Business Week Online Cover Story - our Son
Cover Story for Business Week Online January 10, 2000 !!!!!!!
businessweek.com
Rising Son
It's good to be MASAYOSHI SON. The scrappy Tokyo-based founder of Internet phenom Softbank is now worth about $4 billion. And in 1999 Son finally quelled critics who once wrote him off as just another slick venture capitalist who got lucky with bets on hot Web names such as Yahoo! (YHOO)
Son, 42, won over doubters by proving his Net investments could be parlayed into hugely promising alliances and joint ventures in overseas markets. So far, Son has already
built a broad confederation of Internet-related affiliates in the U.S. and Japan, creating a sort of cyber-multinational.
Softbank-affiliated companies swap ideas, capital, and marketing to promote growth. Visitors to Yahoo!'s site in Japan, for instance, can also check out mortgages on E-Loan (EELN), purchase stocks on E*Trade (EGRP) or price software on Buy.com (BUYC), all companies in which Softbank owns stakes.
Son's frenetic empire-building has dragged Japan out of the Web Dark Ages. From online trading to wireless technologies, he has ventures in virtually every segment of Japan's Internet economy, with stakes in 70% of the country's publicly traded Internet companies. At the same time Son is expanding across Asia and Europe, even as he sheds non-Internet assets, such as parts of publishing unit Ziff-Davis (ZD).
The grandson of Korean immigrants, Son relishes breaking the rules of Japan's ossified old-boy network. As a member of a despised minority, he struggled to get the loans he needed to launch Softbank in 1981. Now he gets regular face time with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. And investors are flocking to his money machine. With Softbank sitting on $30 billion in unrealized gains from its Internet portfolio, the stock has gone through the stratosphere. Not bad for a
kid from the wrong side of the tracks. |
