Softbank

Tuesday

Henry Hitchings

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.’ Masa’s greatest

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Wrecking the Brexit talks won’t help our fishermen

‘Every country has a political problem with its fishermen,’ wrote Peter Walker, the Conservative minister who negotiated the first effective EU-UK fishing deal in 1983. ‘Everyone sympathises with the tough life they lead. They all want to take as much fish as they can.’ And here’s Michel Barnier, still speaking as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator in Dublin last week despite rumours he’s about to be sidelined: ‘Without a long-term, fair and sustainable solution on fisheries, there will simply be no new economic partnership with the UK.’ Those quotes encapsulate the bizarre fact that an industry which contributes just £1.4 billion to UK GDP stands, alongside the Northern Ireland border