Weeks after his billion-dollar bailout of WeWork, SoftBank Group Corp's founder and CEO Masayoshi Son reiterated his belief in an instinct-led investing style, in a discussion with Alibaba Group Holding Inc's co-founder Jack Ma.[TOKYO] Weeks after his billion-dollar bailout of WeWork, SoftBank Group Corp's founder and CEO Masayoshi Son reiterated his belief in an instinct-led investing style, in a discussion with Alibaba Group Holding Inc's co-founder Jack Ma.
SoftBank owns 26 per cent of China's Alibaba with its origin in a US$5 million investment in 2000, and the stake is now worth more than the Japanese firm's market capitalisation. Mr Son on Friday said the decision to invest in Alibaba was driven by gut feeling. Other entrepreneurs Mr Son met at that time"did not have true belief in their heart"."I can feel," Mr Son said."We are the same animal. We are both a little crazy," he said of long-time ally Mr Ma.
Mr Ma said Mr Son initially tried to invest US$50 million in the e-commerce firm, but that he declined saying it was too large a sum - part of a pattern of offering big cheques to company founders that continued with WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann.Mr Son's comments come weeks after he was forced to bail out office-sharing startup WeWork when Mr Neumann's level of control over his firm and hard-partying ways chilled investor appetite and crashed plans for an initial public offering .
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