Masayoshi Son · CEO & Founder · SoftBank · The WLS 100 · 2026 Edition
Finance
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Inaugural edition 2026 · Asia

Masayoshi Son

CEO & Founder

Vision Fund $100B. Alibaba, Uber, ARM.

Education
UC Berkeley
Organization
Profile

Founder and chief executive of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son is one of the boldest investors of the digital age. Educated at Berkeley, he started SoftBank in 1981 as a software distributor and turned it into a telecommunications and investment conglomerate. His early bet on Alibaba remains one of the most profitable in history, and his hundred-billion-dollar Vision Fund reshaped the financing of start-ups worldwide, from Uber to the chip designer Arm, acquired in 2016. He is now directing his resources toward artificial intelligence and the infrastructure it requires.

Why this selection

His long-term bets have shaped whole sections of the global digital economy, and he is now committing very large sums to the infrastructure of artificial intelligence.

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