In 2019, Elliott Management, an activist investment fund which had built up a 3% stake in SoftBank, demanded a meeting with the company’s founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son. Elliott complained that the company’s governance was such a mess that the stock was trading at least 50% below net asset or "fair” value — the board was tame, the corporate structure was over-complicated and "transparency” was not even a concept.
Other business titans such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg had bowed down before the god of good corporate governance. Why not Masa Son?
Son’s reply came as a surprise. "These are one business guys. Bill Gates just started Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook. I am involved in 100 businesses and I control the entire (tech) ecosystem. These are not my peers. The right comparison for me is Napoleon or Genghis Khan or Emperor Qin (builder of the Great Wall of China). I am not a CEO. I am building an empire.”
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