SoftBank, It started as a software distributor, grew into a telecom giant, and now spans many industries, pouring billions of dollars into the likes of Alibaba, Uber and WeWork. Its founder and CEO meets with Donald Trump and forms business deals with Saudi Arabia’s royal family. And yet, it’s a company you may know little about. Softbank is ranked number 38 on Forbes’ list of the World’s Biggest Public Companies. That’s a few slots higher than General Motors and IBM. And far ahead of Amazon, Coca-Cola and Walt Disney. Its business dealings really know no limits. They include telecommunications, e-commerce, finance, technology services, semiconductor design, media and marketing, a baseball team and even a robot. They named it Pepper. It’s a humanoid robot manufactured by Softbank, designed with the ability to read human emotions and even analyze voice tone.
So who is behind it all?
Founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son.
He was born in a small town in Japan and moved to California at the age of 16.He graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Economics in 1980.Son is known for his fierce business strategies, and they seem to pay off. After meeting with President-elect Donald Trump in 2016,it was announced that Son would invest $20 billion in the U.S. tech sector. After the announcement in the Trump Tower lobby, Softbank’s stock surged more than 6%,making Son instantly…
