Son. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, the key force behind all of the Vision Fund's investments, meets with every founder of every Vision Fund investment in person before a deal is signed. And that’s become a huge liability to investors in the Vision Fund and SoftBank, too.Today, SoftBank has a major stake in sector leaders like Uber Technologies Inc., WeWork, Grab Holdings Inc. and Oyo.
Mr. Son’s team swarmed Brain Corp’s businesses and spent hundreds of hours on due diligence, wrapping up in a few months.Some entrepreneurs said his breakneck investing pace with the Vision Fund was unlikely to slow.Unlike other investors, Mr. Mr. The SoftBank chief is known for almost always smiling and speaking slowly. Son probably preferred that the stake, bought from earlier backers, land in the hands of the Indian entrepreneur than a rival investor. For a man with a 100-year vision, Masayoshi Son sure seems impatient.But now those huge bets are starting to unravel. Altogether, SoftBank would have a network of companies that gather valuable logistics data and operate large, connected fleets that could work well with self-driving car technology. The whole point of this founding pile of cash is to tide a business over until it finds a working model that’s sustainable. For years, it seemed like a sound strategy. “I’d say the thing we have in common with his other investments is that they are all part of some of the largest systems on the planet: energy, transportation, the internet and food.”Like many other entrepreneurs, Mr. Izhikevich said SoftBank moved “scary fast” to sew up its investment.
“Because the tools that we created were inferior to mankind’s brain in the past. Son on what made Mapbox important.“Masa is in a hurry,” said Vijay Sharma, the chief executive of Indian digital payments start-up Paytm, which SoftBank put $1.4 billion into in May.
Mr. Izhikevich was soon seated across from Mr. But climbing to number one doesn’t mean being profitable.But a good VC shouldn’t just be a loud cheerleader for its portfolio companies; it’s also the wise old voice of reason when founders’ success gets to their head. Son led a $200 million investment in Plenty in July, part of an effort to make it a global leader in indoor farms. “He sees this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where everything we touch can become a market, where we’re at the opening up of a new industrial revolution.”For more than three decades, Mr. A record investment loss will take a sizable chunk out of the $100 billion Vision Fund.Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world.Son’s insistence that startups grow faster than their founders planned, and strong-arm them into taking more money than they might have wanted, has turned into a burden. That translates to about $16.6 billion, and takes a sizable chunk out of the $100 billion fund.