It has been a tough year for Japan’s SoftBank and its CEO Masayoshi Son. Neither the company nor Son is weathering the global tech slump and general rising investor skepticism towards growth-first, cash-burning startups especially well. In the third quarter, SoftBank’s core Vision Fund arm lost a whopping US$7.2 billion, which only looks acceptable when compared with the its record US$23 billion loss in the April-June period.
Even the indefatigable Son had to admit that perhaps he had placed some big bets without thinking them through. He described himself as becoming “somewhat delirious” during the apex of SoftBank’s startup funding binge when the investments were paying off big and says he is now “embarrassed and remorseful.”
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