dog is you got to get their attention. You want to unlock them and you want to get their attention. One story I've heard you tell before is you interviewed Vladimir Putin and you started speaking to him in German because he was, he was a KGB agent in Germany and you knew that he spoke German and he took it with stride. He wasn't surprised. He was just able to handle it. When you're talking to Masayoshi Son, how are you getting his attention?
- [19:49]
Lionel Barber
Well, the first time I turned up in Tokyo, I was told he was too busy to see me. And initially I took that as a bit affronted. But then I said, you know, get over it, you're not the editor of the FT anymore and you know, use the time to your own advantage. So what I was able to do was I said to the softbank people, I'm going to Kyushi on where he was born. And remember, it's crucial to understand that he came from a Korean immigrant family. He is an outsider. This is all about where he gets his motivation. So by walking around Kyushu for two days. And by the way, I would have gone by car, but I didn't have a foreign driver's license. And then I found out my researcher who's Korean Japanese didn't have a foreign driving license. So I wore out a pair of shoes in Kyushu. But crucially, when I did the first interview, I was able to immediately say I went to your school. And I remember here in Kuma Kurume. And that got his attention. Like this gaijin, this foreigner has bothered to actually examine my roots. And I think that helped to unlock him.
- [21:08]
Ricky Mulvey
How do you think his roots are still dry? He's pushing tens of billions of dollars into high tech companies. He still has this background of. And I've heard you bring up the book Pachinko before, which is appropriate. It's a Korean immigrant to Japan family opening a pachinko parlor and slot machine parlor.
- [21:27]
Lionel Barber
Yeah, yeah.
- [21:29]
Ricky Mulvey
But even in these later years, how are you seeing that, that sort of tough upbringing driving him?
- [21:35]
Lionel Barber
You have to remember that the Japanese corporate establishment regards this guy with great suspicion. They don't particularly like him because he's a disruptor, but they also don't like him because he's Korean. He comes from a Korean immigrant families. His grandfather came over in 1917. His grandmother, who's very influential figure, came out in the late 20s. And this was a time when Korea was a colony of Japan, Imperial Japan. So I mean, there's still racial prejudice in Japan. And even though he's made his money and he's as rich, maybe sometimes the richest guy in Japan, sometimes it's Mr. Uniqlo, the fast, the retailer. So that's really why he wants to drive home that, you know, I've seen the prejudice. I suffered it as a, as a kid. The only way I escaped it was to go to America where he did spend five years, plus six years, five to six years as a student. Latterly at Berkeley where he did a degree and he majored in economics and that's where he set up his first business and for America was a great liberation to him. But guess what? He went back to Japan because he wanted to essentially stuff those Japanese. I'm actually going to show that I'm going to be the big guy. And I think he really still wants to be that. The great global figure in Japan still feels probably a little bit underestimated given his role, I think. And that's a big motivation. I want to be number one. He kept saying it to me.
- [23:18]
Unknown
We're so done with New Year. New youw. This year is More youe on Bumblebee. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Geminis because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want and you know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too be more you this year and find them on Bumble.
- [23:43]
Ricky Mulvey
As we wrap up this part of the conversation on Softbank and Masa Son, a lot of people have put a lot of Money into. Into SoftBank. His longtime confidant, Ron Fiser put his entire family's net worth into Softbank when he just got. Got started working there. That ended up working out fabulously well for him for. For a number of reasons. But that was a while ago. Let's talk about today. Let's say I'm considering a similar move. Maybe not my whole family's net worth, but let's say, let's say half. I want to give half my f. I'm thinking about giving half my family's net worth to Masayoshi Son because he's going to invest it for the next five to 10 years. You've researched this, this, this investment organization. You've researched Masayoshi Son for. For a while. This is enough to make me sweat. If it all goes poorly, I could. My life could be changed if it goes downhill. What would you say to me?
- [24:35]
Lionel Barber
I'd say, how strong is your stomach? Have you got iron filings in the stomach mixed with maybe a little bit of milk? Because you really do need a strong stomach to stay with Softbank. You've got to go through what I describe in the title as the wild ride in this company. I mean, you're going to have real gyrations. You're going to have the highs and the deep lows. So stick with it. Over time, you're probably not going to do much better than the S and P maybe a little bit worse over say the last 10 years. I would buy on the dip. I mean, that's what he told everybody. By the way, when he lost 97% of his wealth in 2000, he actually seriously went out to Japanese investors and said now's the time to buy and it would have been a good buy. Amazing to me how Japanese retail investors have stuck with him. He's got a lot of loyalty. Maybe that's partly because he's got that joker quality that you described at the beginning. People like him. But I wouldn't put all my savings, but I might put some.
- [25:46]
Ricky Mulvey
Okay, I want to move on to a few other topics while we have a little bit of time as we wrap up here. You mentioned something earlier when we were talking before the interview. One of your concerns as we move over across the Atlantic Ocean over to Europe is that you're concerned that Europe is a museum. Is Europe a museum? I'm hoping you can expand on that question and where it comes from for you.
- [26:09]
Lionel Barber
Well, I'm using a phrase that was around in the Clinton administration in the treasury at the time, sort of Bob Rubin, Larry Summers and I think that's how they described it. And of course we've got great museums, the Louvre, the Uffizi, British Museum. But we do have a few other things. The reason that we call it or risk becoming a museum is that as an engine of innovation and technological innovation and venture capital, deep capital markets, we are being left behind by a turbocharged America. And the industrial policy adopted by the Biden administration offering billions of subsidies that's drawn European companies to shift operations into America. And also now the drill baby drill philosophy when Europe still is committed to net zero climate change we take very, very seriously. We're going to therefore be at an energy disadvantage. I mean this is the danger of why we might become a museum. We're not quite yet though.
- [27:21]
Ricky Mulvey
Is there any great pieces of financial journalism or great stories that have been on your radar that you've been thinking about lately?
- [27:29]
Lionel Barber
First great story is the future of Indian capitalism and the Adnan Adani empire to rival Mukesh Ambani who created the. You know, he's a huge multi billionaires in energies and mobile Internet and everything. But Adani was a great beneficiary of the Modi government. He's in big time in public sector infrastructure. But that report by Hindenburg which devastated the share price has rocked Adani and now the stock market's fallen off a little bit in India and the growth may be a tailed off. Big question about India in 2025. I think the other story which I would just focus on more and more is just the role of private markets and the eclipse of public markets. It's really being seen in the city of London. You're seeing people migrating to New York and just writing more about private markets would be something I would focus on.
- [28:40]
Ricky Mulvey
Lionel Barber, book Gambling Man. Happy to recommend it to listeners of Motley Fool Money. Well researched and it's going to give you a great look at, as you said, an investor that maybe hasn't gotten enough attention. Thank you for your time, for your insight and for joining us on Motley Fool Money.
- [28:59]
Mary Long
As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley fool editorial standards and are not approved with by advertisers. The Motley fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We'll be back on Monday.