Masayoshi Son
Masayoshi Son ( Japanese:孙正义; born August 11, 1957 in Tosu, Saga Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese entrepreneur. He is a member of the Korean minority in Japan in its second generation, founder and CEO of Softbank Capital, and CEO of Softbank Mobile. According to the Forbes Magazine list of 2006, he was estimated with total assets of $ 7 billion of the wealthiest man in Japan Yasuo Takei ago ..
Biography
A piece of advice from the Japanese McDonald's president Den Fujita following, wanted to study English and computer science Son. At 16, he moved to San Francisco in California and graduated there from high school. At the University of California, Berkeley, he studied economics and computer science attended lectures. He was convinced that information technology would trigger the next economic revolution.
Son is a translation device was patented, that he could sell for a million dollars to Sharp Electronics. With the money earned, Son imported the arcade game Space Invaders and spread it on the Berkeley campus. After graduating with a BA in Economics in 1980 Son founded the company Unison in Oakland, which was later bought by Kyocera.
Softbank
In 1981 Son back to Japan, where he founded a one-million - dollar loan from the Dai -Ichi Bank Kangyo the software company Softbank Capital. First, he was sometimes more, sometimes less successful. After several scandals, the bank announced the loan, whereupon Son received a new loan from the Industrial Bank of Japan. During this time he bandelte with Microsoft Japan and acquired a 25 % stake in Novell Japan.
After his marriage to a Japanese woman was Son Japanese citizen. About half a billion more than he had commanded 1994 - - 1994 Son lost the bidding war to Ziff- Davis, the company still has a year later, but for $ 2.1 billion purchase.
1995 had 37 percent of Yahoo, Softbank, 1996 COMDEX was bought for $ 900 million, Kingston for 2.1 billion. 1997 Softbank invested in many Internet companies. This Softbank became one of the main winners of the New Economy. At the zenith of the so-called dot-com bubble Softbank was worth about 140 billion dollars. Son were at that time 53 percent of Softbank.
Softbank other companies verleibte one, even if this time were totally overrated. Were financed numerous purchases with a reduction in the proportion of Yahoo to 22.58 percent. One of the most spectacular acquired companies was the Nippon Credit Bank, Aozora Bank later. In addition Son wanted to promote the expansion of broadband Internet access, and thus become the market leader. The company was founded to Softbank BB Technologies Networks and soon became a successful competition with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), which has allowed the expansion of broadband connections too much time.
After the New Economy and thus Softbank in the following years, greatly lost its value, Son concentrated on Yahoo BB and BB Phone. Yahoo BB had 4.3 million ADSL customers, but wrote losses. Softbank had meanwhile accumulated debt of over one billion dollars.
Meanwhile, Softbank has consolidated. Following the acquisition of Japan Telecom Yahoo BB in Japan is the leading broadband Internet provider.
On 17 March 2006, Softbank Vodafone Japan took over for about 15 billion dollars with Masayoshi Son as CEO.