Masayoshi son lived in a shack with his father since he was a child. In high school, he was inspired to become an entrepreneur, but he didn't know what entrepreneurs needed to do. So at the age of 19, he wrote to Fujita, the founder of McDonald's, asking for advice. Finally, Fujita gave him 15 minutes to tell him that if he was still young, he would study computers, which pointed out the direction for Son. He saw a circuit diagram in the electronic magazine he bought in the supermarket, as if there was a current flowing through his body. Isn't this a city map? In my mind, it is 1976 to predict that the computer age is coming.
People often say, be inspirational, while it's early. Zhou Enlai had the ambition to study for the rise of China since he was a child. Zeng Guofan knew that he was short of talent. He studied hard and became a pillar of the country.
He studied economics in college, but he attended the computer class reunion. Later, he made an audio translator chip with these people and sold it to the first noble person in his life: Sasaki, the founder of Sharp. With this fund, he started his own company unision world while studying in the United States. After graduating from college, she returned to Japan with the money and started an entrepreneurial life in Fukuoka. The year is 198 1.
What is the main business of Softbank Group? What are his management characteristics? What is his entrepreneurial philosophy? Why did Masayoshi Son say that he wanted to build a 300-year enterprise empire, not longer? We will answer them for you one by one.
Japan's longest regime has existed for 270 years and is known as the Tokugawa shogunate. He wanted to last longer than this, so when he started his business, he thought of 300 years. So what do you want to maintain a 300-year enterprise empire without destroying it? This is diversity. The world has changed, so can the core business, so that his empire can stand. The biggest advantage within Softbank Group is cohesion. Sun Zhengyi's management style is openness and brainstorming, so the number of high-level meetings organized by Sun Zhengyi often increases from 10 to 30, including not only high-level meetings, but also people at the grassroots level and project site. People who know this problem may be called in temporarily. They speak freely, and sometimes Masayoshi Son will strike the table and throw the bench. In such an environment, the top will grow faster after being honed.
One of his cronies: Kenichi Miyagi, vice president and finance minister of the company. He is an offensive vice president of finance, which is different from conservative finance and specializes in avoiding risks. His philosophy is not to let finance hinder Sun Zhengyi's career, so when he bought ARM, he took out everything he could, and then borrowed a third to buy it at ten times the market price of ARM.
Speaking of famous Japanese enterprises at that time, we have to mention Matsushita Group, whose founder Yosuke Kono has a famous "tap water philosophy": the mission of industrialists is to overcome poverty. Therefore, we must promote material production and expand wealth. Although the water in the tap water pipe is valuable, the price is low and the quantity is large, so people can't feel it. Entrepreneurs should make use of the philosophical law of tap water to produce a large number of products and sell them at extremely low prices to earn wealth. This is also the business philosophy that Sun Zhengyi has been following. Sun Zhengyi also has a point: if a person has no foresight, even if he thinks he is climbing the mountain desperately, he still hovers back and forth in the same place and cannot get out of the narrow circle. With a vision, we can go straight to the heights and finally climb to the top. To this end, he has done his homework for the 300-year goal vision. He did a lot of things that seemed to have nothing to do with the company's operation at that time. Even under the impact of Lehman, economic crisis and Internet bubble, he did not stop planning and imagining long-term goals.
He studied Nobunaga's territorial expansion process and came to a conclusion: it is important to discover the existence of the latest technology before the opponent and take measures to realize monopoly as soon as possible. He also predicted the future work of the world with Moore's law, which attracted much attention, including the study of history and biological evolution: the number of transistors on integrated circuits will double every 18 months. At this rate, the human brain is 30 billion cells, and the turning point for computers to surpass the human brain is 20 18. Sun Zhengyi learned from Nobuyoshi Oda the desire to constantly seek the iron cannon of the next era and the significance of putting forward a clear vision.
Softbank group was formerly known as Japan Software Bank, and later changed its name to Software Bank for internationalization. As the name implies, the software bank started with software circulation. 65438+In the early 1980s, computers were not popular, and all the software was recorded. Kaka's voice can be heard during the operation. The software market is still in the dawn, even if the biggest software companies rely on computer salaries to operate, they are interdependent. Sun Zhengyi's philosophy in the field of circulation is to monopolize the upstream and downstream, and then raise the price.
As we all know, the road to entrepreneurship is difficult, and Sun Zhengyi is no exception. After experiencing illness, division and betrayal within the company and investment failure, he stubbornly survived and achieved success.
26-year-old, 198 1, was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis and later found to be cirrhosis and liver cancer. At that time, the medical level could not be completely cured, so we had to take antibiotics. The doctor diagnosed that we had five years to live at most and asked to be hospitalized immediately. So reluctantly, Masayoshi son was hospitalized, and this residence was two years. Two years is enough time for many things to happen. First of all, under the recommendation of Sasaki, he met Omori, gave him the position of general manager and gave him the whole Softbank Group. However, Omori is a tycoon of the chaebol group. For a start-up company, the shortcomings of his official style have been magnified. He suppressed a group of Sun Zhengyi's cronies and cronies, many of whom were demoted or resigned voluntarily. He also transferred many executives from other chaebol groups to take luxury cars. Softbank is almost on the verge of bankruptcy, and Masayoshi Son, who is recuperating in the hospital, is worried but helpless. Fortunately, at that time, a doctor named Kumada Boguang published a new treatment for hepatitis B, called "steroid withdrawal therapy", which had many uncertainties and was similar to shock therapy. If you fail, you will encounter death. Masayoshi son decided to give it a try. Fortunately, God loved the boy and he succeeded.
Speaking of Masayoshi Son's opponent, I have to say another talent in the information field: Xiheyan. He rebelled against the internal division of Softbank before his son died. Two months after Masayoshi Son returned to the company, softwing Company was established together with the marketing department and sales department of Softbank to openly compete with Softbank. The marketing department and sales department are the core business departments of Softbank, including price, sales and marketing strategy, and the software seems to be hollowed out. Son was heartbroken in the face of betrayal. But in the past two years under the leadership of Omori, it is not without some benefits. Among the people brought by Omori was Miyagi, a young man with similar temperament to Masayoshi Son, who later became Masayoshi Son's right-hand man and worked together for more than 30 years to become the vice president of Softbank. He was also angry when he learned about the soft wing incident. He vowed: within ten years, I will destroy these rebels no matter what. Later, as he wished, ten years later, softwing was acquired due to poor management. However, in the process of competing with SoftWing, considering the foundation of Softbank, they paid more attention to defense than to attack blindly, which also made them survive and develop steadily because of the Internet bubble in the 1990s.
Summing up the lesson of betrayal is that when starting a business, you need to find like-minded people, and gay groups are the most stable.
65438+ 1990 was a crazy year for Softbank's M&A. He went on a rampage, except for Yahoo's successful investment, which ended in failure. Finally, when he entered the broadband business, he raised money by selling the industries he invested in at low prices.
There are always many hardships on the road to success, and the development of broadband services can be said to be a gamble of life after death. When he first entered the broadband business, he locked himself in his office all day, studying hard for technology, and later gained technical strength and management experience through acquisition; He forced his men to sleep only three or four hours a day to achieve their goals, and worked continuously for one and a half years without holidays; In order to let the government solve the problem of communication line failure quickly, he ran to the lobby and set himself on fire. All the efforts were not in vain, and finally ushered in the dawn of victory, but it also brought a lot of regrets and missed the investment of a number of good companies such as Amazon, Baidu and Google. Looking back on this experience, he only regrets, but if he is given a new choice, he will still choose broadband without hesitation, because this is the responsibility and mission of an entrepreneur.
After the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in 2008, Masayoshi Son had the determination to enter the power system to guard against the decline of Japan's national strength caused by international contradictions. After many twists and turns, we finally signed a cooperation agreement with China and Russia on 20 16.
Reading the whole book also made me really understand Sun Zhengyi. It seems that he is a bit wild, only he can't think of what he can't do, but in fact this is some of his complex. For example, entering the American market is also a yearning for American technology and economy when I was in college. Only by cooperating with the strongest countries can we get closer to the top of science and technology. For example, the acquisition of ARM was also a plot that existed ten years ago. He is the executor of the mission of "Don't forget your initiative" and a real entrepreneur.