The rollercoaster ride of the world’s most reckless investor

For a few days in February 2000, Masayoshi Son was the richest person in the world. A risk-taker and showman, universally known as Masa, he had long been disdainful of Japan’s staid ‘salaryman’ business culture and was riding the wave of dot-com mania. His company SoftBank, founded in 1981, had bet big on the growth of online shopping. The bullish mood didn’t last, and Masa slunk away from the limelight – but only for a while. A techno-optimist, the now 67-year-old has repeatedly reinvented himself, urging doubters to see beyond the immediate: ‘You’re limiting your field of vision to 30 years… Start bold and think 300 years ahead.’

According to Lionel Barber, who for 15 years edited the Financial Times, Masa is ‘probably the most powerful mogul of the 21st century who is not a household name’. At once a master of consumer psychology and a ‘trickster’ with a fondness for short cuts, Masa has proved a central character in an age of ‘hyper-globalisation’ that has seen money and ideas flow freely across the world.