Masayoshi Son

The CEO of SoftBank – the second largest company in Japan – has become Silicon Valley’s most ambitious, biggest-spending investor.

In Japan, only Toyota is more profitable than telecom giant SoftBank. Its chairman, Masayoshi Son, is the second-richest person in Japan, with a $24bn (£19bn) fortune. Now he heads the world’s biggest technology investing arm: it’s called Vision Fund, it’s worth $100bn (£80bn) and it’s made Son the hidden hand in funding some of the most powerful and disruptive tech companies. Earlier this year, media outlets named him “the most powerful person in Silicon Valley” and said Vision Fund “reshapes [the] world of venture capital”.

Son’s already pumped billions into the likes of tech giants WeWork, Slack, Uber and Alibaba Local Services. He hopes to throw even more money at artificial intelligence (AI) and real estate, transforming the world into one fuelled by AI, filled with what he believes will be harmonious robot-human interactions.

Son’s Vision Fund has invited scrutiny: its biggest investor is the Saudi Arabian government, which has forked out upwards of $45bn (£36bn). Son may just be getting started, though – he says he hopes to launch a second Vision Fund “soon”.

“We are investing $100bn in just one thing, AI,” Son told CNBC in an interview in March. While some futurists fear smarter machines, Son stays optimistic. “Mankind is smart enough. We always try to adapt to the new situation.”

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Image credit: Piero Zagami and Michela Nicchiotti.