SoftBank

Aiming High: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and Disrupting Silicon Valley

by Atsuo Inoue  · 18 Nov 2021  · 295pp  · 89,441 words

his successful career, he has published numerous books including The Mentalities and Mindsets of Entrepreneur Masayoshi Son, Tokaton – Masayoshi Son Monogatari. Aiming High Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group, and Disrupting Silicon Valley Atsuo Inoue www.hodder.co.uk First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK company

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envisioned – and this made him rise to the occasion, drawing out the best in him. Fujiwara made his offer: he wanted an exclusive deal with SoftBank Japan. Son had no qualms, although he did have his conditions, chief amongst which was having software from every manufacturer in the country available. Fujiwara

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with Hudson.’ Son’s proposal was simple and clear: he wanted an arrangement whereby Hudson titles would only be available to retailers by going through SoftBank Japan, despite the two just having met for the first time. Anyone would naturally be taken aback if, having only just introduced themselves, their

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credit department was tasked with dealing with major companies who they’d worked with in the past, whilst the business department oversaw ventures such as SoftBank Japan. Gokitani got in touch with the head of the business department, telling him he had found himself in a quandary. The business department

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two would start clashing with each other. With this latest news, Son felt absolutely disgraced. Things were ticking along on the software distribution front, but SoftBank Japan were now looking into opening retail stores and establishing their own software companies, so advertising and publicity would assume the greatest importance. Being subjected

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America was only just one part of his master plan: he had a global strategy he was looking forward to implementing, moving on from SoftBank Japan to SoftBank World. Son would soon be able to put his long period of health problems to rest, but when he did return to work he

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to the Osaka office and when Son came back he barely recognised the faces of the executives sat round his boardroom. Son had originally got SoftBank Japan up and running all by himself and then it went through a period of rapid growth, meaning that organisationally speaking contradictions were inevitable

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to make them a success, not one aspect neglected – qualities any businessman should possess. For Son, his publishing business was irreplaceable. So when one of SoftBank Japan’s directors suggested closing the division during a board meeting, Son looked he had just been shot through the heart. As part of efforts

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a spotlight on the business side of things. Son – alongside The Computer’s editor-in-chief, Inaba Toshio (who later became deputy general director of SoftBank Publishing) – departed for Seattle without having booked an appointment with Gates, although once they arrived, Son did ring the Microsoft founder from his hotel and

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were tributaries flowing into the river that would be his great contribution to the digital information society. In a significant move, on 22 July 1994, SoftBank began issuing over-the-counter shares. Chapter 25 Boldly meticulous There are some events in a person’s life which are seared into their memory

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part of proceedings in this respect, they had never actually finalised payment. Hippeau accordingly raised the issue of investment with Son – he was someone the SoftBank chief executive trusted, after all – once the dust had settled but the deadline for investment was looming: Friday, only two days away. Son asked

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board the broadband train, completely disrupting the established Japanese economic order. At the time Son Masayoshi had the largest net worth in all of Japan. SoftBank’s total market value (by the standard procedure of calculating a company’s worth by multiplying share prices and the number of shares issued) was

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by extent Son – were actually doing was hard to glean: it wasn’t like he was manufacturing easily quantifiable things. The main public perception of SoftBank was mainly it repeatedly acquiring other businesses, similar to an investment company, with the company itself not really doing anything on its own, simply holding

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citizens. Each individual instance of software could be instantly beamed anywhere in the world thanks to the IP network and supporting this infrastructure would be SoftBank, with its massive depository of titles and applications. Son was willing to do whatever it took to kick-start the digital information revolution and to

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States. The world would be plunged into a turbulent, transformative period. Chapter 29 The unification of Japan under one banner There were no other options: SoftBank were about to be forced into battle with NTT, the Japanese telecoms giant. Only one man, however, would be doing the challenging, and Son would

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just like when they had been Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation. Conduits, telephone poles, station premises – NTT had exclusive usage rights for them and SoftBank were beginning to experience the detrimental effects of this on a number of fronts. NTT were blocking Yahoo! BB’s access to connection construction works

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all of Japan under one banner; Son was pushing ahead with his digital information revolution and his own banner never faltered. On 8 August 2003, SoftBank released their first quarter financial results. Not counting customer acquisition costs, Yahoo! BB had got their results back on track. Just before his 43rd birthday

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who then immediately set up an investigation committee to look into the matter. Then the authorities were brought in. On the 20th YT contacted the SoftBank sales subsidiary by telephone, stating his acquaintance held several million lines’ worth of information, and on the 21st a list with information on a further

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no reason to offer money as an apology, which would otherwise incentivise future criminals to target the group. Nevertheless, as a token of their apologies, SoftBank would issue those affected 500 yen (roughly $5) postal money orders, totalling 2.5 billion yen. The thinking behind issuing postal money orders as compensation

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was to somehow contribute positively to society instead of doing something like issuing vouchers for use with a credit company. SoftBank would receive the money back from those money orders that remained unused past their expiry date, which would be put into a Data Security Fund

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earmarked for activities such as increasing data security for society as a whole or promoting broadband use for the disabled. The same day as the SoftBank executive meeting, a press conference was scheduled for half past five at a local hotel. Son arrived, wearing an uncharacteristically severe expression. Despite all

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the troubles SoftBank had had with debt over the years Son had never once publicly apologised; on this occasion he bowed deeply in repentance. ‘I have caused a

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that goal.’ Son, who is constantly trying to find new challenges to overcome, has occasionally been subjected to criticism from more reserved quarters arguing that: SoftBank don’t manufacture actual things; they’re too much of a corporate business; they don’t actually carry out operations; they just focus on simple

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limit was reached then both companies would be doing the funding, otherwise the bank would be handling the financing. Son breaks it down even further: ‘SoftBank contributed 200 billion yen and Yahoo! Japan and Vodafone contributed 120 billion yen and 300 billion yen respectively in preference shares. We took out a

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term originated on the real estate market, this refers to financing for specific business where financial obligations cannot be retroactively applied to the principal] for SoftBank. In other words the percentage of common shares with voting rights attached was set at 200 billion yen and this would ultimately be what they

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the top-ranked advert for seven consecutive months, a completely unprecedented achievement based on research covering multiple years by advertising research institutes. The heretofore unknown SoftBank were now a fixture in terms of brand awareness amongst general consumers, defeating well-known names such as Matsushita Denki, Sony and Suntory to take

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only be a brief moment of respite. In October 2006, the number of network subscription applications fell sharply and the competition lodged a complaint against SoftBank for their advertising with the Japanese Fair Trade Commission, calling the zero-yen offer an ‘immeasurable discount’. The decision was made to take another approach

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achieved this goal. The man appointed by Kasai Kazuhito to replace himself was Fujihara Kazuhito (currently executive vice president and CFO), who had moved to SoftBank from Mazda in April 2004 following a public advertisement of an opening. At Mazda he had overseen business administration, where he dedicated himself – alongside individuals

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it. There’s no greater motivation for us employees.’ In September 2008, Lehman Brothers announced their bankruptcy and the world’s stock markets duly crashed. SoftBank were not unaffected by this either. On 24 October – 12 days before the date the financial briefing covering second-quarter results was scheduled for – Son

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called Fujihara into his office alongside Kimiwada Kazuko (current SoftBank executive officer) from Accounting and asked them what they thought of announcing the financial results one week ahead of time, i.e. shifting this from

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strategy committee meeting with 10 of Sprint’s top executives in attendance and Son was in shock at their advertising costs. For eight consecutive years SoftBank’s television adverts in Japan had shown an outstanding performance, achieving the top spot in popularity, but at Sprint – and despite the fact the

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to fourth place. The number of subscribers being signed were falling and there were connectivity issues to resolve – a situation not too different from when SoftBank acquired Vodafone Japan. Following the effective dismissal of CEO Dan Hesse, Marcelo Claure was appointed to his position by Son on 11 August 2014. Son

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20 or 30 is all it takes, enough to make you the largest shareholder. ‘There is only one thing I really want from the SoftBank Vision Fund. SoftBank was originally founded at the very start of the PC revolution and the critics said we were only ever going to be a software

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not leaving anything to chance during the meeting itself, Son said that Deutsche Bank would be providing them with a loan of $18 billion, with SoftBank stumping up 2 billion, prompting Vodafone to seek confirmation from Misra. ‘It’s subject to conditions,’ he replied. Two days after the meeting Misra

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s international expansion percolating in the back of his mind. Alibaba had applied for their initial public offering. Son set out his stall: for the SoftBank Group to do business at the international level they needed someone like Misra who had a strong grasp of international finance and investment working for

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for from $30 billion to $100 billion – he could hardly believe his eyes. Eventually they were given $60 billion. Fast-forward a bit and the SoftBank Vision Fund now has offices in Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, Riyadh, Shanghai, Silicon Valley and Singapore, counting over 400 full-time employees around

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established companies there, leading to business development and the creation of new jobs following large investments. ‘We have a commitment of 10 billion dollars from SoftBank in SVF2 and we have invested close to 5 billion already,’ Rajeev explains. ‘The 5 billion has doubled to 10 billion. Investing is a long

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four, five years to grow and to go public. We started in 2017. We are only three-and-a-half years old.’ From the SoftBank side, the SoftBank Group have committed to $10 billion and by December 2020 had turned a fair value of $9.3 billion on investments of $4.3

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take the position at the time, but ultimately Son never reported for duty as he was too busy elsewhere. Chief operating officer Miyakawa Jun’ichi (SoftBank representative director, president and chief executive as of 12 April 2021) appearing in his stead a week later, interpreter in tow. Miyakawa met with the

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could have ever happened.’ With the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic over the course of 2020 stock markets worsened, affecting the fair value of SoftBank Vision Fund recipient companies, with things like the announcement of WeWork withdrawing its planned IPO causing sudden drops in valuation. In the specific case of

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with their influence greatly curtailed. The exact same thing is likely to happen again this time, I would reckon.’ Son is not particularly concerned by SoftBank’s current losses, dismissing them outright as the result of ‘the shock caused by Covid-19’. During the 2020 second-quarter financial results briefing, Son

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an investment company. The consolidated totals concerning the valuation of the companies we invest in is irrelevant when looking at our own valuation.’ Goto Yoshimitsu (SoftBank Group director, senior managing executive officer, chief financial officer, chief information security officer and chief sustainability officer) gives his assessment, his tone calm and

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than robust, ultimately that has absolutely nothing to do with our current operating condition”.’ Goto also comments on whether there were any lessons learnt from SoftBank having survived the 2001 dotcom bubble bursting and the 2008 financial crisis sparked by Lehman Brothers going bankrupt that could be applied to the Covid

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visibly filled with hope. At the second-quarter financial briefing held on 9 November 2020, Son once again placed great emphasis on the fact the SoftBank Group was ‘an investment company with its focus squarely on the information revolution’, and reiterated his view that net asset value was the most

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was completely different and it left an indelible impression on Tsuchihashi. Tsuchihashi Yasunari (current director of SB Creative) was born on 13 August 1959, joining SoftBank Japan in April 1983, immediately after having graduated from university. Since joining the company as its 71st employee he has overseen management, human resources and

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shares as a sort of pseudo-stock option. Son – always looking ahead – did not just use this daily accounts system as his compass to guide SoftBank going forward, he also took advantage of it to spark an undeniable motivation revolution with management, where they also became responsible for driving growth forward

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2021 he retains the unshakeable trust of the heads of volume home appliance retailers; but not also mentioning the tremendous contributions Shinba made to the SoftBank Group by getting into the mobile phone sector would be completely remiss. Shinba was promoted from managing director to vice president in April 2017. In

Gambling Man

by Lionel Barber  · 3 Oct 2024  · 424pp  · 123,730 words

to focus on software rather than hardware. Masa jumped in, securing an interview with the Microsoft boss in his own magazine in Japan. Microsoft chose SoftBank as their distributor (though not on an exclusive basis). Sun Microsystems, Lotus and IBM soon followed suit. Another partner was Phoenix Technologies, based in

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change by importing US-style management techniques and the venture capital mindset, thereby placing himself in the vanguard of an economic revolution. His new business – SoftBank Venture Capital – set out to invest in start-ups specializing in software and PC accessories. Masa also partnered with the Japanese Association of Finance Company

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to find someone who shared his global ambitions, someone unafraid to challenge the risk-averse Japanese financial sector to unlock the capital necessary to drive SoftBank’s global expansion plans. That person was Yoshitaka Kitao, a top salesman at Nomura Securities, the powerful Japanese investment bank and broker-dealer. A

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share of the new market for satellite TV, whose multi-channels promised programmes for niche audiences with premium advertising rates attached. From his perch at SoftBank, Masa was eager to join the digital TV revolution, building on his software and magazine publishing business. Terrestrial television was a saturated, heavily regulated

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where employees were given lifetime job security in return for 90-hour working weeks, respect for seniority and undying loyalty to the company. Under Masa, SoftBank’s culture was half can-do American, half Japanese ninja warrior: agile, dynamic and unpredictable. The whistleblowers found Masa’s showmanship distasteful but they reserved

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s finance division was expanding, largely to keep pace with the company’s borrowing needs, foreign-exchange exposure and its relationships with the Japanese banks. SoftBank’s employee stock incentive programme operated a two-tier system where everybody was nominally equal, but some executives were more equal than others. After the

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. ‘This is a story about Japan, investors, investment banks, regulators and the government. It is also about growth, revenue recognition, not actual profits made. SoftBank has almost always been an asset play where the profit and loss account is virtually irrelevant.’18 13. Bubble Man Between 1998 and 2000, the

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a neighbourhood directory company (GeoCities Japan), a mutual fund information provider (Morningstar Japan), a stockbroker (E*Trade) and a toy store (E-shopping Toys Japan). SoftBank played its familiar role of middleman, selling services to Japanese households which had trillions of yen in low-yielding savings accounts and were looking for

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stalls outside railway stations promoting the offer. The gimmick paid off, with one drawback. Masa’s aggressive broadband promotion triggered a surge in demand which SoftBank struggled to meet. Yahoo! BB customers complained that they had no internet connection. Many cancelled. Masa accused NTT of sabotage and lodged a formal complaint

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market, but they suspected that he might himself have contributed to speculative excess. A popular Japanese book at the time, Net Bubble,11 argued that SoftBank had artificially inflated internet stocks, first with speculative investments and later dressing up companies for flotation on Nasdaq Japan which had proved a multi-million

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business and consumer behaviour was similar, because one individual usually made decisions for the whole organization. Besides, said Ma, Alibaba had the backing of SoftBank. And SoftBank had just seen off eBay in Japan. His argument carried the day. Soon afterwards, the Alibaba team came up with a brand name for their

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local baseball team in Kyushu which he’d acquired in January 2005. From now on, the Fukuoka Hawks would be known as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. SoftBank was determined to take down Docomo but it didn’t have enough shops to form a nationwide sales presence and it lacked radio stations for

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to ensure the switchover worked smoothly. The risk of a delayed iPhone roll-out was therefore serious. Because risk-averse Japanese regulators favoured incumbents, SoftBank had to settle for the inferior 2.1GHz spectrum, whose advantage was that it was single band, nationwide and therefore did not require a switchover

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more acquisitions.’ Misra was minded to believe him, until he heard those last three words. Part Four * * * THE EMPIRE BUILDER 19. Thirty-Year Vision After SoftBank’s near-death experience, it was only natural for Masa to take another vow of abstinence on deal-making. His life followed a recurring pattern

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Japan, where companies involved in construction, herbal remedies, hospitality and sake brewing traced their history back to mediaeval times. Masa’s private talk of SoftBank lasting 300 years was ready for public consumption. It wasn’t Hollywood froth; the vision played consciously to a Japanese audience sensitive to long-term

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Apology received, Masa admitted that the young man was a good prospect and commandeered him for the CEO’s office. Masa’s freewheeling style made SoftBank an exhilarating place to work, especially for young university graduates. In mainstream Japanese companies, the seniority system stifled initiative from below. Masa loved to surround

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segments. His time management often left western visitors baffled. One prominent American hire travelled from New York to Tokyo, assuming his new boss would discuss SoftBank’s strategy, competitors and positioning in the US market. Masa showed little interest and the meeting lasted barely 20 minutes. (The recruit still took

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zanier predictions about the future. Within 300 years, chips planted inside or on our bodies would allow humans to communicate with one another, via ‘telepathy’. SoftBank could turn into a ‘telepathy service provider’ allowing humans to speak in multiple languages. Who knows, he speculated, people might even start communicating with dogs

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of extraordinary, and sometimes incoherent, actions. Fukushima revealed three fault lines in his story; the tension between his often-benevolent instincts and his vanity; the SoftBank board’s struggle to control him; and the limits of his political influence in Japan, which ultimately spurred another leap for global domination. Before the

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iPad, which gave an instant, precise answer. Masa’s people skills were less impressive. Congenitally impatient, Masa regularly waved aside Japanese executives presenting to the SoftBank board. On one occasion, Mittal watched Masa start scribbling data on the whiteboard while the hapless manager sat cross-legged on the floor. It was

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was abandoned. Arora, who’d pondered taking charge of Sprint himself, was unimpressed with financial engineering. He regularly belittled his fellow countryman in front of SoftBank peers, questioning his business acumen. The battle between Arora the bruiser and Misra the schemer was petty and unrelenting. Masa looked on, either incapable of

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destroy Nikesh Arora’s reputation began with a bogus complaint from largely anonymous international shareholders. They claimed the ex-Googler had received kickbacks from companies SoftBank invested in as the firm poured money into Indian start-ups. These included the e-commerce company Snapdeal.com, the ride-hailing service Ola and

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samurai. He always travelled discreetly, dispensing with the ostentatious security detail favoured by some Silicon Valley executives. That day, the exhausted party drove straight to SoftBank headquarters in the Shiodome Building, where the Conrad hotel occupies the twenty-eighth to thirty-seventh floors. Al-Bassam showered, changed his clothes and went

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United States (CFIUS), the shadowy interagency body set up to review the national security implications of foreigners investing in certain US companies. In 2017, when SoftBank Group, the Tokyo-based parent company, bought Fortress Group, Misra’s former employer, and Boston Dynamics, the advanced robotics maker, both deals were held

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of a bull market for technology stocks, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Sequoia, Silver Lake and Tiger Global deployed ever greater capital in order to compete with SoftBank’s gargantuan war chest. The spending reached levels never seen before in Silicon Valley. Viewed from the previously unchallenged venture capital world, there were several

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compensation package. Another top recruit at the time was Rob Townsend, an experienced corporate lawyer. In his new post as head of legal services for SoftBank International, he inherited the still-unfinished, board-mandated investigation of the honey-trap mystery allegedly orchestrated by Rajeev Misra. With Claure’s blessing, Townsend hired

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to present his bosses with a $3bn cheque, and he made sure everyone knew about the windfall. ‘Akshay was very long on Akshay,’ says a SoftBank shareholder. His next investment, involving a Munich-based payments company called Wirecard, appeared equally adroit. Acclaimed as Germany’s fintech champion, Wirecard enjoyed the

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to Credit Suisse, who repackaged it into complex securities bought by private European banks and other institutional investors. Naheta and friends, including Misra, various senior SoftBank executives and Mubadala, made more than $60m. They’d merely arranged or ‘underwritten’ the deal before the securities were passed on. Incredibly, they hadn’

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required under Japanese law, but not consistent with the level of disclosure and debate for most non-Japanese companies of the size and scale of SoftBank.’ Expecting 40 per cent returns from overpriced, high-performing tech companies was high-risk, bordering on delusional. Moreover, Masa’s many charts predicting the

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noise,’ he warned Masa. On 4 September 2020, the Financial Times revealed that the mystery buyer with the giant appetite for Nasdaq derivatives was SoftBank. While SoftBank refused to give any details about the fund, who was running it or the precise size of the losses, the FT quoted someone familiar with

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Japanese law firms concluded that there were ‘no legal issues’ regarding Northstar or Masa’s own involvement, others still felt uncomfortable. Shortly afterwards, three top SoftBank executives resigned: Gary Ginsberg, global head of communications and formerly Rupert Murdoch’s top spokesman; Rob Townsend, chief legal officer; and Chad Fentress, chief compliance

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source of capital on every continent,’ joked Mike Moritz, the Sequoia veteran. ‘The only assets he has not looted are pemmicans in Antarctica.’fn2 Inside SoftBank, discipline around investment decisions collapsed. Masa started rating senior Vision Fund managers according to the number of deals struck. He later shared the results in

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worldwide inflation, which in turn triggered higher interest rates and higher borrowing costs, especially in the US and Europe. Once market sentiment shifted, Masa and SoftBank were highly indebted, highly leveraged and dangerously exposed. The geopolitical context had shifted too. Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy had rapidly escalated into

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. In an exquisitely diplomatic letter, Kawamoto set out her differences. ‘Having lost none of the spirit of a venture company in its formative years, SBG [SoftBank Group] engenders excitement as a dynamic, swift-acting company,’ she wrote, adding: ‘Sometimes, therefore, rules come after the decisions are made, and some might

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move belatedly recognized that inflation was here to stay. After three decades of cheap, some said ‘dumb’, money, the return of inflation fundamentally challenged SoftBank’s strategy of debt-fuelled growth through acquisition. The extent of Masa’s personal liabilities was complicated. On one side, he’d long secured financing

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generating real profits. The internet, meanwhile, became seamlessly integrated into daily life, just as Masa expects AI will in the none-too-distant future. Today SoftBank’s portfolio includes China’s ride-hailing Didi and internet giant ByteDance; food-delivery services like DoorDash and Grab; as well as automated robotic warehouses

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. Neumann bewitched Son but the partnership ended in financial disaster. 43. Son bought his local baseball team in Fukuoka in 2005 and turned the rebranded SoftBank Hawks into championship winners. 44. Down: Son after suffering heavy losses following the WeWork fiasco and a downturn in financial markets. 45. And up

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again: Son at the SoftBank World Event in 2023, extolling the artificial generative intelligence revolution when computers will be smarter than human beings – and his next opportunity to make a

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Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2009 Christopher Harding: The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives, Allen Lane, 2020 Atsuo Inoue: Aiming High: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank and the Disrupting of Silicon Valley, Hodder & Stoughton, 2022 Walter Isaacson: Steve Jobs, Simon & Schuster, 2011 Kim Yeong-dal, Sōshikaimei no Hōseido to Rekishi,

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Akashi Shoten, 2002 Hiroshi Kodama, Gensōkyoku: Son Masayoshi to SoftBank no Kako Ima Mirai, Nikkei BP, 2005 Sebastian Mallaby: The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Art of Disruption, Penguin Books, 2022 Duncan Mavin: Pyramid

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Min Jin Lee: Pachinko, Hachette, 2017 Kazunori Nakagawa: Nijū Rasen: Yokubō to Kensō no Media, Kōdansha, 2019 Nikkei Communication: Shirarezaru Tsūshin Sensō no Shinjitsu: NTT SoftBank no Antō, Nikkei BP, 2003 Eiji Ōshita: Son Masayoshi: Kigyō no Wakaki Shishi, Kōdansha, 1999 —, Rongo to Keiei: SBI Kitao Yoshitaka, Vol. 1, MdN

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, 1979 Reeves Wiedmann: Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and the Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork, Hodder & Stoughton, 2020 Kōichi Yoshida: Naibu Kokuhatsu: SoftBank Yuganda Keiei, Yell Shuppansha, 1997. Tsukasa Yoshida: Son Masayoshi wa Taorenai, Asahi Shimbun Sha, 2001 Tosu Shishi Hensan Iinkai (ed.): Tosu Shishi, Vol. 4:

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Microsoft, 33, 74, 89, 137, 179, 329; ASCII partnership with Nishi, 65–7; Bing, 232; rivalry with Novell, 76–7; Speed-Net venture with SoftBank, 159; uses Softbank as distributor, 77 Middle East petro-states, 260–66, 267, 269, 278–9, 281, 282, 284, 290, 291, 300 see also Saudi Arabia Miller

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2001), 160–61; NCC Box, 69; protection of Japanese domestic market, 89–90, 118; Singtel, 224; smartphones, 190–91, 192–3, 247; SoftBank acquires e-Access, 225; SoftBank Telecom, 186; SoftBank’s Novell deal, 76–7; Speed-Net venture, 159; Vodafone Japan, 179–81, 182–8, 189, 191, 245; voice-over-IP feature

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economic modernization with civilization. fn2 Hangzhou, with its fabled lake, later served as Alibaba’s headquarters. 15. Broadband Revolution fn1 The third musketeer was fellow SoftBank board member Shigenobu Nagamori of Nidec, the electronics manufacturer. 16. Golden Goose fn1 The pocket translator episode was different. Prof. Mozer thought he had a

The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion

by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell  · 19 Jul 2021  · 460pp  · 130,820 words

Armed with his new, powerful tech social circles, Son raced into deal-making mode, rapidly gobbling up companies at high prices that stunned American investors. SoftBank spent nearly $2 billion to acquire the publishing company Ziff Davis, which owned PC Magazine, and then another $1.5 billion months after that to

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to shape entire industries. He outlined for Prince Mohammed his plans for moving entire nations away from electricity and into solar power and for positioning SoftBank to win in a world where technology and artificial intelligence dominated. (Son often spoke of the Singularity, the idea that the intelligence and capabilities

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Neumann’s behavior and the company’s financials—red flags. His own interactions with WeWork counterparts during early negotiations didn’t alleviate his concerns. The SoftBank due diligence team turned up some worrying problems. They found WeWork’s prior projections that forecast huge near-term profits, but it was clear that

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every other company away. * * * — Because of that rapid growth, though, WeWork had a constant need: more money. By 2018, as the company was guzzling through SoftBank’s billions, Minson saw an opportunity to raise money in a different form from a standard investment round. He wanted to do it through Wall

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obvious endgame: employees and investors could sell their shares, harvesting their WeWork riches, and WeWork would be able to raise more money from stock investors. SoftBank’s money wouldn’t last that long, after all, especially as their losses kept growing. A potential roadblock could be Neumann himself. Neumann always seemed

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assigned it a valuation, adding together what he projected for ARK and services. He scribbled in yellow ink, “$10 T,” and underlined it twice. With SoftBank’s support, WeWork would be worth $10 trillion by 2028. * * * — The two were a combustible combination. Together, they assumed the world’s financial sector would

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was planned next to the conference center. The board did little to hinder Neumann’s moves, however erratic. The investors were seemingly focused on the SoftBank deal; some stood to make billions selling their holdings. * * * — WeWork’s sprawling ambitions reflected its founder’s growing ego. For Neumann, it wouldn’t be

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own. At various points, the children of three directors—Bruce Dunlevie, Steven Langman, and John Zhao—worked at WeWork. Mark Schwartz, the director who pushed SoftBank to invest, intervened to help a WeWork employee move locations. He persuaded senior executives to give her a cushy job in New York. Executives had

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impromptu board sessions and board committee meetings that came up. Regularly scheduled board meetings were quite infrequent between June and December 2018, because negotiations with SoftBank dominated the day. The board members were eager for the payout. Benchmark first invested at the equivalent of $0.46 per share and now was

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few dozen members of the legal team laughed uncomfortably. Berrent was a big proponent of the deal, excited by what WeWork might accomplish in a SoftBank-funded future. Still, as the Fortitude negotiations progressed, even Berrent began to notice worrying developments. By mid-November, Berrent’s work on the deal

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own attorneys separate from the WeWork team, using corporate law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to negotiate his compensation plan and his contract with SoftBank. The delay had little to do with WeWork’s success, Berrent observed. The deal should be done, yet Neumann was drawing out the negotiations for

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chapter—a future of expansion for years to come. * * * — In Tokyo, the mood was less ebullient. Aside from Son, collective dread had been building inside SoftBank for months over the WeWork deal. Misra cautioned against the purchase, as did other top deputies. It was too much money, particularly given that the

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energy-boosting nondairy coffee creamer sector. (Internal WeWork documents detailing Creator Fund investments, WeWork, 2020.) CHAPTER 29 Guitar House After the collapse of the big SoftBank buyout, Global Summit, and a stop in Miami—where Neumann spoke at JPMorgan’s private conference for the bank’s so-called ultrahigh-net-worth

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. “I am WeWork.” * * * — Among those watching these headlines were Bruce Dunlevie and Steven Langman, Neumann’s first two outside board members. Both were crestfallen when SoftBank’s deal to buy most of WeWork fell apart. They had come to the precipice of extraordinary success—of cashing out their enormously profitable investments

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several months. But once WeWork’s IPO prospectus landed, everything changed. Potential investors and even executives at Mubadala and Kazakhstan’s funds started to ask SoftBank pointed questions about Adam Neumann and WeWork’s corporate governance. “Every conversation would immediately digress into WeWork,” said one attendee of the fund-raising meetings

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was valued around $7 billion to $8 billion. Misra—who excused himself several times during the dinner to take urgent phone calls—and the other SoftBank executives glared at him. Eventually, the conversation became more subdued and awkward. They’d all seen the headlines flash. WeWork would be postponing its IPO

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over others’ and had something of a messiah complex. The story was quickly passed around the Langham, and the crowd buzzed anew about their troubled SoftBank-funded sibling. Now Son was being humiliated by events during his own conference. A company he was loudly evangelizing just months earlier was undergoing a

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strategy at the Vision Fund was that companies should accelerate their growth and not dwell on losses. Son began to pivot. As WeWork was flailing, SoftBank executives instructed many of the companies they funded to do the opposite of everything they had preached. They should be focused on getting to profitability

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and even consider layoffs if necessary. SoftBank officials were no longer implying that fast-growing companies, particularly those with big losses, should expect more funding. While this missive was mostly likely insulting

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to offer cheap interest rates. Both suitors burrowed themselves into WeWork, dissecting the company’s numbers and peppering the company with questions. A host of SoftBank employees camped out in WeWork’s headquarters, which irked WeWork executives, especially Minson. The company gave us $10 billion, and now they’re asking

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chief of staff who served on his condo board, gained wide attention when she filed an employment complaint against WeWork in the days after the SoftBank bailout. In addition to alleging that Neumann called her maternity leave “vacation,” the document was sprinkled with embarrassing revelations about Neumann and his party-

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crept up and up, hitting an all-time high in the new year, just before the global pandemic hit. * * * — Meanwhile, WeWork’s struggles continued. The SoftBank-led team began sifting through the wreckage of the inefficient empire Neumann built with their money, casting for ways to turn the business around and

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the shareholders, including nearly $500 million to Neumann. Yet again, Neumann negotiated more for himself, getting some valuable perks unavailable to early employees and investors. SoftBank extended its loan to Neumann—which had a roughly $430 million balance—for five years, and it agreed to pay him $50 million in cash

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. At another party, Neumann threw a tequila bottle through his office window. After the first pane shattered, a colleague threw another. Bloomberg via Getty Images SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son (left), who long pined to be considered in the same league as technology titans like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, raised $45

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controlled thanks to having bought so many units in it. Tomohiro Ohsumi via Getty Images After WeWork’s implosion and Neumann’s ouster, Son’s SoftBank bailed out the company, giving it a valuation of $8 billion—$39 billion less than its peak. Son apologized to his shareholders, saying he

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www.youtube.com/​watch?v=X8T4Xnjuy0Q (Neumann introduced at 52:40). “We’re in nineteen cities”: Ibid. “the beginning of the big bang”: Surabhi Agarwal, “Softbank’s Masayoshi Son Unfazed by Talk of a Funding Crunch or Bloated Valuations,” Economic Times, Jan. 18, 2016. world’s richest man in 2000: “Conversation

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. Son flew regularly to Japan: Interview with Lu, April 2020. sold the patent for the translator: Alan M. Webber, “Japanese-Style Entrepreneurship: An Interview with Softbank’s CEO, Masayoshi Son,” Harvard Business Review, Jan.–Feb. 1992. Mozer only found out that Son: Interview with Mozer, March 2020. His father was sick

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,” Las Vegas Sun, March 28, 2005. Son approached Adelson: Interview with Jason Chudnofsky, April 2020. I can make the business better: Ibid. he took SoftBank public: Norihiko Shirouzu, “Softbank to Pay $800 Million for Comdex Computer Show,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 14, 1995. looking to sell Comdex: Interview with Chudnofsky, April 2020

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, and Dan Biers, “Internet Warrior on the Defensive,” Far Eastern Economic Review, Nov. 16, 2000. He told Forbes in 1999: Weinberg, “Master of the Internet.” SoftBank’s shares peaked: Gilley, Dawson, and Biers, “Internet Warrior on the Defensive.” Webvan—discontinued operations: Joelle Tessler, “Webvan Cashes Out on Bold Experiment,” San Jose

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Sparks Revolution in Wiring Japan,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 17, 2003. $15 billion to buy Vodafone’s business: Jathon Sapsford, “Vodafone Sells Japanese Unit to Softbank for $15 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2006. By negotiating directly with Steve Jobs: Takashi Sugimoto, “Masayoshi Son Talks About How Steve Jobs Inspired

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Clarke, “The Estate That Wants to Be Silicon Valley’s Priciest Home,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 18, 2018. three-hundred-year growth plan: “SoftBank Next 30-Year Vision,” SoftBank corporate website, June 25, 2010. Humans and robots would grow symbiotic: Ibid. “The saddest thing in people’s life”: Ibid. the U.S

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the Most Money in 2016,” Forbes, Dec. 30, 2016. “Life’s too short to think small”: Sarah McBride, Selina Wang, and Peter Elstrom, “Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100 Billion Blitz on Sand Hill Road,” Bloomberg Businessweek, Sept. 27, 2018. The Qataris were noncommittal: Arash Massoudi, Kana Inagaki, and Leo Lewis

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Deutsche Bank colleagues: Hope and Scheck, Blood and Oil, chap. 7. thirteen separate planes: Arash Massoudi, Kana Inagaki, and Simeon Kerr, “The $100Bn Marriage: How SoftBank’s Son Courted a Saudi Prince,” Financial Times, Oct. 19, 2016. kingdom a $1 trillion gift: Masayoshi Son, interview on The David Rubenstein Show, Bloomberg

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Abkowitz and Rick Carew, “Uber Sells China Operations to Didi Chuxing,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 1, 2016. $6 billion more into the company: Mayumi Negishi, “SoftBank Considers $6 Billion Investment in China Ride-Hailing Firm Didi,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2017. “In a fight, who wins?”: Bertoni, “WeWork’s $20

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,” WeWork, April 2018. CHAPTER 22: THE $3 TRILLION TRIANGLE As he saw it, his instincts and his gut: Eliot Brown, Dana Mattioli, and Maureen Farrell, “SoftBank Explores Taking Majority Stake in WeWork,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 9, 2018. “We are unicorn hunters”: Mitsuru Obe and Akane Okutsu, “ ‘We Are Unicorn Hunters

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Platt and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, “WeWork: How the Ultimate Unicorn Lost Its Billions,” Financial Times, Feb. 19, 2020. he wanted $70 billion: WeWork presentation to SoftBank Group, slide titled “Proposed Investment Structures,” July 2, 2018. had raised about $12 billion: Rani Molla and Johana Bhuiyan, “How Uber’s Funding and Valuation

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Stack Up Against Competitors Like Didi and Lyft,” Recode, May 25, 2017. now expected faster growth for years to come: WeWork presentation to SoftBank Group, slide titled “Delivering on Our Strategy Will Allow Us to Beat Our $101Bn Growth Goal,” July 2, 2018. he extended the growth curve:

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Neumann boasted to an interviewer: Ariel Levy, feature on Rebekah and Adam Neumann, Porter, Fall 2016. They imagined a $7 billion development: WeWork presentation to SoftBank Group, slide titled “San Jose Development Opportunity,” July 23, 2018. He told Bloomberg: Ellen Huet, “WeWork Wants to Become Its Own Landlord with Latest Spending

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valuation: Jennifer Maloney, “Altria Cuts Value of Juul Stake by $4.5 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 31, 2019. $108 billion in tentative commitments: SoftBank Group, “Launch of SoftBank Vision Fund 2,” press release, July 26, 2019. snorkeling with him in the Red Sea: Liz Hoffman and Bradley Hope, “Rajeev Misra Built

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,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 14, 2019. “I’ve stayed silent too long”: Ibid. became clear to the board: Maureen Farrell, Liz Hoffman, and Eliot Brown, “SoftBank Seeking to Take Control of WeWork Through Financing Package,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 13, 2019. another 580,000 desks yet to be opened: “Investor Presentation

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and Accounts 2018,” IWG PLC, March 6, 2019, 26. Starwood Capital Group: Liz Hoffman and Maureen Farrell, “WeWork’s Valuation Falls to $8 Billion Under SoftBank Rescue Offer,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 21, 2019. very steep interest rates: Davide Scigliuzzo et al., “WeWork Bonds Tank as Firm Seeks JPMorgan Junk-Debt

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Bennett, “Ousted WeWork CEO Adam Neumann Travels to Israel,” New York Post, Dec. 27, 2019. EPILOGUE “My own investment judgment”: Phred Dvorak and Megumi Fujikawa, “SoftBank Founder Calls His Judgment ‘Really Bad’ After $4.7 Billion WeWork Hit,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 6, 2019. estimated at less than 20 percent, against

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Rover: Tomio Geron, “Since Receiving SoftBank’s $300 Million Check, Wag Has Gained Little Ground,” WSJ Pro: Venture Capital, April 25, 2019. Layoffs swept like a virus: Josh Constine, “Layoffs Hit

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Flexport, Another SoftBank-Backed Startup Worth $3.2B,” TechCrunch, Feb. 4, 2020. OYO, the hotel company: Vindu Goel, Karan Deep Singh, and Erin Griffith, “Oyo Scales Back

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privileged, C.A. No. 2020-0258-AGB, Oct. 28, 2020. Bloomberg in April dropped him off: Tom Metcalf, “Adam Neumann Ousted from Billionaire Ranks on SoftBank Reversal,” Bloomberg, April 2, 2020. About the Authors Eliot Brown covers startups and venture capital for The Wall Street Journal. He joined the Journal in

The Everything Blueprint: The Microchip Design That Changed the World

by James Ashton  · 11 May 2023  · 401pp  · 113,586 words

from ‘dumb’ phone to smartphone, and the success that attracted stiff competition from US chip giant Intel and an offer it could not refuse from SoftBank, the Japanese investment firm. Third, forging new markets in low-energy sensors and high-end data centres, and navigating the pitfalls its pervasiveness has brought

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Jobs’ 11-year absence from the firm, which contributed to Arm’s formation, the breadth of its commercial success and appeal to its acquirer SoftBank, as well as Apple’s return to financial stability and its transformation under Jobs from a computer company into a consumer electronics leader. Such is

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whose portfolio of investments included Chinese ecommerce website Alibaba and the US mobile-phone carrier Sprint; and Alok Sama, chief financial officer of Son’s SoftBank investment company. They ordered lunch and chatted, like four friends relaxing on a summer Sunday afternoon. But for this hastily arranged meeting there was really

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it was an animal smell’, that encouraged him to splash the cash so readily.2 Announced on 18 January 2000, the $20m syndicate led by SoftBank, along with the promise of extra capital to develop international language versions of its websites, turned out to be vital to see Alibaba through the

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to Sharp, the Japanese electronics firm. Then Son imported games consoles from Japan to the US. After returning to Japan, in 1981 he set up SoftBank. The name was a portmanteau, ‘soft’ from software, but instead of the obvious financial connotations of ‘bank’, the second half of the word came

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believe that anything was possible. Son was a rarity in the Japanese business world: charismatic, visionary and willing to take on the establishment. He and SoftBank brought the dynamism that more mature Japanese technology firms such as Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony and Fujitsu gradually lost. He was unfailingly polite, but of course

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he wasn’t infallible. Not all the companies he backed were winners. Around the same time as the Alibaba investment, SoftBank put money into Webvan, an overhyped grocery start-up that typified the era, only to lose a reported $160m. Son could spot trends, but

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often fixated on the delivery of quarterly performance and regular dividends. By this time Son and Segars knew each other reasonably well. Even before SoftBank entered the mobile arena with the acquisition of Vodafone Japan in March 2006, East had paid Son a visit in December 2005 with Segars in

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years due to ‘evolving technologies, changing business models and overreliance on founders’. Arora, he said, ‘will work with me to drive the transformation of SoftBank as it enters a new phase’.11 He could not have been more clearly signposted as Son’s heir apparent. So Arora’s exit, announced

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one of the AGM presentation slides.13 Whether Arora shared Son’s enthusiasm for pursuing Arm was unclear. There was speculation about a disagreement, but SoftBank said his resignation was not connected with the acquisition. Sold AT 7.24am on 18 July 2016, the UK’s business community awoke to

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new finance minister was cheerleading what for many felt like a devastating blow: the sale of Arm, the country’s flagship technology company. ‘Decision by SoftBank to invest in @ARMHoldings shows UK has lost none of its allure to global investors – Britain is open for business’, a post from Hammond’

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visited the Ministry of Defence to explain Arm’s chip architecture, how its designs appeared in the Trident nuclear deterrent and why a sale to SoftBank made it no more likely to fall into Chinese hands than before. Certain investors were a tougher crowd. Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh fund manager

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commitment to keep open a plant in Somerset. Son’s pledges over the Marmaris lunch to nurture Arm were hardened into post-offer undertakings. SoftBank committed to keeping Arm’s global headquarters in Cambridge and to at least double its 1,700-strong workforce so it could continue to develop

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computing, test-drove supercars and enjoyed fine dining and performances by the singer John Legend and the mentalist Lior Suchard. And at the centre of SoftBank’s inaugural Sōzō Summit – which took its name from a Japanese phrase that meant ‘to imagine’ and ‘to create’ – was Masayoshi Son, still the

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Three years on from acquiring British chip designer Arm, Son had barely stopped spending. Less than six weeks after that lightning-quick deal had closed, SoftBank raised the stakes, announcing the formation of its Vision Fund to invest at least $25bn in technology over the next five years. With a potential

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was eager to diversify its economy away from oil. PIF’s chairman, the deputy crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, expressed his delight at working with SoftBank and Son given their ‘long history, established industry relationships and strong investment performance’.2 Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala fund, Apple and Qualcomm also chipped in

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Fund. The initial $4bn had been conceived in typical Son fashion: based on a brief meeting and some scribbled notes. At WeWork’s last fundraising, SoftBank had pumped money into the business at a valuation of $47bn, but for the initial public offering (IPO), which was already facing postponement, it

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board a private jet, Neumann stepped down as chief executive. The IPO was pulled soon after. The turn of events dealt a blow to SoftBank’s reputation and the thoroughness with which it carried out due diligence on its investments. In truth, its IPO programme had already delivered mixed results

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into the business and stumped up $3bn for existing shareholders, increasing its stake to roughly 80 per cent from 30 per cent. Two weeks later, SoftBank reported a $6.5bn quarterly loss – its first in 14 years – after writing down the value of several of its investments. ‘My investment judgment

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high-flying company fell to earth. Yutaka Matsuo, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s graduate school of engineering who became a director of SoftBank in June 2019, reflected that his first year on the board had been ‘quite a roller coaster ride’ and that the Sōzō Summit ‘represented

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declared that 80 per cent of his realisations target had been met, from selling shares in his cornerstone investment in the Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, SoftBank’s holding company and the US mobile network T-Mobile. ‘I am confident in our prospects for completing the remaining 20%,’ he added.6

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partners would ship 650,000 chips earning $31,700 of royalties, he disclosed. The company couldn’t offer the explosive growth of some of its SoftBank stablemates, but it generated buckets of cash, some of it dating back to licences signed more than 20 years prior. With such long sightlines,

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as ‘the rallying point for tomorrow’ in one company blog. But rather than pouring more money into the firm – as was the common perception – SoftBank put in nothing beyond the 2016 purchase price, which was paid to external investors and enriched some staff. In the main, the benefit of its

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500-plus others. Arm had thrived by developing a unique model of serving everyone equally. Unless it could find another financial investor like itself, what SoftBank needed was someone willing to think the unthinkable. Someone with a vision to rival Son’s, who could see Arm’s long-term potential –

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Cambridge and the UK to the forefront of some of the most exciting technological innovations of our time’ and, as a major shareholder in Nvidia, SoftBank looked forward to ‘supporting the continued success of the combined business’.19 The deal would combine Nvidia’s AI expertise with the vast reach of

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the rest of the world, Arm said it believed the transaction would expand its opportunities.24 The idea of a Chinese venture predated the 2016 SoftBank takeover. Arm had explored what it needed to do to maintain its popularity in China as government money flowed into the sector and state-

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exceed the US as its top source of revenue, it did not want to lose ground should foreign operators fall out of favour. After the SoftBank deal, Beijing upped the pressure on Arm. It wanted indigenous, controllable entities operating in its market, although precise guidance on how international firms should

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of transactions where national security concerns were applicable. The roots of the legislation could be traced to the Theresa May speech, given one week before SoftBank devoured Arm, that said the UK ‘should be capable of stepping in to defend a sector that is as important as pharmaceuticals is to

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the original site. The building next door, opened in 2000 by Stephen Byers, the trade and industry secretary, and where staff assembled to celebrate the SoftBank deal with a beaming Masayoshi Son in July 2016, was still in use but the executives were long gone. On the balcony, Simon Segars’

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of these roles were with the underwhelming internet of things (IOT) software platform, Pelion, and associated assets that were being hived off and remaining with SoftBank. Many of the rest were administrative and support staff. But the company was also hiring, as Haas looked to expand Arm into new fields. ‘

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had lost its edge versus the go-go New York and Shanghai markets – and perhaps even its close neighbour Paris – ministers made strenuous overtures to SoftBank to lure back the nation’s flagship technology company. Arm, with its global reach, decades-long track record, operating at the cutting edge of

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investment bank Schroders, put the UK’s case to Son. Having relaxed stock-market rules to lure technology companies in particular, Grimstone proposed to SoftBank something distinctly unusual: a dual primary listing. The structure would allow Arm full access to the pools of liquidity in New York and London and

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publicly listed stocks that qualified. There was another dimension to the charm offensive, which the prime minister Boris Johnson joined by writing a letter to SoftBank executives that extolled the capital’s virtues. Sir Alex Younger, the former head of the British secret service, MI6, said the government should ‘strain

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of inevitability when Arm eventually declared for New York on 3 March, 2023. After engaging with the government over several months, Haas said that SoftBank and Arm ‘have determined that pursuing a US only listing of Arm in 2023 is the best path forward for the company and its stakeholders

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second only to the battery in terms of component cost. Some carmakers were still suffering from supply shortages too.7 It also helped that, under SoftBank ownership, Arm had gone from designing general-purpose CPUs, which were used across smartphones and data centres, to tailored products that no longer had

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Chinese market, Arm China as an independent operating company majority owned by Chinese investors, and to the success of Arm’s Chinese ecosystem partners,’ a SoftBank statement read.10 Selling its designs into China through the joint venture normalised, but the joint venture’s efforts to create China-specific designs were

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Arm architecture. That could explain why China appeared reluctant for Arm to distance itself from Arm China. The transfer of its stake to a new SoftBank entity was regarded as a precursor to the group’s long-awaited IPO, but getting the paperwork processed proved problematic. Not everything else was

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royalty-free alternative, or generate uncertainty just as Arm was trying to find new investors. Since agreeing Arm’s takeover with Nvidia in September 2020, SoftBank’s financial woes had not eased. In August 2022, the company reported a record £19bn quarterly loss after a global sell-off in tech

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The House that Jack Ma Built, Ecco, 2016. 2 https://www.reuters.com/article/alibaba-ipo-board-idINL4N0QK3Q120140827 3 Atsuo Inoue, Aiming High: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and Disrupting Silicon Valley, Hodder & Stoughton, 2021. 4 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/simon-segars-interview-looking-forward-future-and-internet-things

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5 more yrs as Arora quits’, Japan Economic Newswire, 22 June 2016. 13 https://www.livemint.com/Companies/uzZ0D4e4DyjvqIUqETMbYP/The-trigger-for-Nikesh-Aroras-SoftBank-resignation.html 14 https://www.deepchip.com/items/0562-04.html 15 https://www.theresa2016.co.uk/we_can_make_britain_a_country_that_works

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press-releases/2017-02-07-gartner-says-8-billion-connected-things-will-be-in-use-in-2017-up-31-percent-from-2016 12 https://group.softbank/system/files/pdf/ir/financials/annual_reports/annual-report_fy2020_01_en.pdf 13 https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/dilemmas/arm-ipo-2023-

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2019-10/ 14 https://group.softbank/system/files/pdf/ir/financials/annual_reports/annual-report_fy2017_01_en.pdf 15 ‘Accomplished team of graphics and multimedia experts’, Business Wire, 25

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archive/icml2009/papers/218.pdf 18 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/09/19/nvidia-boss-vows-protect-arm-generation-company/ 19 https://group.softbank/en/news/press/20200914_0 20 https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/09/13/jensen-employee-letter-arm/ 21 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/

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, Aiming High, p. 271. 23 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/09/19/nvidia-boss-vows-protect-arm-generation-company/ 24 https://group.softbank/en/news/press/20180605 25 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Arm-s-China-joint-venture-ensures-access-to-vital-technology 26 https://asia.nikkei

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.com/Business/China-tech/How-SoftBank-s-sale-of-Arm-China-sowed-the-seeds-of-discord 27 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-12/google-microsoft-qualcomm-protest-

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36 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61d81a458fa8f505953f4ed7/NVIDIA-Arm_-_CMA_Initial_Submission_-_NCV_for_publication__Revised_23_December_2021_.pdf 37 https://group.softbank/en/news/press/20220208 38 https://www.arm.com/company/news/2022/02/arm-appoints-rene-haas-as-ceo 14. THE RISK FROM RISC-V

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Statistics-WSTS-has-released-its-new-semiconductor-market-forecast-generated-in-August-2022 16. ALWAYS ON 1 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/11/softbank-arm-flotation-legal-fight-china-london-stock-exchange-nasdaq 2 https://www.ft.com/content/43d11498-fd49-4df2-b8ef-aa4a5bbe8852 3 https://www.thisismoney.co

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.uk/money/markets/article-10950551/SoftBank-boss-dampens-Arm-London-hopes.html 4 https://www.arm.com/company/news/2023/02/arm-announces-q3-fy22-results 5 https://www.datacenterknowledge.com

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, A.S., Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points that Challenge Every Company and Career (1996). Inoue, A., Aiming High: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and Disrupting Silicon Valley (2021). Isaacson, W., Steve Jobs (2011). Lean, T., Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer (2016). Malone,

Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork

by Reeves Wiedeman  · 19 Oct 2020  · 303pp  · 100,516 words

for a decade, and Neumann had raised more than $11 billion of investment capital. The vast majority came from Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank, a Japanese technology conglomerate, and one of the few executives in the world whose ambition exceeded Neumann’s. Son had first invested in WeWork in

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as uniquely capable of disrupting the roughly $200 trillion global real estate market. In January 2019, a few months before I sat down with Neumann, SoftBank had invested again, boosting WeWork’s theoretical value to $47 billion and making it the second most valuable private start-up in America. WeWork bought

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success, its employees had followed the Theranos story with a growing sense of unease as cracks began to appear in WeWork’s ever-optimistic narrative. SoftBank’s investment was gargantuan by any measure, but Masayoshi Son, Neumann’s chief advocate and business mentor, had backed out of an even larger

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harness the nascent power of the internet to disrupt one industry after another. In 2000, a few well-placed tech bets allowed Masayoshi Son, from SoftBank, to rise from relative obscurity and briefly become the world’s richest man. Even as the internet bubble began to burst, Hayden and McKelvey

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a more professional feel, even though it had the company’s first permanent beer keg and the tenants remained an eclectic group. (A team from SoftBank Capital, an investing arm of the Japanese conglomerate, considered a WeWork office in 2012, but decided that it didn’t quite fit the firm’

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and I’ll tell you how much capital I need,’” one member of WeWork’s fundraising team said. Among the firms that considered investing was SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate, which had a small venture capital arm in the United States. One of its New York–based investors suggested WeWork as the

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at 154 Grand, Masayoshi Son walked onstage and smiled at the audience packing a five-thousand-seat auditorium in Tokyo. Son was the founder of Softbank, the Japanese technology conglomerate, and he was preparing to deliver his annual address to the company’s shareholders along with a thousand members of

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technological services that had made Masa and his company rich—computer software, then broadband internet, then mobile phone service—had taken on a new urgency. “SoftBank is now working to make people happy through the information revolution,” Masa said. “This is the single thing we want to accomplish.” On Twitter, where

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returned to the stage. He had become captivated by the growing field of artificial intelligence and believed that exploiting this coming revolution was how SoftBank would bring people happiness—one slide in his presentation showed an image of a human hand offering a heart to a robotic arm—and return

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publication began to tank, and Masa feared the consequences of an early public defeat. “If we stopped the magazines, everyone would say that SoftBank was in trouble—that SoftBank was going to die,” he said. Masa went all in, doubling the pages in the next issue, printing twice as many copies,

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paid off. Both of his latest gambits were thriving, and his investment in Alibaba had become legendary. He wanted more. By 2300, Masa said, SoftBank might be “a telepathy company instead of a telecommunications company”—who could say how far the company would go? (“Maybe communicating with dogs could be

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supplicants to visit the president-elect’s building to curry favor. Masa was interested in reviving a proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, which SoftBank owned; the deal had run afoul of Obama administration regulators concerned about a lack of competition in the mobile phone market. There was a

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these guys every day, and their body language, the questions they were asking—you could just tell they were skeptical.” Several months into the negotiation, SoftBank’s team asked to see WeWork’s projections from previous investment rounds to assess whether the company had fulfilled its promises. “There were some projections

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Son 2.0. When WeWork’s executives returned to Tokyo for another meeting later on, they noticed Adam’s collage was still hanging up at SoftBank headquarters. * * * MASA’S INVESTMENT IN Adam and his company was officially announced on August 24, 2017. It totaled $4.4 billion, some of which

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came from SoftBank itself, and $1.4 billion of which was earmarked for WeWork’s continued expansion into Asia—a deal structure that kept it below Saudi Arabia

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necessary. Adam had not resorted to self-immolation, but his confidence grew as each of his gambits worked out. He began spending some of his SoftBank spoils to build a miniature Vision Fund to match his own interests, investing in a biotech firm dedicated to increasing human longevity; a “Shazam

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hear about them, they lose a lot of money every month. Don’t build that.” Chapter Thirteen Blitzscaling A FEW WEEKS AFTER WeWork’s gargantuan SoftBank deal was announced, Jamie Hodari met Adam early one morning at Francis S. Gabreski Airport, which serves private jets flying in and out of

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s marketing blitz, but if the campaign continued, none of them would have the cash reserves to survive what amounted to predatory pricing. Prior to SoftBank’s arrival, back in the era of Managing the Nickel, WeWork executives had been talking about finding a more balanced growth trajectory. T. Rowe

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result: not many, so make them smaller. They experimented with cameras and microphones that could track facial expressions and tones of voice. (At one point, SoftBank suggested that WeWork partner with SenseTime, a Vision Fund company in China with facial recognition technology that had come under fire for its use in

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at WeWork for seven months. * * * NO ONE KNEW that WeWork’s 2018 Summer Camp would be its last, but there was plenty to celebrate: SoftBank had just agreed to invest an additional $1 billion in the company. WeWork flew its six thousand employees to London, hired Lorde to perform, and

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was cracked up to be. Chapter Nineteen Fortitude IN AUGUST 2018, just a few weeks before WeWork’s final Summer Camp, Masayoshi Son told SoftBank’s shareholders that the dozens of companies he was investing in through the Vision Fund would “join us as our family.” Among his growing brood

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new,” using technology and “proprietary data systems” to build and connect communities in a way no one else had. He was thinking of moving SoftBank’s headquarters into WeWork offices in Japan and told those scrutinizing WeWork’s business to stop worrying so much about the math. “Feeling is more

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in 2018, during which the company’s directors expressed concern about WeWork’s growth rate. Both Bruce Dunlevie and Ron Fisher, one of two SoftBank-affiliated representatives on the board, pressed WeWork to establish a timeline for when the company would go public. But the disclosures required by the bond

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a Series E. Adam had kept WeWork private long enough for Masa to invest in a Series G. Masa himself had long dreamed of taking SoftBank private, freeing himself from the restrictions that came with being a public company. By lavishing the Vision Fund’s largesse upon start-ups, Masa

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private.” Because the Vision Fund’s investments often included large secondary share purchases, such as the $1.3 billion worth of WeWork stock that SoftBank and the Vision Fund bought from existing shareholders in 2017, early investors began describing the Vision Fund’s investments as a new kind of exit

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online sale of sports apparel. The plan Masa and Adam began sketching out would dwarf their record-setting deal from 2017. It called for SoftBank and the Vision Fund to buy out many of WeWork’s existing shareholders, from Benchmark to the Chainsmokers to the former community managers in Austin

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heavily in multiple companies in a single industry—DoorDash and Uber Eats, for example—so WeWork insisted that Masa not finance one of its competitors. SoftBank, in turn, made Adam pledge not to leave and launch a competitor himself. If WeWork’s revenue increased to $50 billion in the next

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said, and WeLive and WeGrow—to say nothing of the wave pools—were pushing the company into industries where it had no expertise or advantage. SoftBank investors seemed to share their concern: its shares dropped 5 percent when the Fortitude details were first reported in the press. Tensions between the

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by the table where Adam and Rebekah were having dinner with Jared and Ivanka.) In November, the two sides came to a preliminary agreement for SoftBank to invest an additional $3 billion in WeWork while the two sides worked on Fortitude. But as the negotiations wore on, Berrent and Minson,

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-1, a document presented to the Securities and Exchange Commission that would mark a first step toward a public offering. One hope was to show SoftBank that, despite Adam’s hesitations about going public, the company could forge on without its benefactor if necessary. But Fortitude was moving ahead. The

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a deal of this size was simply too risky. Several financial institutions had placed margin calls on Masa’s personal holdings after the dip in SoftBank’s stock. His hands were tied. Adam was stunned. His advisers had tried, at various points, to temper his expectations and warn him that

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.” He told WeWork’s employees that he was there to ease their concerns. “How many of you have gotten emails, phone calls, texts about SoftBank pulling their investment?” Minson asked. “You can tell them your CFO walked out in a fucking Hawaiian shirt to tell you that every little thing

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that was Trump’s mode.” General Assembly’s education business was doing well, and Schwartz didn’t have any regrets about abandoning coworking, especially after SoftBank entered the industry and warped its economics. He thought WeWork was a decent business, with a ton of revenue. He just didn’t see

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his office that he would be watching Uber’s stock market debut with particular interest; the companies shared not only investors, in both Benchmark and SoftBank, but a habit of burning cash. WeWork and Uber had both lost nearly $2 billion in 2018—a shocking deficit well beyond anything Amazon,

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, bigger numbers begat even bigger ones. Masa’s arrival had pushed WeWork’s valuation into even more inscrutable territory. No one could compete with SoftBank to invest billions into WeWork, which meant that the $47 billion valuation—three times what Hony Capital and others had invested at in 2016—was

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, while the other half went toward buying out existing shareholders at a much lower price: $23 billion, only a slight increase over the price SoftBank paid in 2017. When the deal terms were finalized, some WeWork executives thought it would be prudent to publicize the lower figure, or perhaps a

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to be modest. Masa was trying to raise money for his second Vision Fund, and a supersize valuation for one of his prized investments allowed SoftBank to boast about spectacular results, at least on paper. Adam, meanwhile, took particular pride in the fact that the new valuation, and Uber’s

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news cycles by burying bad press with paid ads. But the Google reps said the reaction to Wingspan had been so overwhelmingly critical that even SoftBank’s largesse couldn’t get WeWork out of this hole. Parlapiano told her coworkers that in this “very challenging” environment any attempt to redirect

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now they just decided overnight, ‘Just kidding, we’re worth $20 billion,’” Ocasio-Cortez said, pointing out that if the company had gone public at SoftBank’s valuation, everyday investors who put money in would be “getting fleeced.” Adam grew increasingly frustrated with WeWork’s communications team, which was suddenly unable

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to control the news cycle. Someone was leaking information. Was SoftBank trying to scuttle the IPO? Was Benchmark hoping to stage another coup? Or maybe one of WeWork’s newer executives, with less devotion to the

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to woo prospective investors, leaving enough time to go public before Rosh Hashanah. Despite Masa’s reservations, WeWork had reached a tentative agreement with SoftBank to buy another $1 billion of WeWork stock as part of the IPO. WeWork was also close to finalizing a smaller deal with Zoom to

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Vision Fund was using “capital as a weapon,” warping every industry it was entering. But the fact that WeWork’s two biggest financial backers, SoftBank and JPMorgan, were both losing faith in the IPO, pushed many board members to believe a change was necessary. Bruce Dunlevie made plans to get

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“I did everything you told me to do.” “Adam,” Dimon said. “You did nothing that I told you to.” This wasn’t strictly true. JPMorgan, SoftBank, and WeWork’s other investors had enabled and encouraged Adam for years. It was only when his erratic behavior threatened their own reputations that they

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made sense, or ever would. A ground-up development in Seattle that was meant to contain the third WeLive was scrapped, and a team from SoftBank approached a competitor about taking over WeLive altogether. Adam’s ambition to become the next Amazon had been dashed: WeWork sold the Lord & Taylor

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The bank was willing to offer WeWork $5 billion worth of debt, backed by all of WeWork’s assets. The only other interested party was SoftBank itself, which was in a precarious position. The firm had already sunk more than $10 billion into WeWork. Aside from his initial twelve-minute visit

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he said. He had begun telling the CEOs of the Vision Fund’s other portfolio companies to “know your limit.” Toward the end of October, SoftBank executives were heading to Saudi Arabia for the country’s annual financial conference, where they hoped to secure commitments to Vision Fund 2. One way

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or another, the WeWork situation needed a resolution, and on October 22, SoftBank came to the table with an offer that matched JPMorgan’s $5 billion debt deal—with an additional offer that served as both carrot and

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office-space company could change the world—and the primary reason why things fell apart. Employees and WeWork shareholders alike blanched at the fact that SoftBank was giving Neumann a billion-dollar exit package just to get him out the door. And yet as WeWork employees surveyed the wreckage, they

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acknowledging the unbelievable thing he had done. Back in 2010, when Adam and Miguel started WeWork and Masa presented his three-hundred-year vision, the SoftBank founder pointed out that the planet had gone through five great extinctions. The rapidly cooling earth had eliminated 70 percent of life 440 million years

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-funded start-up boom of the 2010s. At the time of this writing, that moment has come to a close. Adam Neumann, WeWork, and SoftBank remain mired in a legal dispute over its spoils, and a new era much like the recession that launched WeWork is just beginning. Acknowledgments Thank

The Pyramid of Lies: Lex Greensill and the Billion-Dollar Scandal

by Duncan Mavin  · 20 Jul 2022  · 345pp  · 100,989 words

Bishop, formerly Australia’s foreign minister, and Maurice Thompson, who was once the head of US bank Citigroup in the UK. Top executives from SoftBank and GA were also invited. At Greensill’s board dinners or management meetings or Christmas parties, Lex would show who was in favour by carefully

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several companies were either owned by or associated with a single businessman, steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta. In five more cases, the description simply said ‘SoftBank’, meaning the loans were to other companies where Greensill’s biggest shareholder also had a significant stake. Others showed that the borrowers had ties to

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fund has made billions from investments in cab service Uber and food delivery company Doordash. Its investment in WeWork, however, was a spectacular dud. SoftBank invested about $18.5 billion in WeWork. Then in 2019 the shared office business imploded when it was forced to drop a planned public offering

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Thursday, Lex Greensill and David Cameron flew halfway round the planet to Tokyo. They bundled themselves into waiting cars and zipped across the city to SoftBank’s imposing headquarters. If the first meeting with Misra had got Lex officially in the door, then this meeting, in Japan, was critical. There

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its portfolio companies, including through an initial public offering (IPO). Masayoshi Son had also borrowed from Credit Suisse for decades, pledging his shares in SoftBank as collateral for billions of dollars of loans. Credit Suisse’s Michel Degen endorsed Greensill wholeheartedly. The bank had about $4 billion of client money

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. They did not speak with some of Greensill’s biggest customers, who were the company’s main sources of revenue. These omissions are striking. SoftBank’s research missed several key Greensill relationships that turned out to be major problems. Whereas GA had courted Lex for years, the Vision Fund team

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relationship with Sky television’s Ian King and with Sky News business reporter Mark Kleinman. More importantly, he cultivated a personal connection to Masayoshi Son. SoftBank insiders felt Lex was spending more time with Masa than just about anyone else. The Australian followed his new mentor to Washington DC, Jakarta,

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take that core business and tackle other inequalities and other challenges that exist in the global market.’ The appreciation went in both directions. At internal SoftBank events, Son put Lex on a pedestal alongside other stars of the Vision Fund, especially WeWork founder Adam Neumann, who was still then in

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favour, and Ritesh Agarwal, the head of India’s OYO Hotels. The three were featured in a presentation to SoftBank shareholders that referred to them as pioneers of artificial intelligence leading ‘the biggest revolution in human history’. Son also pointed to Greensill as an example

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WeWork CEO and his team were immediately sceptical that Greensill could really provide the funds, and they were concerned about potential conflicts of interest, given SoftBank’s recent investment in Greensill. Neumann and his staff mockingly referred to Lex as ‘Lex Luthor’; he refused the offer of Greensill’s help.

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first investment in Greensill, the Vision Fund poured another $655 million into the firm. Colin Fan, a former Deutsche Bank executive who was the SoftBank lead on the Greensill investment, said in a press release that Greensill was ‘transforming global business access to working capital through its innovative business model

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out amicably enough – some small talk, a few questions about the TV interview. But when I asked him slightly more probing questions about the SoftBank investment, Doran started yelling at the top of his voice in the busy fast-food restaurant, accusing me of being unprofessional and threatening that I

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,’ one former Greensill executive told me. ‘The same way he did business.’ The hiring spree also really gathered pace at this time too. The SoftBank and General Atlantic investments made Greensill Capital a much more credible career move, as did the growing relationship with Credit Suisse. Several new senior hires

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bankers to the Gulf. For starters, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, known as the Public Investment Fund (PIF), was the single largest investor in SoftBank’s Vision Fund. That stake also meant Saudi Arabia was effectively a major shareholder in Greensill too. There were also potentially lucrative projects to work

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NHS – which were calculated based on Lex’s estimations and advice – ever resulted. PEPS was not the only NHS business at Greensill. Almost everything SoftBank had put into Greensill in October had gone out of the company, either to Greensill Bank or to the pockets of the founder shareholders. But

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insurer, The Bond and Credit Company (TBCC), provided $6.8 billion of cover and needed monitoring. Suddenly, there were lots of loans to other SoftBank Vision Fund companies, many of them start-up companies whose creditworthiness was questionable. The risk reports also focused on sanctions and anti-money-laundering (known

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kept tabs on them regularly for any unexpected shifts. That month, there was a surprising new development. Suddenly, companies that were backed by the SoftBank Vision Fund popped up in the list of top ten clients. I knew Greensill was effectively making all the decisions about who the funds loaned

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major investor. There were four Vision Fund companies that stood out. OYO Hospitality is an Indian hotel company that operates budget accommodation around the world. SoftBank had invested more than $1 billion into the company, but in early 2020 OYO was struggling. The global Covid-19 pandemic had already started

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to hurt the travel and tourism sector. Even before that, a rapid expansion plan, encouraged by SoftBank, had been accompanied by widening annual losses of several hundred million dollars. The company had begun laying off staff and scaling back its ambitions. Fair

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Financial was in a similar position. Fair had started out offering subscriptions to customers who paid a fee to drive used cars. Along the way SoftBank had ploughed more than $300 million into the company, becoming a major shareholder with influence over the direction of the company. Fair had morphed

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their money into Chehaoduo, which had been accused of fraud by a rival Chinese firm. A spokeswoman for Chehaoduo had denied the accusations, while SoftBank’s leaders said they had conducted their own due diligence and found the accusations groundless. The Credit Suisse documents referred to it under the name

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for us to evaluate.’ It seemed like a vague reference to something Masayoshi Son had said about the ‘Cluster of No. 1’ strategy. SoftBank’s website explains that SoftBank-backed companies ‘are encouraged to form synergies to evolve and grow together based on capital ties and a shared vision while making decisions

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independently.’ The story we published in Financial News had raised a serious red flag about the multifaceted role of SoftBank in the Greensill funds. It also made another point. The Credit Suisse–Greensill funds had ballooned in the past couple of years – from about

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didn’t uncover all these details until months later. But in June, Robert Smith and Arash Massoudi, journalists at the Financial Times, reported that SoftBank had poured more than $500 million into the funds. Though I believe they underestimated the true size of the investment, the story was the first

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had been expected to follow him out of the door. Instead, Gottstein promoted her to chief risk and compliance officer. When the revelations about SoftBank’s multiple roles in the Greensill funds broke, the bank’s senior executives initially talked about a wide-ranging review of the funds. There were

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of asset management who had once said he would help Lex fund a new capital for Indonesia, were assigned to investigate individual obligors beyond the SoftBank Vision Fund borrowers. That would have meant looking at the many Sanjeev Gupta GFG companies or a host of other odd loans. An investigation

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s senior management had talked about in June faded into the rear-view mirror as Greensill headed straight towards a cliff. IT TURNED OUT that SoftBank wasn’t the only Greensill shareholder that had got itself entangled in Greensill’s Credit Suisse funds. In 2019, General Atlantic had been seeking

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not without an impact. The probe had very publicly shone a light on Credit Suisse’s relationship with both Greensill and its biggest investor, the SoftBank Vision Fund. It was another blemish on Greensill’s reputation, at least among those who were paying attention – potential corporate clients and insurance partners,

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, was heavily criticized for its role in the downfall of Wirecard, the credit card payments company that, like Greensill, had once been backed by SoftBank. Journalists at the Financial Times had spent years writing critical stories about Wirecard, only to face a concerted effort by the company, German authorities and

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of the Committed Facilities’. This tangle of jargon meant that the long-term commitments were largely loans to the likes of Bluestone, GFG, the SoftBank Vision Fund companies and other potentially problematic Greensill clients. Some of these long-term loans were hard to fund out of the longer-term funds

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possibly – more leverage with European politicians down the line. In the end, no deal materialized. Gupta was struggling as usual for financing. He even asked SoftBank’s Misra to help, connecting him to his former colleagues at Deutsche Bank – would they finance a deal to save German steel jobs? The answer

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Capital It’s hard to overstate the credibility Lex got from having attracted a couple of billion dollars in capital from General Atlantic (GA) and SoftBank’s Vision Fund. GA was one of the most respected big investors around. The Vision Fund had a mixed reputation, especially after WeWork’s

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. His daily calls with Masayoshi Son, his mentor and biggest promoter, ended abruptly. He also lost the support of his other big cheerleader at SoftBank. Colin Fan, the former Deutsche Bank executive, had been Greensill’s main point of contact at the Vision Fund from the outset. He represented

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single client had been squeaky clean. The fact that Greensill’s business was so concentrated in loans to Gupta was especially worrying. Overall, the SoftBank credit review found that Greensill was, in several crucial ways, a very different business to the one that the Vision Fund thought they had invested

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colleagues, noted that the Vision Fund had followed GA’s investment in several companies, including Greensill. ‘If you look across the GA portfolio globally, SoftBank has invested in a number of our companies,’ he said diplomatically. Caillaux and the GA team knew that Lex had a strong appetite for big

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of them said they would need to know more about the risk of defaults, the credit due diligence process, and the relationship between Greensill and SoftBank. A pitchbook circulated by Credit Suisse to all potential investors touted Greensill as a ‘market-leading disruptor’ with ‘cloud-based integrated technology’ and a

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now suddenly came into sharp focus. There was no way out. Several board members and executives started to talk about leaving the sinking firm. At SoftBank, Misra decided that the Vision Fund should write its investment in Greensill down to zero. A couple of billion dollars, all told, was completely

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financial scandal. One loan caused particular concern. The Credit Suisse funds had loaned about $435 million to Katerra, a construction company part-owned by the SoftBank Vision Fund. The five-year-old company was based in Menlo Park, California, and claimed to be ‘transforming construction through innovation of process and

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was close to filing for bankruptcy. On 30 December, my colleagues at The Wall Street Journal reported that Katerra had received another $200 million SoftBank bailout to stave off insolvency. The company’s CEO also told the Journal that as part of the bailout deal, Greensill had forgiven a loan

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from TDR would not only have introduced new equity into Greensill, it would also have added some much-needed credibility. Lex was hoping, too, that SoftBank would match the new investment. However, TDR had drawn back. Lex explained that ‘an inbound’ from BaFin had landed in December, questioning the company

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plan just about impossible. On the call with Greensill’s senior executives, he outlined the next stage of the plan. Both General Atlantic and SoftBank had advocated that Greensill should become a public company much more quickly than previously anticipated, he said. Instead of waiting for an initial public offering

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dollars’ worth of their clients’ money into Greensill’s assets but failed to safeguard them properly. Investors in his business – like General Atlantic and SoftBank – saw that things were going wrong but failed to stop Greensill veering completely off the rails. Armies of lawyers, media relations people and bankers took

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that didn’t generate much profit at all – supply chain finance – into something relatively super-charged. The flood of money from tech investors like SoftBank into anything that looked new and disruptive also strapped a rocket to Greensill’s growth. All these trends have been around for years and still

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venture ref1, ref2 new category of loans ref1 payroll finance ref1 perilous state ref1 premier ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 sells company private jets ref1 Softbank dealings ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9 start-up ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Tower Trade ref1 Tradeshift Networks ref1, ref2

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, ref2 and General Atlantic ref1 and government loans ref1 and Gupta ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7 private aircraft ref1 regulation ref1 and Softbank ref1, ref2 technology ref1 and trade credit insurance ref1, ref2 whistle-blower at ref1 Greensill Capital ref1, ref2 aircraft leasing deals ref1 allegations of corruption

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, ref2 risky ventures ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8 and Roland Hartley-Urquhart ref1 and Saudi Arabia ref1 as ‘shadow bank’ ref1 and SoftBank ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24

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television ref1 small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) ref1, ref2 SMBC ref1 Smith, Robert ref1 Smithfield ref1 Smythson ref1 SNL Financial ref1 Société Générale ref1 SoftBank ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 corporate espionage ref1 and Greensill Bank AG ref1, ref2 and Greensill Capital ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7,

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ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24 and Wirecard ref1 SoftBank Group ref1 SoftBank Group Corp ref1 SoftBank Vision Fund ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20

The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future

by Sebastian Mallaby  · 1 Feb 2022  · 935pp  · 197,338 words

, and Activist Capital Chapter 4 The Whispering of Apple Chapter 5 Cisco, 3Com, and the Valley Ascendant Chapter 6 Planners and Improvisers Chapter 7 Benchmark, SoftBank, and “Everyone Needs $100 Million” Chapter 8 Money for Google, Kind of for Nothing Chapter 9 Peter Thiel, Y Combinator, and the Valley’s Youth

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went to zero. In the internet age, it was worth paying whatever it might take for stakes in turbo-power-law companies. Chapter Seven Benchmark, SoftBank, and “Everyone Needs $100 Million” At the start of 1995, somebody mentioned a strange name at a UUNET board meeting. Don Gooding, the telecom analyst

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entrepreneur named Masayoshi Son, and he had earned a reputation as the Bill Gates of Japan by hitting it big with a software distributor called SoftBank. Unlike Gates, who came from a privileged background, Son was an extreme example of a self-made man. His family was part of Japan’s

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a second California odyssey. After the first one, he had returned to Japan with an economics degree from Berkeley and had made his fortune with SoftBank. Now, having got wind of the internet gold rush, he was shifting his business from Japan to America. It was an extraordinarily bold jump for

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they expected to take full control of companies.[23] Son, in contrast, would be a minority investor and on an unheralded scale. Because he had SoftBank’s corporate balance sheet behind him, he could pump in fully one hundred times more capital than Sequoia had provided when Yahoo got started. After

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.[32] Repeating the Yahoo playbook, Son also made large bets on later-stage companies. At the end of 1997, he used the balance sheets of SoftBank and Yahoo to pump $100 million into the pioneer web-hosting company GeoCities, doubling his money when the company went public the following August and

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had already gone public. He paid $400 million for the stake; a year later it was worth $2.4 billion. To reduce his reliance on SoftBank’s balance sheet, Son raised a new kind of venture fund: a $1 billion war chest exclusively for late-stage stakes, or what became known

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and sold it to Lotus Development. With its professional capital so geographically concentrated, Benchmark’s strength was local rather than global: it was the anti-Softbank.[40] Further, the Benchmark model was about being nimble rather than large: the partnership made a virtue of the deliberately small size of its first

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. In the summer of 1999, Dave Beirne broached the issue at a partners’ meeting. “I think we should raise a billion dollars. Seriously.” Rachleff sympathized. “SoftBank is raising more money,” he noted. “If we’re not prepared to fight, we’re going to get our clocks cleaned.” “You don’t go

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. “We might overcapitalize companies,” he said. “I don’t want to follow everyone else into big-check-dom.” “We need money to play,” reiterated Rachleff. SoftBank and the bull market more generally were pushing up the quantity of capital that startups expected to raise. “Every one of my telecom deals is

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from Benchmark and Sequoia, even though it was less a company than a concept. In 1998, Webvan raised a further $35 million, this time from SoftBank, to finance the building of its first distribution center. In 1999, with the distribution center still barely up and running, investors were persuaded to part

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.[18] In January 2000, Lin spoke to Mark Schwartz, Goldman’s Asia Pacific chairman. Schwartz was close to Masayoshi Son and on the board of SoftBank. Lin explained her dilemma: she had a portfolio of China startups, but New York didn’t like them. “I’ve got seven companies. Maybe your

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answered.[19] Schwartz talked to Son. The China market was hot. Goldman had a portfolio of startups that could use some extra capital. Pretty soon, SoftBank arranged for Son to meet several Chinese tech entrepreneurs in Beijing. They lined up to meet him, one after another, providing Son with a day

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. Her original deal with Alibaba gave her an effective veto right on new capital raisings, so Son had to negotiate with her. Lin proposed that SoftBank invest $20 million in Alibaba in exchange for a fifth of the company. The implied valuation of $100 million was ten times what Lin and

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in each silo blurred into one another. If you invested in Japan’s public stock market index, for example, you would own a chunk of SoftBank, which in turn represented a bet on global tech that was neither Japanese nor public. Moreover, in chasing the mirage of safe diversification, the university

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Sequoia persevere with its hedge fund, he now urged his partners to raise a supersized growth fund: the firm had to fortify itself against the SoftBank bullying tactics that Moritz had experienced at Yahoo. “There is at least one difference between Kim Jong-Un and Masayoshi Son,” Moritz wrote to his

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grew to the point where they needed gobs of capital, Sequoia could write the checks rather than letting its wards fall into the arms of SoftBank. But other traditional venture shops were not in a position to match Moritz’s move. They had steered clear of the growth business and stuck

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climbed into the back of a limo, and Son began to peck at his iPad. Presently, he handed Neumann the result: a proposal for a SoftBank investment in WeWork of $4.4 billion. It was an astonishing amount, more than Benchmark had raised in its entire twenty-two-year history. Neumann

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red signature. Half an hour later, Son emailed him a photo of the term sheet. Based on an interaction that had lasted twenty-eight minutes, SoftBank was valuing WeWork at $20 billion.[26] Like many innovations in finance, Yuri Milner’s growth-investing formula was being stretched to dangerous extremes. Yet

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permitted to hold shares with those nefarious super-voting rights; that they would not be allowed to control a majority of board votes; and that SoftBank itself would give up its passive practice of not taking a board seat.[88] Meanwhile, in a sign that Gurley’s critique might have gained

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to Form S-1 Registration Statement: Netscape Communications Corporation,” Securities and Exchange Commission, Aug. 8, 1995, 1. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 74 CHAPTER SEVEN: BENCHMARK, SOFTBANK, AND “EVERYONE NEEDS $100 MILLION” Gooding, interview by the author, June 12, 2018. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1 William H. Draper III, The Startup Game

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.02. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15 Son spoke about his early life in a speech at the SoftBank thirtieth anniversary shareholder meeting. See Masayoshi Son, “SoftBank’s Next 30-Year Vision,” SoftBank Group, June 25, 2010, group.softbank/en/philosophy/vision/next30. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 16 Amy Virshup, “Yahoo! How Two Stanford Students

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Created the Little Search Engine That Could,” Rolling Stone, Nov. 30, 1995. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 17 Mayumi Negishi, “Ties to Saudi Prince Weigh on SoftBank Fund’s Future,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 17, 2019. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 18 Reid, Architects of the Web, 259. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19

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’s SB-2 filing, the company raised $5 million in its Series B financing. Of this, $1 million came from Sequoia, $2 million came from SoftBank, and an undisclosed additional amount came from Ziff Davis, another of Son’s vehicles. The valuation was $35 million pre-money, or $40 million post

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a growth fund stops someone who says, ‘Take my capital or I’ll invest in your greatest competitor.’” Leone, author interview. See also Alfred Lee, “SoftBank Exerts More Control over Startups,” Information, Oct. 1, 2018. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 26 The gist of this conversation is reconstructed from Yang, interview by

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92x. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 67 Son’s habit of delegating operational details is emphasized by those who worked with him, including Jan Boyer, a SoftBank investing partner between 1999 and 2002. Boyer, interview by the author, March 7, 2020. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 68 Between Alibaba’s 2014 IPO and

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by David Rubenstein, The David Rubenstein Show, Oct. 11, 2017. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 20 Gary Rieschel, who at the time worked for Son at SoftBank, says the Beijing handshake sealed the Alibaba investment and specified terms: $20 million for 20 percent of the company. However, Lin recalls that Son’s

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made on Alibaba is unclear, because his initial $20 million investment was supplemented by a promise to absorb losses at Alibaba’s e-commerce arm. SoftBank insiders seem unsure how much that promise cost. However, the $58 billion payout makes it safe to say that this was the greatest venture bet

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Adam Neumann and the WeWork Debacle.” BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 28 The value of this downside protection soon became evident. In the spring of 2020, SoftBank’s earnings report indicated that WeWork’s value had collapsed from a peak of $47 billion to $2.9 billion. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 29

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TO NOTE REFERENCE 62 Ironically, Didi was a formidable rival because it was itself the product of a Valley-style merger, engineered by shareholders including SoftBank and Yuri Milner. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 63 As well as enjoying liquidation preferences, late-stage investors might extract promises of free additional stock grants

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2020, when it was valued at $6.3 billion. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 69 Unlike in the case of WeWork, where Benchmark got lucky with SoftBank’s willingness to buy some of its stake, Gurley had not had the opportunity to sell a single share in Uber. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE

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NOTE REFERENCE 76 Isaac, Super Pumped, 290–91. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 77 Jessica E. Lessin, Serena Saitto, and Amir Efrati, “At $45 Billion Price, SoftBank Talks Enflame Uber Tensions,” Information, Aug. 4, 2017. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 78 A spokesman for Kalanick denied the allegations in the suit, saying, “The

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. 2, 2017. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 82 Charles Duhigg, “How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism,” New Yorker, Nov. 30, 2020. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 83 SoftBank itself provided $33.1 billion to the Vision Fund. Saudi Arabia provided $45 billion, Abu Dhabi $15 billion. A handful of tech companies invested a

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85 Heather Somerville, “Toyota to Invest $500 Million in Uber for Self-Driving Cars,” Reuters, Aug. 27, 2018. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 86 Sam Nussey, “SoftBank’s Son Admits Mistakes After Vision Fund’s $8.9 Billion Loss,” Reuters, Nov. 6, 2019. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 87 Arash Massoudi and Kana

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Inagaki, “SoftBank Imposes New Standards to Rein In Start-Up Founders,” Financial Times, Nov. 4, 2019. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 88 The number covers venture-backed IPOs

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experience. 1995 Michael Moritz of Sequoia backs Yahoo, emerging as the leader of his firm and later of the venture industry. 1996 Masayoshi Son of SoftBank invests $100 million in Yahoo, heralding the rise of “growth investing” and earning the enmity of Moritz. 1996 John Doerr backs Amazon, signaling his status

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–43, 52, 61, 80, 395, 421–22n Smith, Hank, 86–87, 90 Snowflake, 330 Snow-Job, 69 social impact, 14–15 social networks. See networks SoftBank, 154–60, 171, 334 Alibaba, 229–31 Uber, 370–71 Webvan, 178 WeWork, 346–49, 370–73 Yahoo, 155–60 “software is eating the world

Money Men: A Hot Startup, a Billion Dollar Fraud, a Fight for the Truth

by Dan McCrum  · 15 Jun 2022  · 361pp  · 117,566 words

Freaking Out 16 Black Truffles 17 Defenestrated 18 The Reluctant Whistleblower 19 Notes from the Bunker 20 Manipulated 21 Bearing Witness 22 Manila Envelope 23 SoftBank to the Rescue 24 Empty Chairs and Empty Tables 25 Gold-plated 26 Caught in the Trap 27 Attack and Retreat 28 Exocet 29 Chasing

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transformed, along with the language. Private companies valued at a billion dollars or more were now ‘Unicorns’, and chasing these magical creatures was an industry. SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, announced the launch of a $100bn Vision Fund to throw at private companies like the taxi group Uber and the office space

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so farcical. The world was topsy-turvy. Der Spiegel, a German paper, had broken the news that afternoon: Palma and I were the criminals. 23 Softbank to the Rescue April 2019 – Munich Wirecard share price €108, market capitalization €13bn WEEKENDS WERE FOR VIENNA. Markus Braun spent them with his wife and

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important task: convincing some of the world’s most powerful investors that he didn’t want or need their money. He had been approached by SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate whose €100bn Vision Fund had transformed technology investing mainly by raising the table stakes for everyone involved. It doled out billions to

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companies like WeWork, encouraging them to use the money to smash the competition. A former Deutsche Bank trader called Akshay Naheta, now an investor at SoftBank, smelled an opportunity at Wirecard. His bet was that whatever the accounting issues, the stock was cheap. Backing from

…

of companies all used Wirecard for their payments processing, that flood of new business would wash away any problems. With SoftBank support, Wirecard could go on a buying spree, rolling up rivals into one giant company. Naheta and the other Deutsche Bank refugees who ran the

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, Angermayer also went to the parties of his very good friend Alexander Schütz, whom he helped put on the board of Deutsche Bank in 2017. SoftBank’s Akshay Naheta was soon in touch with Wirecard’s Markus Braun, and the outline of a deal came into view

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. SoftBank would lend Wirecard €900m (then equivalent to $1bn) in the form of a convertible bond, a type of debt which could be exchanged later for

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Wirecard stock. The proposed financial terms were so one-sided it would effectively be a gift to SoftBank for their support, so shareholders would have to approve it at the annual meeting that summer. In conversations about the deal Braun repeatedly said versions

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of the same thing: ‘The cash I don’t need, the SoftBank brand is nice, the business is what I want.’ Christian Angermayer, meanwhile, was granted a modest finder’s fee: 1.25 per cent of the

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on Marsalek’s selection, it was another up-close postcard of grey and wrinkled skin. Martin Dahmen and Andreas Budde of EY signed the accounts. SoftBank’s decision to throw $1bn at Wirecard and engage in strategic co-operation with the group was announced the next day, a vote of confidence

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what was in the pink pages of the FT? Markus Braun said it was wrong, with a prestigious accounting firm on one shoulder and now SoftBank on the other. I boxed up my huge collection of Wirecard files and we said farewell to the old place. Barber stood in the centre

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herself, which the translator chose not to pass on. Eduardo Marques, the Brazilian at the hedge fund Valiant Capital, was very much still short when SoftBank arrived. ‘Holy fuck. We are totally fucked,’ was his initial reaction. His next was to text everyone he knew in London to find out who

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wasn’t the amounts or even the details which mattered, it was the practices. Why on earth was Edo Kurniawan not fired? Marques asked the SoftBank man if the company was conducting a full due diligence process and got the answer: ‘No, we pride ourselves on our speed.’ While Marques was

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compliance you can’t fuck around.’ Like the rest of the figures he mentioned, Gold had only a loose sense of the numbers; he thought SoftBank was putting in €800m. ‘My guy says why do they need €800m?’ He went back to his key point. ‘They’ve got documents, they’ve

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up the garden path of logic: if €400m was unaccounted for, maybe that explained why a supposedly profitable and cash-rich company needed $1bn of SoftBank’s money. MCA Mathematik spoke to financial analysts and investors in their own language, offering them a puzzle to solve that prompted them to take

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issue. In August and September Greenvale added to the campaign with a series of anonymous letters to regulators, to Wirecard’s supervisory board and to SoftBank. With the FT out of the picture due to the internal investigation, Cobb was trying his best to disrupt Wirecard’s imminent fundraising. In that

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investment-grade credit rating to the company’s inaugural €500m bond issue.fn2 With that important label secured, and a clean audit from Ernst & Young, SoftBank handed over its promised €900m as well. Except it turned out Akshay Naheta wasn’t quite as soft in the head as Paul Murphy thought

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and his colleagues spent the summer using the Japanese conglomerate’s reputation, connections and resources to pitch Wirecard to various of the companies beholden to SoftBank, as well as takeover targets to Markus Braun. He also showed up in London at the party thrown by the head of the Vision Fund

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weekend at Wimbledon. At the annual meeting shareholders had waved through the proposed generous terms of the €900m convertible bond announced in April, thankful that SoftBank’s backing and its strategic co-operation with Wirecard had helped to levitate the share price. It was the trade of the decade. Even before

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any cash changed hands, SoftBank’s investment was ‘in the money’, thanks to the convertible bond’s terms and movements in interest rates between April and September. So there was

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the opportunity for a bit of ingenious financial structuring. As soon as the €900m convertible bond was issued to SoftBank, bankers at Credit Suisse arranged to sell it straight on to their clients eager for investment-grade debt. (A side benefit of Wirecard’s €500m

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bond sale was the credit rating which made the Credit Suisse deal possible.) SoftBank immediately got its €900m back, plus cash profits of more than €60m. It also held on to some of the rights to take ownership of

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Wirecard stock in the future, assuming the share price remained high enough, without any of the associated financial risk. It was like flipping a house. SoftBank had bought a mansion, carved out the gamekeeper’s cottage and some of the grounds, then sold what remained at a profit and laughed all

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the way to its Swiss bank. Except the strange thing was that SoftBank didn’t do the deal. There had always been some ambiguity about which part of the conglomerate was making the investment; was it for the

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it would turn out (revealed by Paul Davies at the Wall Street Journal) it was neither. The SoftBank group and the Vision Fund both declined to invest. So instead it was offered to SoftBank senior staff, and an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund called Mubadala that was deeply enmeshed in the Vision

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. To them the easy money was as tempting as a Louis Vuitton bag left by the side of the road, and they snapped it up. SoftBank’s involvement was to manage the juicy Wirecard investment on their behalf, earning a share of the profits. Was it a deception? It’s impossible

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to know how Wirecard shareholders would have reacted if the arrangements were made clear when SoftBank’s investment was announced by Wirecard the previous April. (SoftBank itself was silent, as it doesn’t announce such investments.) The flip to clients of Credit Suisse was also well

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to tip the middleman. Christian Angermayer, the handsome psychedelic enthusiast who had brokered the deal, got his €11m from Wirecard. As a thank you, the SoftBank crew threw in another €2m on top. Marsalek’s personal conference room at Wirecard HQ contained a large plasma screen hung at the head of

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as the regular one finished that year. Thomas Eichelmann, the new arrival and head of the board’s audit committee, leaned in, so did the SoftBank executives who had a stake in the company’s future. Outside the company a drum beat of protest from shareholders and analysts was building. By

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to avoid a forced sale.) Would it have been too much to ask supervisory board members to connect the dots, to the debt raised from ‘SoftBank’ and the outflow of huge sums to questionable destinations? How many times does a company need to be accused of fraud for those overseeing it

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289 suspicions of 287 not fired 294–5 resigns 296 arrested 303 management style 64 and McKinsey report 234–5 on Project Tiger 174, 175 SoftBank, and Wirecard 197–200, 203, 205, 237, 238 Vienna weekends 196–7 on Wirecard and Bitcoin 249–50 on Wirecard Asian non-offices 93 on

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cards high-risk processing 43–4, 47 payments, post–2008 scrutiny 47 prepaid/unbranded, for Click2Pay e-wallets 17–19 Credit Suisse 23 and Wirecard/SoftBank bond 238 Crypto currency, Braun on 250 Dahmen, Martin (EY) 292 and Singapore audit 202–3 Al Alam meeting 277 and Manila trustee meeting 272

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FT bribery 207 on Wirecard board 234–5 Maria, Tolentino’s paralegal 273 Marques, Eduardo xi, 299 on Senjo and 1A 146 on Wirecard and SoftBank 210 shorts Wirecard stock 59 Marsalek, Jan (Wirecard chief operating officer) ix, 39, 40, 46–51, 64, 153, 154, 172, 226 and 1A fund 115

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ID (MID) 16 Visa/Mastercard and 43 Merkel, Angela 250 Metropolitan Police 208 Mishcon de Reya 127, 142, 143 Moody’s 237 Mubadala, takes over SoftBank loan to Wirecard 238 multilevel marketing pyramid schemes 61 Munich public prosecutor 183 Munich Security Conference 231 Murphy, Gary 226–7 Murphy, Paul xii, 52

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-up 220–22 denies shorting rumour 181 frightens Animo Associates director 279 FT internal investigation 241–2 Marsalek said to intend bribe 147–51 on SoftBank and Wirecard 205–6 spy story published 260 and surveillance informers 254–8 and Wirecard source 243–4 on Wirecard story 1–6, 100 Naheta

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transactions 42–4 and Sunsont nutraceutical processing 60–63, 65–6 and Third-Party Acquiring 200 leaves G2Pay 60 whistleblower 258–9 Smith, Herbert 246 SoftBank 249, 288 Vision Fund 145, 197–8 loan to Wirecard 197–200, 203, 205, 210, 236–9 Mubadala actual lender 238 Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation

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Gill on 161–3 police raid 176 Systems@Work 66 trustee accounts 271–2 whistleblowers 154–5, 156, 158, 161–3 and SoftBank 197–200, 203, 205, 210 SoftBank loan 236–9 Mubadala actual lender 238 on stock market 17 supervisory board and KPMG findings 287–90 and suspicious loans 288 gives

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high-grade printers would encourage counterfeiting of banknotes. 20: Manipulated fn1 Silverstein said he never received the email and didn’t recognize the address. 23: SoftBank to the Rescue fn1 Control Risks said it was bound by client confidentiality, and that were its reports to be examined as part of the

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: Freaking Out 16: Black Truffles 17: Defenestrated 18: The Reluctant Whistleblower 19: Notes from the Bunker 20: Manipulated 21: Bearing Witness 22: Manila Envelope 23: SoftBank to the Rescue 24: Empty Chairs and Empty Tables 25: Gold-plated 26: Caught in the Trap 27: Attack and Retreat 28: Exocet 29: Chasing

Blood and Oil: Mohammed Bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power

by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck  · 14 Sep 2020  · 339pp  · 103,546 words

Media, which publishes the National Enquirer Ari Emanuel, Hollywood agent and cofounder of Endeavor talent agency Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese tech investor SoftBank Rajeev Misra, head of SoftBank’s Vision Fund Nizar al-Bassam, Saudi deal maker and a former international banker Kacy Grine, independent banker and confidant of Alwaleed bin

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. Trump Treasury chief Steve Mnuchin dined with his wife at Hong, the Ritz-Carlton’s high-end Chinese restaurant. Masayoshi Son, founder of Japan’s SoftBank, occupied one of the suites used days later to detain a prince. The startling juxtaposition between Davos in the Desert and the Ritz’s transformation

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. And for months he tasked Aramco oil-forecasting analysts to prepare ten reports a week on investment opportunities, including the Comoro Islands, Japanese investment firm SoftBank, and at least one amusement park company. One oil analyst recalls the confusion that set in at the company. “What does Six Flags have to

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for partners, Nizar and his colleagues began talking to another old Deutsche Bank hand, the chain-vaping head of strategic finance at Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank Corp., Rajeev Misra. An arrogant financial engineer with a taste for debt and risk, Rajeev was a senior Deutsche Bank banker during the financial crisis

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from betting against the housing market. He left soon after, making brief stops at UBS and Fortress Investment Group before landing at SoftBank. Rajeev had reconnected with Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s technology-obsessed founder, at a wedding in Italy a few months earlier and subsequently accepted a job trying to help Masayoshi

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structures to fund his ambitions. The two had worked together years earlier when Rajeev helped Masayoshi raise $16 billion to buy Vodafone Japan in 2006. SoftBank was pulling off major transactions and had run out of funding, but Masayoshi’s ambitions were bigger than ever. Masayoshi, a short, smiley Japanese man

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growth goes so far as to take on its own life, transforming the world as we know it. Rajeev struggled to find his place at SoftBank, clashing with two other Indian executives who were closer to Masayoshi. He allegedly conspired with an Italian businessman to target them; the businessman set up

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in the bond market. Then one of his rivals resigned, paving the way for him to begin consolidating power at SoftBank. Sovereign wealth funds would pair perfectly with Masayoshi’s billions. SoftBank and Nizar’s new firm, FAB Partners (later rebranded as Centricus), worked together to create an idea, called Project Crystal

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Ball, for a $20 billion fund that would make investments in technology start-ups with money from SoftBank and partners willing to accept Masayoshi’s gut-instinct style of high-speed investing. They decided to pitch Qatar on the idea first. Nizar had

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a fund, it has to be big enough to disrupt the whole technology world,” he said during the car journey to the hotel, adding that SoftBank could contribute tens of billions of dollars, some of it debt. That was a huge risk for Masayoshi. Most fund sponsors put in a token

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Masayoshi in front of key advisors and ministers traveling alongside Mohammed. Masayoshi had an office next to his cleared on the twenty-sixth floor of SoftBank’s headquarters in Tokyo. They lobbied contacts as if they were on a political campaign. The day Mohammed arrived, Nizar felt his phone vibrating on

…

could never reach the astronomically high level Masayoshi wanted. The meeting was intimate and simple, just Mohammed and his key advisors together with a small SoftBank team led by Masayoshi in a brightly lit room with gilded furniture. Nizar waited outside. After Masayoshi went through the presentation on an iPad—his

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hear. After visiting the cruise ship full of consultants off NEOM’s coast, Masayoshi told Mohammed that he was a visionary and agreed to have SoftBank partner on one of NEOM’s most ambitious projects: “A new way of life from birth to death reaching genetic mutations to increase human strength

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and IQ,” as the consultants later described it. Speaking later, Masayoshi referred to Mohammed bin Salman as the “Bedouin Steve Jobs.” Rajeev, the SoftBank executive, had his own enormous task at hand. The Saudi and Abu Dhabi money made him change his mind about leaving

…

SoftBank. Now he had more financial firepower than just about anyone on earth and a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants boss who was happy

…

twenty employees and no investment procedures or compliance apparatus. Even worse, though it had already started investing money, it had to temporarily hold money on SoftBank’s balance sheet while the fund’s team was getting built up. The team members at PIF were skeptical of the Vision Fund their boss

…

—even the normally skeptical New York Times, which sponsored the conference. Sorkin, its best-known financial writer, came to Riyadh with the hope of interviewing Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. He ended up getting roped into hosting onstage interviews with Son and others. He didn’t realize the “Sophia” on his list

…

was like being the most popular kid in school. One of the world’s largest money managers, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, was there, along with SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, former British prime minister Tony Blair, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, and Hollywood kingmaker Ari Emanuel. Foreign media called the event “Davos in

…

gala events in the capitals of global finance. Rumayyan invited luminaries to his house one evening for a lavish buffet, where men like Blair and SoftBank’s Masayoshi milled around chatting about the kingdom’s swift progress. A who’s who of business, banking, and politics stood beneath the statue of

…

mainly affiliated with countries or companies looking to build favor with the crown prince. A Russian state-backed fund said it would invest in NEOM. SoftBank promised to build the world’s biggest-ever solar-energy project and agreed to buy a stake in Saudi Electric Corporation. In the end, the

…

what happened in Turkey but it would go a long way to start and change people’s view.” Other business leaders had similarly ambivalent approaches. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, who was managing about $45 billion in Saudi investment, pulled out of the conference but went to Saudi Arabia anyway. Other executives

…

-lit palm trees at the home of Yasir al-Rumayyan, the man Mohammed put in charge of the sovereign wealth fund investing in Uber and SoftBank. Guests included banker Ken Moelis, Republican congressman-cum-financier Eric Cantor, and a cohort of Silicon Valley notables, including Uber founder Travis Kalanick, venture capitalist

…

, he ordered the IPO team to begin preparations for an international listing a year later—detractors be damned. Despite disappointing news about the $45 billion SoftBank investment, which inflated a bubble by pouring billions of dollars into nontech companies posing as innovators, including WeWork, dog-walking app Wag, and a construction

…

company called Katerra, PIF chief Rumayyan was discussing putting more money into a new SoftBank fund. He was also working with a previously little-known figure in the kingdom, ex–reality TV producer DiBello, who seemed to appear in Saudi

…

a trip in a small boat to a pristine reef and went snorkeling for more than an hour. Pleasantries aside, Masayoshi had a secondary purpose. SoftBank was trying to raise a second $100 billion fund, and he was hoping his loyalty to Mohammed through his ups and downs would pay off

…

massive bet on WeWork, an office-rental company masquerading as a tech start-up that would have been in serious difficulties were it not for SoftBank’s doubling down on its initial bad bet, and the poor performance of many of the other investments in the fund. There weren’t many

…

, if transactional, but more important was the way Saudi Arabia’s money was tied up in US infrastructure investments via Blackstone and technology companies via SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Mohammed had been a nobody prince a few years back; now he was the only prince, as far as the rest of

…

Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) Mohammed bin Salman connected well with Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Trump. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) SoftBank’s Rajeev Misra and Masayoshi Son with the Public Investment Fund’s Yasir al-Rumayyan. (Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Council/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car

by Anthony M. Townsend  · 15 Jun 2020  · 362pp  · 97,288 words

Table 7-1. Estimated marginal cost of New York City subway traffic, 1952 Figure 7-1. “The Menace of the Hour,” 1899 Figure 7-2. SoftBank’s nascent global traction monopoly Figure 8-1. Transect of the driverless city Figure 8-2. Urban core Figure 8-3. Fulfillment zone Figure 8

…

will shape how we travel for decades to come. Nowhere are the ambitions of tomorrow’s traction tycoons clearer than in the empire assembled by SoftBank, the Japanese holding company founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981 (Figure 7-2). From its humble beginnings as a computer parts store

…

, SoftBank has grown into the world’s largest technology investor. The group’s $100 billion Vision Fund, launched in 2017, wields a purse that is itself

…

a mere $70 billion annually worldwide. Staking this purse on young companies that are exploiting artificial intelligence to reorganize big chunks of the physical world, SoftBank’s investments span the gamut of city-building sectors—real estate, hospitality, food, and retail. But the first target for world domination—and the key

…

to it all—is transportation. Rarely has so much money moved so fast. The Vision Fund launched in May 2017, a few days after SoftBank announced its second infusion of cash into Chinese ride-hail giant Didi. That $5.5 billion financing brought its total commitment to some $9 billion

…

. Then in July, Didi and SoftBank poured a combined $2 billion into Singapore-based Grab, which operates throughout Southeast Asia. October was India’s turn, where local upstart Ola downloaded $2

…

billion of SoftBank loot to its accounts. Finally, in November, the group took a $10 billion, 15 percent stake in Uber. To top it off, in 2019 Uber

…

picked off Dubai-based Careem, a Middle East operator, for $3.1 billion. Figure 7-2. SoftBank’s nascent global traction monopoly. The octopus quickly tightened its grip. Through its web of investments, SoftBank’s leadership took up seats on the boards of companies handling some 90 percent of the 45

…

rule of law is strongest, a fine of some $9.5 million was widely viewed as a “minor bump in the company’s growth plans.” SoftBank took the experience as license to push on, immediately pulling Uber out of another fare-slashing battle with Ola in India. As one journalist put

…

it, “SoftBank is playing the ride-hailing version of Risk,” the classic board game of global conquest, “but it also owns a piece of all the players

…

.” In North America, SoftBank’s money financed a more costly strategy—a price war of attrition waged against Lyft, Uber’s only substantial competition. In 2019, Uber and Lyft

…

passengers and drivers faster than the other.” As Silicon Valley guru Tim O’Reilly argued, the two giants were “locked in a capital-fueled deathmatch.” SoftBank’s plan was simple—have the deepest pockets for the slog ahead. The Vision Fund’s biggest investor, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, was

…

’s dream. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, another sovereign investor, chipped in $15 billion more. All told, two-thirds of the cash kitty that’s financing SoftBank’s vision consists of the profits of a half century’s exploitation of fossil fuels. Yet this may be just the beginning. Son has tapped

…

valued that enterprise at more than $2 trillion. Those proceeds could easily finance even Uber’s multi-billion-dollar quarterly losses for years if needed. SoftBank’s cozy relationship with the Saudis suddenly turned into a liability, after the October 2018 assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was linked

…

quickly grows. A greater risk, however, may lie within the dark web of mobility markets, and the computational colossi of tomorrow’s traction monopolies like SoftBank, Amazon, and Alphabet. Bostrom conjectures that a potential path for a superintelligence to attain power is by “subtly manipulating financial markets.” He compares an aspiring

…

-new-familiar-sight. 125raised $940 million in venture funding: Mary Ann Azevedo, “Nuro Raises $940M from SoftBank Vision Fund for Robot Delivery,” Crunchbase, February 11, 2019, https://news.crunchbase.com/news/nuro-raises-940m-from-softbank-vision-fund-for-robot-delivery/. 125Toyota’s mule, the e-Palette: Andrew J. Hawkins, “Toyota’s

…

billion: Pavel Alpeyev, Jie Ma, and Won Jae Ko, “Taxi-Hailing Apps Take Root in Japan as SoftBank, Didi Join Fray,” Bloomberg, July 19, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19/softbank-didi-to-roll-out-taxi-hailing-business-in-japan. 177$2 billion into Singapore-based Grab: Yoolim

…

Lee, “Grab Vanquishes Uber with Local Strategy, Billions from SoftBank,” Bloomberg, March 26, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03

…

-26/grab-vanquishes-uber-with-local-strategy-billions-from-softbank. 177Ola downloaded $2 billion: Saritha Rai, “India’s Ola Raises $2 Billion from

…

SoftBank, Tencent,” Bloomberg, October 2, 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-02/india-s-ola-is

…

-said-to-raise-2-billion-from-softbank-tencent. 17715 percent stake in Uber: Alison Griswold, “SoftBank—not Uber—Is the Real King of Ride-Hailing

…

,” Quartz, January 23, 2018, https://qz.com/1187144/softbank-not-uber-is-the-real-king-of-ride-hailing/. 177Uber picked off

…

-Hailing,” The Economist, May 10, 2018, https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/10/a-bold-scheme-to-dominate-ride-hailing. 177“SoftBank is playing the ride-hailing”: Alison Griswold, “Softbank Has Spread Its Ride-Hailing Bets and Didi Looks Like an Early Win,” Quartz, April 24, 2018, https://qz.com/1261177

…

/softbanks-winner-in-ride-hailing-is-chinas-didi-chuxing-not-uber/. 177“driver incentives, passenger discounts”: Tim O’Reilly, “The Fundamental Problem with Silicon Valley’s

…

biggest investor: Brooker, “The Most Powerful Person.” 178the proceeds of an earlier liquidation: Catherine Shu, “Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Fund Will Also Invest $45B in SoftBank’s Second Vision Fund,” Tech-Crunch, October 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/07/saudi-arabias-sovereign-fund-will-also-invest-45b-in

…

-softbanks-second-vision-fund/. 178Uber’s multi-billion-dollar quarterly losses: “Aramco Value to Top $2 Trillion, Less Than 5 Percent to Be Sold, Says Prince,”

…

, 177, 209, 211 singletons, 237–38 Singularity predictions, 234–35, 236–38 Skype, 56 smartphones, 13, 64, 89, 90, 139, 169 see also mobile phones SoftBank, 176, 176–78, 238 software trains, 70–71, 70–72, 197, 200–201, 202, 204, 206 Son, Masayoshi, 176, 178 Space10 (IKEA), 72–73 specialization

…

–63 Toronto, Canada, 209–10, 213–14, 222 traction monopolies investors, 176–78, 182–83 in New York City, 174, 174, 180 in Philadelphia, 180 SoftBank, 176, 176–78, 238 in streetcar era, 174, 174–75, 180 traffic congestion cost of time wasted, 9, 12, 30 driverless shuttles and, 106 predicted

…

, 202 limited global footprint, 98 market cap, 97 Micromobility Robotics, 67 number of vehicles, 10 partnerships with public transit, 110–11 relationship with transit, 215 SoftBank and, 177 specialization and variety of rides, 95, 96, 110–11 subscriptions, 244 surge pricing, 17, 87, 181 taxibots, 97 traffic congestion and, 168 Uber

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How to Build a Billion Dollar App: Discover the Secrets of the Most Successful Entrepreneurs of Our Time

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Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

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Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work

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Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire

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The Invisible Hands: Top Hedge Fund Traders on Bubbles, Crashes, and Real Money

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Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever

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Mbs: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman

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A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back

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Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century

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Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley

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Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral

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Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything

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The Facebook Effect

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Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups

by Ali Tamaseb  · 14 Sep 2021  · 251pp  · 80,831 words

Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race

by Tim Fernholz  · 20 Mar 2018  · 328pp  · 96,141 words

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

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The Economic Singularity: Artificial Intelligence and the Death of Capitalism

by Calum Chace  · 17 Jul 2016  · 477pp  · 75,408 words

Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

by Brad Feld  · 8 Oct 2012  · 169pp  · 56,250 words

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

by Kai-Fu Lee  · 14 Sep 2018  · 307pp  · 88,180 words

Behind the cloud: the untold story of how Salesforce.com went from idea to billion-dollar company--and revolutionized an industry

by Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler  · 19 Nov 2009  · 307pp  · 17,123 words

Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts

by Jill Abramson  · 5 Feb 2019  · 788pp  · 223,004 words

Unleashed

by Anne Morriss and Frances Frei  · 1 Jun 2020  · 394pp  · 57,287 words

Kings of Crypto: One Startup's Quest to Take Cryptocurrency Out of Silicon Valley and Onto Wall Street

by Jeff John Roberts  · 15 Dec 2020  · 226pp  · 65,516 words

Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside

by Xiaowei Wang  · 12 Oct 2020  · 196pp  · 61,981 words

The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility

by Robert Zubrin  · 30 Apr 2019  · 452pp  · 126,310 words

The Key Man: The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale

by Simon Clark and Will Louch  · 14 Jul 2021  · 403pp  · 105,550 words

Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution

by Glyn Moody  · 14 Jul 2002  · 483pp  · 145,225 words

The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future

by Keach Hagey  · 19 May 2025  · 439pp  · 125,379 words

Damsel in Distressed: My Life in the Golden Age of Hedge Funds

by Dominique Mielle  · 6 Sep 2021  · 195pp  · 63,455 words

Super Continent: The Logic of Eurasian Integration

by Kent E. Calder  · 28 Apr 2019

Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

by Malcolm Harris  · 14 Feb 2023  · 864pp  · 272,918 words

Bad Company

by Megan Greenwell  · 18 Apr 2025  · 385pp  · 103,818 words

Don't Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles--And All of US

by Rana Foroohar  · 5 Nov 2019  · 380pp  · 109,724 words

Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China

by Desmond Shum  · 6 Sep 2021  · 277pp  · 85,191 words

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter

by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac  · 17 Sep 2024

Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI

by Madhumita Murgia  · 20 Mar 2024  · 336pp  · 91,806 words

Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator

by Keith Houston  · 22 Aug 2023  · 405pp  · 105,395 words

The New Class War: Saving Democracy From the Metropolitan Elite

by Michael Lind  · 20 Feb 2020

On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything

by Nate Silver  · 12 Aug 2024  · 848pp  · 227,015 words

Amazon: How the World’s Most Relentless Retailer Will Continue to Revolutionize Commerce

by Natalie Berg and Miya Knights  · 28 Jan 2019  · 404pp  · 95,163 words

When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach

by Ashlee Vance  · 8 May 2023  · 558pp  · 175,965 words

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks

by Scott J. Shapiro  · 523pp  · 154,042 words

The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade That Transformed Wall Street

by Jonathan A. Knee  · 31 Jul 2006  · 362pp  · 108,359 words

The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

by Jimmy Soni  · 22 Feb 2022  · 505pp  · 161,581 words

Broken Markets: A User's Guide to the Post-Finance Economy

by Kevin Mellyn  · 18 Jun 2012  · 183pp  · 17,571 words

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

by Brad Stone  · 14 Oct 2013  · 380pp  · 118,675 words

Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy

by Andrew Yang  · 15 Nov 2021

Data Science for Business: What You Need to Know About Data Mining and Data-Analytic Thinking

by Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett  · 30 Jun 2013  · 660pp  · 141,595 words

All the Money in the World

by Peter W. Bernstein  · 17 Dec 2008  · 538pp  · 147,612 words

Television Is the New Television: The Unexpected Triumph of Old Media in the Digital Age

by Michael Wolff  · 22 Jun 2015  · 172pp  · 46,104 words

Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire

by Brad Stone  · 10 May 2021  · 569pp  · 156,139 words

How Boards Work: And How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World

by Dambisa Moyo  · 3 May 2021  · 272pp  · 76,154 words

The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.

by William D. Cohan  · 25 Dec 2015  · 1,009pp  · 329,520 words

Surveillance Valley: The Rise of the Military-Digital Complex

by Yasha Levine  · 6 Feb 2018  · 474pp  · 130,575 words

Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us

by Dan Lyons  · 22 Oct 2018  · 252pp  · 78,780 words

The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss

by Ron Adner  · 1 Mar 2012  · 265pp  · 70,788 words

Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup

by Brad Feld and David Cohen  · 18 Oct 2010  · 326pp  · 74,433 words

The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay

by Guy Standing  · 13 Jul 2016  · 443pp  · 98,113 words

The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World

by Brad Stone  · 30 Jan 2017  · 373pp  · 112,822 words

European Founders at Work

by Pedro Gairifo Santos  · 7 Nov 2011  · 353pp  · 104,146 words

To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death

by Mark O'Connell  · 28 Feb 2017  · 252pp  · 79,452 words

Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency

by James Andrew Miller  · 8 Aug 2016  · 790pp  · 253,035 words

Picnic Comma Lightning: In Search of a New Reality

by Laurence Scott  · 11 Jul 2018  · 244pp  · 81,334 words

How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story

by Billy Gallagher  · 13 Feb 2018  · 359pp  · 96,019 words

Fully Automated Luxury Communism

by Aaron Bastani  · 10 Jun 2019  · 280pp  · 74,559 words

Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction

by David Enrich  · 18 Feb 2020  · 399pp  · 114,787 words

Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It

by Marc Goodman  · 24 Feb 2015  · 677pp  · 206,548 words

Them and Us: How Immigrants and Locals Can Thrive Together

by Philippe Legrain  · 14 Oct 2020  · 521pp  · 110,286 words

The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition

by Jonathan Tepper  · 20 Nov 2018  · 417pp  · 97,577 words

The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power

by Michael A. Cusumano, Annabelle Gawer and David B. Yoffie  · 6 May 2019  · 328pp  · 84,682 words

Extreme Teams: Why Pixar, Netflix, AirBnB, and Other Cutting-Edge Companies Succeed Where Most Fail

by Robert Bruce Shaw, James Foster and Brilliance Audio  · 14 Oct 2017  · 280pp  · 82,355 words

Buy Now, Pay Later: The Extraordinary Story of Afterpay

by Jonathan Shapiro and James Eyers  · 2 Aug 2021  · 444pp  · 124,631 words

The Smartphone Society

by Nicole Aschoff

Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley

by Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans  · 25 Apr 2023  · 427pp  · 134,098 words

The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind

by Raghuram Rajan  · 26 Feb 2019  · 596pp  · 163,682 words

First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (And Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents

by Gary Ginsberg  · 14 Sep 2021  · 418pp  · 134,401 words

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

by Sarah Wynn-Williams  · 11 Mar 2025  · 370pp  · 115,318 words

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It

by Cory Doctorow  · 6 Oct 2025  · 313pp  · 94,415 words