Masayoshi Son
Who is Masayoshi son?
Masayoshi son is the CEO and founder of Softbank. Softbank itself is a telecommunications and media company from Japan that is engaged in internet services, mobile telecommunications, and finance. The company was founded in Tokyo on September 3, 1981. Behind Softbank Corp's current success, of course is the struggle of its founder, Masayoshi Son.
Masayoshi Son was born in Tosu, Japan on August 11, 1957. His father was a fish seller and ran a pig farm. Because of Korean descent who was born in Japan, he is often not considered a genuine Japanese citizen, so he often experiences discrimination and bullying
What's interesting about Masayoshi Son is not from a wealthy person but from a poor family. But he was a hard-working and ambitious boy from a young age. He was once desperate to come to Tokyo to meet his idol, Den Fujita, the founder of McDonald's Japan, despite repeated rejections from Fujita's assistants. Until finally he met and talked with Fujita.
Then at one point Masayoshi decided to migrate to the United States. He eventually went to California and continued high school at Serramonte High School. After two years he entered the University of California, Berkeley majoring in Economics and Computer Science in 1976.
Masayoshi thought of a prospective business plan in the future and then decided he wanted to become a distributor of PC software (personal computer software). Even though at that time the software was not yet well known, he was sure that in the future it would become a trend.
Son decided to come up with one business idea per day until he finally collected 250 business ideas. One of them he realized by making an electronic dictionary the size of a calculator that can translate 8 languages. The product was then purchased by Sharp Corporation for a value of USD 1 million.
With the money, he eventually founded a business called Unison in 1980 in Oakland, California but eventually the business was bought by Kyocera. After that he returned to Japan. Gradually he decided to establish an organization focused on the internet and telecommunications called Nihon Softbank in 1981 which became Softbank.
The business began to grow. Softbank diversified into the publishing business and launched two monthly magazines about PCs and software.
His business continues to expand until the most famous is his investment in Yahoo. He invested $374 in Yahoo between 1995 and 1998 and his investment peaked 50 times. His company now continues to invest in various startup companies. But at that time he had lost and lost as much as USD 70 billion overnight. Even though he had fallen, he still tried to get up with his business.
Son, through Softbank and the Vision Fund, has invested in more than 100 start-ups in the world, including Alibaba, which made him rich quickly, as well as Wework, Grab and Tokopedia. Thanks to his hard work, he was born into a poor family and was bullied, now he is included in the ranks of the richest people in the world number 39 and number 1 in Japan with a total wealth of USD 26.6 billion, equivalent to IDR 385.7 trillion.
I myself am very inspired by Masayoshi's struggles who are so passionate about achieving his dreams. Because nothing is impossible as long as we try.
Thank you
