{"id":84591,"date":"2026-05-24T03:40:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/84591\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T03:40:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:40:57","slug":"softbanks-masayoshi-son-and-wework-the-billionaire-vc-who-inflated-unicorn-valuations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/84591\/","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and WeWork: The billionaire VC who inflated unicorn valuations"},"content":{"rendered":"

WeWork<\/a> Inc.\u2019s\u00a0bankruptcy filing<\/a>\u00a0caps a years-long saga that revealed breathtaking flaws in the investment style of Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, damaging his professional reputation far beyond the money he lost.<\/p>\n

Son overrode his lieutenants\u2019 objections and handed WeWork founder Adam Neumann billions of dollars from both SoftBank Group<\/a> Corp. and the Vision Fund, lifting the co-working office space\u2019s valuation to an astronomical $47 billion in early 2019. Just months later, investors balked at the deep losses and\u00a0conflicts of interest<\/a>\u00a0WeWork\u2019s IPO filings revealed.<\/p>\n

WeWork\u2019s subsequent nosedive is costing SoftBank more than the estimated $11.5 billion in equity losses and another $2.2 billion in debt still on the line. WeWork\u2019s very public decline, along with the Vision Fund\u2019s record loss of $32 billion last year, battered Son\u2019s standing as a shrewd investor who scored one of venture capital\u2019s legendary wins through an early bet on Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding<\/a> Ltd.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can recover from mistakes, but how do you recover from the perception that you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing?\u201d said Aswath Damodaran, a professor at New York University\u2019s Stern School of Business. \u201cHis actions say, \u2018I am arrogant.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Son\u2019s experience of emerging from the dot-com bust with a few winners like Alibaba may have compromised his judgment, Damodaran said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore WeWork, the perception was that SoftBank was an incredibly careful, clever, visionary organization under Son,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think success sometimes goes to people\u2019s heads. The fact that they were successful might\u2019ve made them a little too convinced that they knew more than everybody else. And therein lies the seeds for the eventual fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

WeWork will continue operating in bankruptcy as it tries to shore up its finances. SoftBank and existing creditors agreed to a restructuring deal that will slash more than $3 billion of its debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that today\u2019s restructuring support agreement represents the appropriate action for WeWork to reorganize its business and emerge from Chapter 11 proceedings,\u201d a spokesperson for the Japanese investor said by email. \u201cSoftBank will continue to act in the best long-term interests of our investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Son set up SoftBank\u2019s Vision Fund in 2017 to be the world\u2019s biggest technology investor and proceeded to pour more than $140 billion into hundreds of startups. His tendency to bid up valuations and give founders more money than they asked for earned him recriminations from Silicon Valley rivals.<\/p>\n

Son himself credited his decisions to gut instinct, citing the sparkle in a founder\u2019s eyes or inspiration akin to the Force in Star Wars. But that trust in his own intuition may have made Son unwilling to heed red flags, opposition from his advisers and even qualms raised by Neumann himself, according to former officials from both SoftBank and WeWork.Play Video<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with WeWork,\u201d\u00a0Son told shareholders in June<\/a>, adding that some on his board warned him his faith was misguided. Son had encouraged Neumann to think bigger, he acknowledged. \u201cI may be more at fault than Adam, for telling him to be more aggressive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even after WeWork had to pull its planned IPO in 2019, SoftBank stepped up with a $9.5 billion rescue package. Son defended his decision in a presentation that included a \u201chypothetical\u201d path to profitability for WeWork.<\/p>\n

The impact of Son\u2019s infatuation with WeWork and other startups was magnified by the initial $60 billion committed by the Saudi and Abu Dhabi wealth funds to the first Vision Fund. Son\u2019s determination to mint unicorns at breakneck speed by pushing startups to scale up inflated valuations around the world, as rivals such as Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital were pressured to match the Vision Fund\u2019s big checks. It only took a few years for such values to come crashing down when spending failed to translate into sales, profits and IPOs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not just the investment losses that are important but the story behind it,\u201d said Kirk Boodry, an analyst at Astris Advisory. \u201cThe massive cash infusion drove the artificial high valuation and hubris that preceded the eventual crash.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

SoftBank\u2019s Vision Fund segment is expected to have earned a profit in the September quarter, but performance remains poor. SoftBank has lost billions of dollars on bets on companies such as Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Global Inc., while Katerra Inc., OneWeb Ltd., and Zume Pizza Inc. have filed for bankruptcy or shut down operations.<\/p>\n

The mounting losses prompted Son to all but halt investment activity last year,\u00a0cut<\/a>\u00a0Vision Fund jobs and adopt stricter due diligence. Son also\u00a0stopped\u00a0<\/a>leading earnings calls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That restraint, along with chip designer unit Arm Holdings Plc\u2019s $4.9 billion Nasdaq\u00a0IPO\u00a0<\/a>in September, now gives the early backer of artificial intelligence the cash to go back on the offensive again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bankruptcy just puts a cap on the downside for Vision Fund 1 and for Vision Fund 2,\u201d Astris Advisory\u2019s Boodry said, adding that interest has now shifted to what Son will invest in next. \u201cPeople are less worried about the losses in the portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYU\u2019s Damodaran is not convinced. Only one person calls the shots at SoftBank, roughly 30% owned by the billionaire, and Son\u2019s investing style is unlikely to change, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SoftBank is often said to apply a venture capitalist\u2019s mindset to late-stage investing. But venture capital is supposed to consist of small bets, and the Vision Fund was \u201cSoftBank on steroids,\u201d said Damodaran. \u201cIt\u2019s meant to be small and he made it huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy having tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars behind you, you make every overreach you do even bigger,\u201d he said. \u201cThat might explain how you make mistakes as big as WeWork.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WeWork Inc.\u2019s\u00a0bankruptcy filing\u00a0caps a years-long saga that revealed breathtaking flaws in the investment style of Japanese billionaire Masayoshi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[157],"tags":[13082,765,682,1613,2138,945,2082,44290],"class_list":["post-84591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-masayoshi-son","tag-bankruptcy","tag-billionaires","tag-masayoshi-son","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-softbank","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-venture-capital","tag-wework"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116627484341841518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}