Most people know Masayoshi Son , starting with Jack Ma . By understanding the early hard history of Alibaba , we discovered that this investor, who claims to be a descendant of Sun Wu, has a keen sense of business and a long-term vision. Now, Masayoshi Son publicly announced that he would withdraw from the SoftBank Group's operation, which will make many people sigh.
Some people say that Masayoshi Son’s greatest success is investing in Alibaba, and his biggest failure is not investing in the second Alibaba.
has and only one Alibaba
When Jack Ma first founded Alibaba, he was not optimistic in China and could not find an investment. Later, there was no choice, Jack Ma came to Masayoshi Son, thinking that it was a waste of money again. But Jack Ma did not expect that Masayoshi Son had a unique vision and seemed to see Alibaba's potential, so he invested 20 million US dollars in turn.
You should know that at that time, Alibaba was only an unknown small e-commerce company that had just been established for a year. At that time, no one could imagine how high Alibaba would climb in the future, and no one would have to invest tens of millions of dollars if they were ruthless. Only Masayoshi Son is an exception, and he is quite calm, as if this little money is nothing.
This is also the difference between Masayoshi Son and other investors. He is bold and aggressive, and many people even call it crazy. In 2000, he invested $20 million in Alibaba, and just four years later, he invested $60 million again. It was these two investments that created a good story in the history of investment and almost created the legend of Masayoshi Son.
In 2014, Alibaba went public, and SoftBank Group behind Masayoshi Son holds more than 30% of shares . The value of this part of the shares is 2,900 times higher than the money he spent on investment. Masayoshi Son, who was originally famous for investing in Yahoo, has completely reached the peak of his life, which is enough to be called a "legend".
But the key to the problem is that Masayoshi Son can no longer find a second Alibaba. Perhaps it was Alibaba's success that made Masayoshi Son sure that his strategy was successful. Invest in those technology and e-commerce companies, and don’t hesitate to sponsor them to start the “money burning model” to occupy the market and become industry giants.
As long as they wait until they are strong enough, they will be able to get more rewards when they are on the market. This "Alibaba"-like success story implements Masayoshi Son's subsequent investment history. We also see the ending that Masayoshi Son failed to wait for the second Jack Ma. Most of his money was wasted.
The last speech, is Son really going to retire?
At SoftBank’s latest financial quarter meeting, Masayoshi Son announced to everyone that this was his last speech at his financial performance meeting. As a result, people believe that countless failures finally defeated this madman and that it was time to retire.
But everyone may have misunderstood Masayoshi Son's decision, he did not want to go home to take care of his old age. On the contrary, he has his last move - ARM. This semiconductor company, which spent $31 billion to buy, brought a lot of fantasy to Masayoshi Son. He believes that this is a company comparable to Google and Amazon .
If ARM can be launched, everything will be solved. Masayoshi Son probably had this determination and chose to go crazy in the end. Can he succeed? It's very difficult. Moreover, another bad news is that Son's personal debt is growing wildly. According to statistics from relevant institutions, Son seems to have owed SoftBank a huge debt of $4.7 billion.
So, maybe he doesn't have to stop, but he may not be able to stop.
