Masayoshi Son is a Japanese businessman and the founder and current chief
executive officer of SoftBank, the chief executive officer of SoftBank Mobile,
and current chairman of Sprint Corporation. According to Forbes
magazine, his net worth is $13.6 billion as of June 2015 and he is the second
richest man in Japan, despite having the distinction of losing the most money in
history. Forbes also describes him as a philanthropist.
Son was named the world's 45th most powerful person by Forbes Magazine's
List of The World's Most Powerful People in 2013.
Background Of Korean ethnicity, Son's family
adopted the Japanese surname Yasumoto in daily life and Son used this surname as
a child. Son pursued his interests in business by securing a meeting with
Japan McDonald's president Den Fujita. Taking his advice, Son began studying
English and computer science. At age 16, Son moved to California and
finished high school while staying with friends and family in South San
Francisco. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles in
which he majored in economics and studied computer science. Enamored by a
microchip featured in a magazine, Son at age 19 became confident that computer
technology would ignite the next commercial revolution.
Convinced that anything related to microchips could yield a fortune, Son
decided to produce at least one entrepreneurial idea a day. He patented
a translating device that he eventually sold to Sharp Electronics for $1
million. Applications of the patent include the Wizard series of Sharp PDAs.
Son graduated from Berkeley with a BA in economics in 1980, and started Unison in
Oakland, California, which has since been bought by Kyocera. In 1990, Son
Masayoshi adopted Japanese citizenship. Yahoo! BB
Although SoftBank's stake in Yahoo! had dwindled to 7%, Son established Yahoo!
BroadBand in September 2001 with Yahoo! Japan in which he still owned a
controlling interest. After a severe devaluation of SoftBank's equity, Son
was forced to focus his attention on Yahoo! BB and BB Phone. So far, SoftBank
has accumulated about $1.3 billion in debt. Yet, Yahoo! BB acquired Japan
Telecom, the then third largest broadband and landline provider with
600,000 residential and 170,000 commercial subscribers. Yahoo! BB is now
Japan's leading broadband provider. Vodafone K. K.
On March 17, 2006 Vodafone Group announced it had agreed to sell Vodafone
K.K. to SoftBank for approximately 1.75 trillion Japanese yen. On April 14, 2006
SoftBank and Vodafone K. K. jointly announced, that the brand and company
name Vodafone will be changed to a "new, easy-to-understand and familiar company
name and brand". Masayoshi Son is the CEO of Vodafone K. K.
Sprint Corporation Through SoftBank Masayoshi Son bought
76% in Sprint. SoftBank has further accumulated shares in Sprint; to about
80% ownership. Investment in Solar Power
In response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Masayoshi Son
criticized the nuclear industry for creating “the problem that worries
Japanese the most today”, and engaged in investing in a nationwide solar power
network for Japan. Philanthropy
In 2011 Masayoshi Son pledged to donate 10 billion yen and his remaining salary
until retirement to help support victims of 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
References External links
孫正義 on Twitter 孫正義 on Facebook
Masayoshi Son, AXA Talents, August 1, 2006 .
"Bio and Photo", Time = Articles=
"Son prefers small shares of companies to huge shares", Business Week, 2000
"Masayoshi Son: The CEO who lost $70bn in a day before conquering the world",
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