Gambling Man

The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son

Lionel Barber

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Hardback

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English

Allen Lane
07 January 2025

Biography: business & industry; Biography: science, technology & engineering; Economics & Business; International finance; Investment & securities

The real story behind the mercurial Masayoshi Son, who has three times lost and made tens of billions of dollars

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.

By: Lionel Barber
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 241mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 37mm
Weight: 680g
ISBN: 9780241582725
ISBN 10: 0241582725
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 07 January 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times from 2005 to 20, is an author, broadcaster and lecturer. During four decades as an award-winning journalist, he has interviewed many world leaders and leading CEOs. He is a regular visitor to Japan.

Reviews for Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son

Like Ron Chernow on John D. Rockefeller, or Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs, Lionel Barber has given us the defining account of an era in business history. Gambling Man confirms Barber's gift for brilliantly decoding the nuances of power. He dissects the layers of Masayoshi Son’s empire to reveal the anatomy of modern risk -- Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition A rare insight into the life of Masayoshi Son, the mysterious Korean-Japanese tech investor who has made — and lost — more money than anyone else this century... Barber sets out Son’s extraordinary backstory, details all the deals, big and small, that Son did to enrich himself and [gives] a privileged boardroom-table view of the gilded age of tech-utopianism and borderless finance [with an] eye for colour [that] is more than enough to keep the everyday reader engaged. -- John Arlidge * Sunday Times * Gambling Man is a pacy and highly professional telling of Son’s remarkable story, which skilfully draws out its broader historical themes. -- Felix Martin * Financial Times * A sure-footed account ... Barber has a journalist's eye for his subject's telling idiosyncracies ... [his] detailed biography documents a career punctuaed with attention-grabbing successes and abrupt reversals. -- Henry Hitchings * Spectator *