Journalist. Nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer, even though i had a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody take tick . You are clearly one of the worlds most Successful Technology investors and businessmen. Let me ask you about a fund you are raising, a division fund. It is supposed to be a fund of 100 billion . Masayoshi yes. David that would be the biggest fund ever raised. Did people tell you you were crazy . Masayoshi some people said. [laughter] david you had a meeting with the deputy crown prince of saudi arabia, who is now the crown prince. In one hourand convinced him to invest 45 billion. 45 minutes, 45 billion. [laughter] david i apologize. Masayoshi 1 billion per minute. [laughter] david what could you have said that was so persuasive . Masayoshi i said, you came to tokyo as the first man, i want to give you a gift. , a 1 to give you a gift trillion gift. He opened up his eyes and said, ok. Now what is interesting. Said, here isand how i can give you a 1 trillion gift. You invest 100 billion to my fund. I give you 1 trillion. David what is it you told people and the vision you gave them . Masayoshi one reason, singularity. It is a concept of computing power, computer acquisition intelligence. The word means, that is the point at which a computer becomes smarter than a human brain. Masayoshi yes. Computers are, smarter at chess or go or weather forecasts. In some systems, they are smarter. In 20 years, most of the subject we are thinking, they will be smarter than us. That is my belief. David lets talk about your upbringing. You are of the korean dissent. Descent. Your father moved to japan, and her parents grew up in japan. Did you suffer discrimination growing up in japan . Masayoshi yes, i had some experience. But i feel now, it is good. That made me stronger, to work to work harder. I had to prove i am different from the other guys. Harder to prove the value. David your family adopted a Japanese Point at one point. Masayoshi in japan there was the japanese government forced every korean to change to a japanese name. It was not their intention that we had to. David we had you had to change. Masayoshi we had to change. It was harder because i felt i was hiding something. It was even tougher. David you did not grow up in tokyo. You grew up in a relatively small town in japan. Masayoshi in the southern part. David it was said you are interested in meeting the head of mcdonalds. Interested was at the mcdonalds food . Worked the book, and it became the best ever. I was so impressed and said, this is great. The guy who wrote about it must be great. David how old were you when you wanted to meet him . Masayoshi 16. David you managed to get a meeting with him. Masayoshi i called his assistant, longdistance call. It was so expensive. I made almost 100 calls 60 calls. I said this is my name, i am a student, could you ask him to spare me some time . She said i will try, but he is not going to meet with the student. I said come i do not decide by yourself, let him decide. [laughter] masayoshi i spoke with the assistant so many times. They did not give me the right answers so i said, this is a waste of my telephone bill. I i flew into tokyo and said, came because the phone call was becoming more expensive than an air ticket. [laughter] david what happened . Masayoshi i said, tell him exactly the way i said it. You dont have to look at me, you dont have to talk to me come you can keep on working, whatever you are doing. I just want to see his face. [laughter] masayoshi for three minutes. So i am not bothering him. I am just so impressed and respect him, i want to see him. If you tell him miami not going to bother him if you tell him i am not going to bother him or damage his life, he said, ok. He spent 15 minutes with me, talking facetoface. David he gave you some advice, which was to learn . Masayoshi what business should i do . Computer. If i were you at this age, at , dont look at the past industries, look at the future industries. That is the one, the computer industry, that is the one you should focus. David he gave you that invites, you were number one in your class and went to university of california berkeley. When you were there you were not so much a student, but doing business on the side. Masayoshi i was a good student. But i said, five minutes i would allow, other than study. I have to make money, i want to earn 10,000 per month. And i will allow myself five minutes a day. Is there afriends, good job that i can heard earn 10,000 in five minutes a day. My friend said, youre crazy. What is the best, most efficient use of my time . It is invention, i have to file a patent. If i have to file a patent, five minutes, i can make an idea. I set an alarm clock for five minutes. Invention, come [laughter] masayoshi i did that. David and it worked . Masayoshi yes. David you invented a machine to help people translate linkages . Masayoshi the First Electric dictionary. Many students use it. The first one ever made was by myself. David First Electric industry. And you sold it to sharp and made a lot of money. Masayoshi 1. 7 million. David what did you do with it . Masayoshi i used it to start softbank. One more project and made 1. 5 million. That is better than 10,000 per month. Look, that to my friends, over 2 million and i kept working only five minutes a day, as i promised you. In may be graduated successful inventions, you moved back to japan. Why did you move back to japan . Not that it is a great area, but why not stay in Silicon Valley . Masayoshi my employees asked me to stay. I said no, i promise to my mother when i decided to come study in the states. She was crying in the airport and i said, dont cry. After i graduate from school, i will come back, i promise. She said, no, you will not come back. You will be gone forever. No, i promise you, i do not worry. I kept my word. David recently, you did the biggest invents investment you have ever made, in arm. Masayoshi it is for any smartphone you have in your pocket. I think the company will be more valuable than google. David you moved back to japan and started a Company Called softbank. What was softbanks purpose . What kind of business were you in . Masayoshi that was the beginning of the time of the personal computer. The hardware, not enough software. Get all kinds of software from the Small Software houses. Stores,ale to the pc like a bank. Moneyres bank, not the bank. It is storing in my warehouse. It is a concept. David it is very successful, softbanks stock was going up. Investing, considered by many to be the most successful investment in the history of mankind. You invested roughly 20 million in alibaba. At the time it went public it was worth 90 billion. 20 million to 90 billion is a return of 500 . Is now one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. What made you feel it was worth 20 million . Masayoshi he had no Business Plan and zero revenue. [laughter] employees, maybe 35, 40 employees. But his eyes were strong, shining. I could tell from the way he talked, the way he looked, he had charisma, leadership. His Business Model was wrong. Ed, thethe way he talk way he could bring Young Chinese people. David before your who was famous you made an investment in it that was successful. How did you hear about yahoo . Masayoshi they had about 15 employees. We took 100 million of our investment. Time, a group from 15 to 35 people. Million to own0 35 . It went ipo and made a big turn. I convincedtime, him to start another company. Putut 1. 2 million, they 0. 8 million. 2 million startup capital, we owned a 60 . David lets talk about one big mistake you made overall. You have been successful with almost everything you touch. You made a lot of internet investments around 2000. The market went down in the tech crash and it is said you personally lost 70 billion of net worth. The greatest loss any human being has suffered financially. How did you feel, losing 70 billion of net worth . Masayoshi before that, my personal net loss was increasing 10 billion per week. [laughter] days ihi for three became richer. David did that upset him . Masayoshi before i talked to anybody else, our stock started crashing. [laughter] six months after that our share price went down many, many percent. Almost went bankrupt. Somehow i survived. David you rebuild your business. Among the things you did, you bought wellknown companies. Vodafone you boughtvodafones mobile telephone business in japan. They said the internet would become mobile internet, so i had the either get the license from the. Overnment or acquire vodafone first, i applied for the license to the government. They said no, there is no more spectrum. I actually sued the government. For one year, a big fight. Then Vodafone Japan became available. 20 billion. Billion and was 18 billion short. David where did you get the money . Masayoshi i convinced of the bank that Vodafone Japan would turn around and become successful. They believed me and let me money. David they did. It turned out to be very successful. Recently you made the biggest investment you have ever made in , aompany called a. R. M. Semiconductor manufacturer in london. Why did you spend 31 billion on a Semiconductor Manufacturer when many think it is not . The future masayoshi 30 4 billion. It is not the manufacturing, it is the design house. They design all the chips. Market share for any smartphone you have in your pocket. A. R. M. Has 99 market share. Willext 20 years, they designe trillion chips, one trillion chips. Nobody can live on the earth anymore without chips. Chips are everywhere in your car, refrigerator, everywhere. If chips are something everybody needs, and one company has 90 market share, there must be of value. They are not monetizing well enough. But if i own it, we can monetize much better. Belief. My i think the company is going to be more valuable than google. It is a private company now. David you dont worry belief. Robots could become so smart they would wipe out humanity as some people worry . Masayoshi there is danger. Intelligent s elligence goes beyond ours it is not inefficient way of living, harmony is better. David in the future, you are a big believer in robots. It is your view Artificial Intelligence is a good thing and will not hurt humanity, is that correct . Masayoshi right. David you dont think robots could become so intelligent they could wait that wipe out humanity . Masayoshi there is some danger of that. But if you look at history, people were killing each other with many battles among different tribes and so on. World, we do not have those things in everyday life. We are more civilized. When the robots super intelligence goes beyond intelligence, it will say fighting is not an efficient way of leaving living. Harmony is better. It is more social. We will live in harmony. They think about us, help us, and they try to amuse us and love each other. David what gives you the greatest pleasure in the world . Masayoshi i have a vision of singularity. So we created vision fund. We going change the world together and create a better world for human living. That excites me. Thinking about, what is the future . How we can change the life of people for the better of humanity. So that people do not need to die for unnecessary reasons, like having accidents or having a disease or having a disaster. From all thatans sadness is a good thing. Andining those things investing in creating and having great products, great solutions, is exciting. David today, you come back and have a enormous net worth, one of the richest men in the world. What do you do with all this money . Masayoshi i have not decided what to do. David but you are 60 years old, you have to decide at some point. Masayoshi deciding how to spend with respect is more difficult than making money. That was a headache i had. Man, you were the richest lost that headache am i not you have it again. Any plans of doing this for the next 20 years . At the age of 19 i created my 50 year life plan. 69 i would decide my successor and have them keep on running it. In my next 10 years i have to do that. Even after i find a successor i would him a baton, probably stay working with him, helping him. I cannots i live, forget about this excitement. David your parents are still alive, they must be extremely proud of you. Masayoshi they are very proud of me and very happy. We are a happy family. But the live together, economy occasionally. They call me occasionally. My dad has unique ideas, crazy ideas. He always calls me and says, masa, i have a crazy idea, you have to do this. He knows everything i am doing. He is very creative, very smart. David you are japanese, but you were of korean descent. But youre different from Japanese Business people that are more consensusoriented, not as entrepreneurial as you are. Has that been a challenge in japan . A challenge, but the uniqueness is good. I am unique, i have more opportunities. The difficulty with if you could live your life over, is there anything you would do differently than you have done . Masayoshi i may. But this is the life i am enjoying so much, that i would love to do it again. Lucky, so close to falling down from the cliff. I do not know that i could do it twice. [laughter] masayoshi this is definitely an exciting life. I am having fun. Retail. Under pressure like never before. And its connected technology thats moving companies forward fast. Ecommerce. Real time inventory. Virtual changing rooms. Thats why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent Network Speed across multiple locations. Every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. Leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. Comcast business outmaneuver. Mr. King it is difficult to exaggerate the severity and importance of these events. Not since the beginning of the First World War has our Banking System been so close to collapse. Francine mervyn king was at the epicenter of the biggest exercise in Crisis Management in modern financial history. He was in charge of the bank of england in 2007, pumping billions of pounds into the