Masayoshi Son says SoftBank ready to go on ‘counteroffensive’

SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son has said the company will go on the “counteroffensive” after nearly three years of asset sales and hoarding cash to resume the technology group’s investments in artificial intelligence.

In his first major presentation to investors since November, the 65-year-old founder of the Japanese conglomerate said he would devote the rest of his life to being “an architect for the future of humanity”.

“We have done enough being on the defensive,” Son said on Wednesday at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Tokyo. “I feel that the timing for us to go on the counteroffensive is soon. I’m very excited.”

Following heavy losses incurred by SoftBank’s Vision Funds in recent years, the tech conglomerate halted new investments and used almost all of its shares in Chinese ecommerce group Alibaba for financing. As a result, the group is now sitting on more than ¥5tn ($35bn) in cash.

“I regret big mistakes,” Son said in response to a shareholder’s question on whether the Vision Funds’ investments were actually focused on artificial intelligence.

“But still, we made investments in roughly 500 companies . . . and I think at least I have found more than several that are going to be big successes out of the 500. I think that’s enough.”

In May, SoftBank’s chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto said the company would not miss opportunities to invest in new technology such as ChatGPT but cautioned that it was not ready to accelerate its deal activity following record annual investment losses of ¥5.3tn.

Ahead of Son’s presentation, shares in SoftBank rose as much as 4 per cent. Investor sentiment has improved ahead of the blockbuster listing of its UK chip designer Arm in New York.

During the AGM, Son revealed he had a crisis in October where he broke down in tears for a few days and questioned how much he had achieved as an entrepreneur.

“I realised that what I really wanted to become was an architect, to design the future of humanity,” Son said. “I want to achieve several [of my inventions] one by one and Arm will provide the key. By using Arm’s position and combining it with my ideas, there will be an amazing opportunity.”

Son also said he had spent the past eight months working on 630 inventions and set up five offices in order to file patents for them.

While Son did not talk specifically about the Vision Fund investments that excited him, he spoke in depth about the potential of AI demonstrated by the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, describing its chief executive Sam Altman as “one of the key people on Earth”.

The SoftBank boss warned that companies would fall behind if they shunned the use of generative AI but also called for regulations to ensure the technology would not be misused.

“There is a risk of scarier consequences than the atomic bomb if [AI] is misused by the wrong people . . . so regulations should be debated and introduced,” he said.