Masayoshi Son’s investnt strategy had always been simple in concept: profit by investing in a wide range of internet startups, especially Arican dot-com companies.
His na rose and fell across the world, and more and more retail investors began copying his portfolio.
That myth collapsed when the dot-com bubble burst. The stock prices of most internet companies listed on the U.S. Nasdaq plunged, and many of the startups SoftBank had invested in went bankrupt. As a result, his portfolio suffered devastating losses.
SoftBank’s share price fell 90% from its peak, and not only SoftBank shareholders, but also the yakuza, politicians, and Japan’s major moneyed players who had personally entrusted him with funds ca looking for him and pressed him hard.
“Please trust just one more ti. This isn’t over yet. The {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} bubble around IT companies may have burst, but that doesn’t an the potential has disappeared. Believe in and wait a little longer. Then I’ll bring all of you enormous profits.”
He gathered the investors together and pleaded his case. But everyone lashed out at him.
“Because of you! Because of your stubbornness! My entire fortune is about to vanish!”
The shareholders criticized him, berated him, and demanded compensation. Masayoshi Son stood straight and listened to every single opinion without flinching. When the six-hour barrage of condemnation finally ended, the expressions on the shareholders’ faces had softened considerably.
At that mont, an elderly woman rose from her seat and spoke.
“My husband and I put all of his retirent money into SoftBank shares. We invested ten million yen, and when it fell by ninety-nine percent and beca one hundred thousand yen, we were in despair.”
Most of the investors were people just like her, ordinary people who had scraped together their savings to invest in SoftBank. After the elderly woman spoke, no other shareholder opened their mouth.
Then an old man raised his hand. The mont he stood, every eye in the room turned toward him.
He was SoftBank’s second-largest shareholder and a wealthy magnate who had also personally entrusted money to Masayoshi Son.
“Masayoshi.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can I get my money back?”
“I can recover it. No matter what.”
The old man nodded and said,
“Good. Then I’ll watch whether you recover my money, or fail once again. I’ll trust you one more ti, Masayoshi.”
When the old man declared that he would trust him, the other investors seed moved and one after another voiced their agreent. The furious investors had decided to give Masayoshi Son another chance.
“But this is the last chance. This is as far as my trust goes. If things proceed according to plan, I’m willing to invest even more.”
“Thank you for trusting . I’ll make sure to repay that trust.”
By the ti the shareholder eting that had lasted more than six hours finally ca to an end, every shareholder in the room was applauding him.
Though he had regained the confidence of his shareholders, the road ahead was still dark.
The path he chose was the high-speed internet business.
Masayoshi Son declared that he would provide service far faster than Japan’s largest telecom company, NTT, at less than half the price.
It was an ambitious start, but NTT, the very company that had to lease the lines, was uncooperative from the beginning. Custors’ awareness of high-speed internet was low, and the service quality itself was far from ideal.
Fixing all of that required money.
But the banks turned their backs on him, and even raising capital was difficult. In the end, he handed over his shares of Yahoo Arica to the U.S. headquarters.
“I can’t understand the way you think, Masayoshi. I’m done here.”
After working alongside him for many years, CFO Kitawo Yoshinaka turned his back on him.
He couldn’t understand why Masayoshi Son was betting the company’s fate on an uncertain high-speed internet future, and in the end he split off part of SoftBank’s headquarters operations and beca independent.
His resignation generated endless rumors, and because of it SoftBank’s stock price, which had only just begun to recover, fell once again.
“Vice President Kazuhito, please help .”
Trying sohow to stabilize the situation, Masayoshi Son went to plead with retired Fuji Bank Vice President Kazuhito.
Though elderly, he was a man with enormous reach throughout Japan’s financial world.
After bringing him in, Masayoshi Son raised funds and visited the relevant governnt ministries to protest in order to secure NTT’s cooperation.
And so ti passed.
The losses piled up.
Even while posting annual losses of one hundred billion yen, he never gave up.
The reason he could endure despite the losses was Yahoo Japan’s explosive growth.
At last, his efforts began to bear fruit.
Masayoshi Son acquired Japan Telecom and improved the quality of the service even further.
Then, three years into the business, the high-speed internet service finally turned profitable.
What captured his attention next was the iPhone.
“Yes! That’s it! That’s innovation!”
Masayoshi Son imdiately flew to Apple and requested a eting with Steve Jobs.
He was rejected, but fortunately, because of a past connection with Tim Cook, he was at least able to et him.
“Give the exclusive Asian rights to sell the iPhone! I’ll do everything in my power to make the iPhone grow!”
“I’d like that too, but our boss doesn’t want it. There’s nothing I can do.”
“What the hell is the reason? Who’s more qualified than in Asia? I can sell the iPhone in Japan, Korea, and even China!”
“I can’t tell you the reason. Just go back. No matter how much you pressure , Apple is a place where the boss’s decision is law. I don’t have the authority to change that.”
“So you’re saying you can do nothing?”
“That’s reality.”
Even from his eting with Tim Cook, Masayoshi Son gained nothing, and after that he kept contacting Apple.
“What? A simultaneous release in Korea and the U.S.?”
Then the news he heard was even more shocking.
“Korea? Not Japan, not Europe, but Korea?”
He couldn’t understand Apple’s move.
At that mont, the door opened and his secretary entered.
“What is it, Masao?”
Still worked up over the shocking news, Masayoshi Son snapped at the innocent secretary.
“My apologies. It seed urgent enough that I had to report it imdiately...”
“Urgent? What is it?”
“It’s about the iPhone.”
“Then speak!”
The visibly tense secretary hurriedly continued.
“We received contact from Korea. They want you to co to Korea to negotiate the exclusive Japanese rights for the iPhone.”
“What does that an...?”
At that mont, a na flashed through Masayoshi Son’s mind.
He bit down hard on his lip and asked the secretary,
“President Kim Muhyuk?”
“Yes, that’s correct. They say President Kim Muhyuk holds the exclusive rights to the iPhone in the three East Asian countries.”
“Is that true? Did you confirm it with Apple?”
“They said they couldn’t comnt.”
“Couldn’t comnt... That’s practically the sa as confirming it’s true.”
“To grant such trendous authority to nothing more than a Korean investor... honestly, it’s hard to believe.”
The secretary let his skepticism show. He was one of those typical Japanese n who looked down on Korea.
“No, it must be real. If it’s Kim Muhyuk, he absolutely has the ability to make sothing like that happen.”
“But...”
“Book the flight imdiately and stop talking nonsense. It doesn’t matter what you think right now! We absolutely must get the iPhone in our hands! That’s the only way we survive.”
“...Understood.”
The next day, Masayoshi Son boarded a flight to Korea.
* * *
Masayoshi Son and I sat facing each other.
“To begin with, it is true that I hold the exclusive right to sell the iPhone in Japan. This is the docunt proving it.”
I slid a sheet of paper toward him.
Masayoshi Son snatched it up and read through it in a hurry.
“...It’s true. So that’s why they said they couldn’t give it to .”
He set the docunt down with a hollow expression.
“It would be difficult for to sell directly in Japan.”
I nodded.
“There is the option of acquiring a telecom company, but... they would never hand that over to a Korean.”
“That’s correct. Japan is a highly closed country. Especially toward Koreans.”
“Of all people, Chairman, you must have experienced that with your whole body. I know.”
“...So you’re saying you’ll hand that authority over to ?”
“If the terms are right. You’re better suited for it than I am.”
“Terms?”
“For starters, these are the conditions Apple wants from telecom companies.”
I tossed the docunt toward him.
It was a rude gesture, but Masayoshi Son didn’t care and imdiately picked it up.
One page, two pages—his expression darkened with every sheet he turned.
“Isn’t demanding a portion of the monthly fees for Apple going too far?”
“That condition is completely non-negotiable. The Arican carriers, Europe, and Korea all accepted the exact sa terms.”
“You’re saying they all accepted this?”
“That’s right. That’s how extraordinary the iPhone is. Would you like to see it for yourself?”
To help him decide, I took out the iPhone prototype that Jobs had given and handed it over.
Seeing the real device for the first ti, he examined it ticulously as if handling a child.
“It’s only a prototype, so a lot may change by launch. But if anything, it’ll only get better, never worse.”
As he studied the iPhone, his eyes began to burn with desire.
“This is revolutionary. Who but Apple could release a handset like this?”
After studying it for a long while, he finally spoke.
“Seeing it in person, it’s even more astonishing. It’s a device several years ahead of its ti.”
Masayoshi Son’s eye for the future really was sharp.
It was only because I had invested in his future targets ahead of him that he had been denied so many chances to show it.
His ability to see the future was genuine.
“Yes. Copycat devices will absolutely appear. But a device that surpasses the iPhone won’t appear for decades.”
Masayoshi Son nodded and handed the prototype back to .
Unlike before, his eyes were now blazing with heat.
“I accept every one of these conditions.”
“But as far as I know, none of SoftBank’s subsidiaries currently owns a mobile carrier. Even if you take the exclusive rights, without a telecom operator you’d only be making things easier for soone else.”
“Well, that’s...”
He hesitated and let the sentence trail off.
Smiling at that hesitation, I said,
“Are you preparing to acquire Vodafone Japan?”
“What... how did you know that?”
“Because if I were you, that’s what I’d do. Chairman Son isn’t the kind of man who makes life easy for others. You’re far too greedy for that.”
“Haha. No, that’s not it. The mont I saw the iPhone, I had a feeling. The future would no longer belong to computers, but to this small iPhone. So I had already been preparing.”
I nodded and asked,
“That’s not a small amount of money. Wouldn’t it take at least two trillion yen to acquire and rge with Vodafone Japan? Do you really have that kind of room?”
“I’m considering several different thods.”
I smiled as I watched him pretend calm.
“Then don’t do that. Acquire it together with .”
“...What?”
“I’m saying we should acquire Vodafone Japan together. Why give profits to soone else unnecessarily? I’ll cover half of the acquisition funds.”
“...”
“These are my terms. Work with . If you refuse, I’ll have no choice but to choose another partner. I only chose you because the blood of the sa Korea flows through us. Otherwise, anyone would do. So long as they’re a Japanese businessman.”
Masayoshi Son stared straight into my eyes, as if trying to read my true intentions.
Knowing exactly what worried him, I smiled and said,
“I have no desire for managent control. If that still makes you uneasy, we can create a SPAC specifically to acquire Vodafone Japan and invest through that. The shares would be 49% mine and 51% SoftBank’s.”
The idea was to establish a special purpose acquisition company and proceed safely.
That way, the actual acquiring party would not be SoftBank itself, but that corporate vehicle, and SoftBank, with its 51% stake in that entity, would retain managent control.
“On top of that, I’ll draft a contract granting SoftBank right of first refusal when we decide to sell our shares. Will you accept?”
Masayoshi Son was no fool.
He could never fail to recognize an opportunity like this when it was placed directly before him.
No—in truth, already standing at the edge of the cliff, he had no other choice.
This was, in effect, coercion.
For him, these were terms he had no choice but to accept.
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