Masayoshi Son

Masayoshi Son was born in Japan in 1957 to Korean immigrant parents. He founded SoftBank in 1981 as a software distribution company and grew it through acquisitions into a major Japanese internet and telecom company. His $20 million investment in Alibaba in 2000 became worth over $130 billion — widely considered the most profitable single venture investment in history. Building on this, Son launched the $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund in 2017 with investment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala, deploying unprecedented capital into technology companies including WeWork, Uber, DoorDash, Grab, and hundreds of others. The Vision Fund suffered significant losses on WeWork and other investments during the 2019-2022 period, leading Son to reduce his public profile. Despite these setbacks, SoftBank remained a major force in technology investing, and Son has pivoted to focus on artificial intelligence as the next frontier.