Gambling Man is the biography of one of the world's least known but most consequential
investors. Japan's Masayoshi Son has made and lost several fortunes investing or controlling
assets worth $1 trillion in the past two decades through his media-tech giant SoftBank. He
bankrolled Alibaba China's internet colossus before the world had heard about it plotted
with Steve Jobs to turn the iPhone into a wonder product and financed hundreds of tech
start-ups fuelling the biggest boom Silicon Valley has ever seen. This book takes you on
Son's wild ride from his birthplace in a Korean slum in post-war Japan to the modern-day
temples of power. It speeds through Donald Trump's golden skyscraper in Manhattan the royal
palaces of Riyadh and the throne rooms of China's Marxist rulers all places where Son has
deployed his unique blend of financial engineering and crazy risk-taking. Son's story
captures a 25 year-span of hyper-globalisation in which money technologies and ideas flowed
freely. From the launch of the microchip to the advent of artificial intelligence he has
ridden the technological wave which has created extraordinary wealth and economic change. His
topsy-turvy business career is testimony to the power of optimism daring to dream ever in
search of the Next Big Thing. As an ethnic Korean in Japan Son has overcome adversity and
discrimination to become Japan's best-known businessman and empire-builder but he remains an
elusive intensely private figure. This book by a former editor of the Financial Times
contains a wealth of new information and has had the co-operation of many of the key
participants including Son himself. Written with a verve appropriate to its subject Gambling
Man reveals the man behind the money what drives him why he matters and what he plans for
his next act.
