BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JANUARY 10, 2000 ISSUE
COVER STORY Rising Son KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS Shares up more than 1,200%, to $795 Created a powerful Net empire by forging links between his 100-plus Net companies in the U.S. and Japan It's good to be MASAYOSHI SON. The scrappy Tokyo-based founder of Internet phenom Softbank is now worth about $4 billion. And in 1999 Son finally quelled critics who once wrote him off as just another slick venture capitalist who got lucky with bets on hot Web names such as Yahoo! (YHOO) Son, 42, won over doubters by proving his Net investments could be parlayed into hugely promising alliances and joint ventures in overseas markets. So far, Son has already built a broad confederation of Internet-related affiliates in the U.S. and Japan, creating a sort of cyber-multinational. Softbank-affiliated companies swap ideas, capital, and marketing to promote growth. Visitors to Yahoo!'s site in Japan, for instance, can also check out mortgages on E-Loan (EELN), purchase stocks on E*Trade (EGRP) or price software on Buy.com (BUYC), all companies in which Softbank owns stakes. Son's frenetic empire-building has dragged Japan out of the Web Dark Ages. From online trading to wireless technologies, he has ventures in virtually every segment of Japan's Internet economy, with stakes in 70% of the country's publicly traded Internet companies. At the same time Son is expanding across Asia and Europe, even as he sheds non-Internet assets, such as parts of publishing unit Ziff-Davis (ZD). The grandson of Korean immigrants, Son relishes breaking the rules of Japan's ossified old-boy network. As a member of a despised minority, he struggled to get the loans he needed to launch Softbank in 1981. Now he gets regular face time with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. And investors are flocking to his money machine. With Softbank sitting on $30 billion in unrealized gains from its Internet portfolio, the stock has gone through the stratosphere. Not bad for a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS INTRODUCTION MANAGERS TO WATCH THE TOP ENTREPRENEURS THE TOP 25 MANAGERS Minuro Arakawa Bernard Arnault Arthur Blank Peter Bijur Gordon Binder Steve Case John Chambers James Curvey Thierry Desmarest Bernie Ebbers Tom Engibous Chris Gent Irwin Jacobs Steve Jobs Mel Karmazin James Kelly Timothy Koogle Ken Lay Jenny Ming Thomas Siebel Masayoshi Son Martha Stewart Keiji Tachikawa Jack Welch Yun Jong Yong ONLINE EXTRAS TO BUSINESS WEEK INVESTOR INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

Copyright 1999, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Use   Privacy Policy