SoftBank Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son announced he will get off the sidelines and shift back on the offensive in tech investing soon, seeking to establish his credentials in the burgeoning field of AI. SoftBank Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son declared the world’s largest tech investment firm will go on the offensive in tech investing soon, seeking to establish his credentials in the burgeoning field of AI. This will mark the end of years of relative dormancy after his Vision Fund, the world’s largest pool of tech capital, racked up billions of dollars of losses as a Covid era internet boom withered and a global economic downturn sapped valuations.
“The time has come to shift to offence mode,” Son told shareholders at the group’s annual general meeting, according to Reuters.
Switch from defensive to offensive
SoftBank hit the brakes on new investments and switched to playing defense last year when Son handed operational duties to CFO, Yoshimitsu Goto. The CEO accepted the many mistakes he made by getting carried away with excitement about new technology and companies, ignoring good advice from within SoftBank.
The Vision Fund’s return to the field is welcome news for a startup ecosystem whose largest players from Uber Technologies Inc. to Coupang Inc. scaled up thanks to steady financing from the Japanese firm. SoftBank’s signature portfolio firm is now Arm Ltd., the British chip designer Son argues is central to AI. Arm is now on track for one of the largest initial public offerings this year.
Son intends to keep running SoftBank and has found no successor. He is 65. Seemingly emotional when talking about his legacy, describing how he cried as he reflected on his future. Son, who made one of the most lucrative bets in startup investing history by financing Jack Ma and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., said he hadn’t done enough.
“The time has come to shift to offense mode. Since October, I’ve been thinking deeply about the rest of my time as a business person,” Son told shareholders at an annual meeting Wednesday. He decided “I wanted to become an architect to build the future of humankind. I may not achieve everything, I myself as an individual may not be enough, but I want to play a role, to an extent, somehow.”
Son mostly stayed away from the public eye, prior to this week. He had stepped away from conducting SoftBank’s earnings calls, even as the Vision Fund unit shouldered billions of dollars in losses over 5 straight quarters. New investments have virtually stopped, as Son wanted to focus on Arm. Owing to the long hibernation, SoftBank now has sufficient cash on hand to invest again. According to Son, Arm Ltd. is at the beginning of an “explosive” period of growth, and that he has spent the last few years doubling the number of the unit’s engineers.
SoftBank’s shares, which rose as much as 4.1% before the meeting began, dulled some of their gains after Son’s comments. Still, the stock has gained more than 30% in the June quarter, reflecting its best quarterly performance in 3 years.
As an early champion of investing in AI, Son told shareholders at Japanese telecom unit SoftBank Corp. how happy he was about growing public awareness about AI’s potential. Son said, SoftBank has poured billions of dollars into hundreds of companies and now sees some of those bets bearing fruit soon.
Arm’s prospects for initial public offering have brightened recently, buoyed by hype around generative AI and talks with potential anchor investors including Intel Corp., Arm is seeking to raise as much as $10 billion and brokerages are revising up their SoftBank stock price targets, as per Bloomberg News.
Son said, “We will go on the counter offensive soon. When your grandkids grow up to be our age, I believe that they will be living in such a reality where the computer is 10,000 times smarter than the sum of all human wisdom.”
