Masayoshi Son

Masayoshi Son founded SoftBank in 1981 as a software distributor in Japan and transformed it into a global technology investment conglomerate. He famously invested $20 million in Alibaba in 2000 — generating over $130 billion in value. His $100 billion Vision Fund, launched in 2017 with Saudi and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth, deployed capital into companies including WeWork, Uber, Didi, and hundreds of others. Some investments generated massive returns; others — particularly WeWork — became examples of excessive valuation. Son's concentrated technology bets have both defined and disrupted global venture capital norms. After significant losses from Vision Fund 2 investments in 2022-2023, Son refocused SoftBank on artificial intelligence investments, declaring that AGI (artificial general intelligence) would be the most transformative technology of the coming decades and restructuring SoftBank's portfolio accordingly.