"More money than ideas." What is behind the gigantic unsuccessful investments of Japanese SoftBank

The founder of the Japanese corporation SoftBank Masayoshi Sona is not in vain called "Warren Buffett in the world of technology." At the beginning of the zero, he invested several tens of million dollars in Alibaba. These investments not only brought him more than $ 100 billion, but also fixed the status of a visionary and insightful investor. Subsequently, SoftBank, which has gone from a small store - a seller of computer components in Tokyo to a multi -billion dollar company, began to invest in leading technological companies. When you dial a message in Slack or open Uber to order a taxi, this is partly the merit of Sona.

Through the investment fund, whose size is $ 100 billion, the dream invested money in these and other companies, the purpose of which is to change the lifestyle of people. Large investments allowed young startups to focus on growth, forgetting about possible problems.

But this year, the investment genius Sona was faced with unexpected difficulties. Several companies in which SoftBank invested a large amount disappointed with investors. The shares of Uber and Slack after they went to the exchange this year, sank at 30 and 40%, respectively. The WeWORK coworking network, the founder of which not so long ago had to leave the position of manager, and at all turned out to be the most scandalous company of this year, and her IPO was postponed until 2020.

Critics of SoftBank claim that investments poison the ecosystems of young companies and encourage their leaders to take high risks, forgetting about the construction of a long -term business. In their opinion, WeWork collapse will make investors more skeptical about rapidly growing companies. Even the dream itself, who has a 300-year plan for the development of SoftBank, admits: the startups in which he invest must learn to achieve financial stability faster.

Subscribe to read the whole

Make a subscription Redefine.media to read Republic

Subscribe [you can pay for a Russian or foreign card. The subscription is extended automatically. You can unsubscribe at any time.]

Where are the money subscribers going

Most Republic materials are available by paid subscription. We believe that this is a good way to finance media. After all, as you know, if you have not paid for reading it, then someone else paid for you to read it. In our case, everything is honest: from your money, salaries and fees are paid to journalists, and they write about important and interesting topics for you.

The key feature of our subscription: your money is distributed between Republic magazines depending on how you read it. If you read the materials of one magazine, then your money will go only to him, while others will not go. That is, you finance only what you are interested in.

Republic uses the Redefine.media subscription. For design, we will redirect you to the Redefine.media website, where you will need to register and pay for the subscription. Authorization on the Redefine.Media website will allow you to read Republic materials from the same device.

A year subscription is more profitable than a month. And if you want to unsubscribe, this can always be done in your personal account.