SoftBank’s $100B fund is in a league of its own

There are some very rich people out there deciding to move their money into tech. I wonder what&#x27;s prompting that decision.<p>Random theories:<p>1. Big Oil is done. Battery prices have hit the tipping point and all cars will soon be electric. The traditional car companies are risky too, at least until the disruption ends and we can see who&#x27;ll survive.<p>2. Banks haven&#x27;t fixed anything, so the smart money is avoiding them.<p>3. They see no growth in consumer retail now that the cheap Chinese goods boom is over.

I thought that Masayoshi Son&#x27;s Wikipedia intro was interesting:<p>&gt; Masayoshi Son (Japanese: 孫 正義 Hepburn: Son Masayoshi, Korean: 손정의 Son Jeong-ui; born August 11, 1957) is a Korean-descendant (Zainichi Korean) Japanese businessman and the founder and current chief executive officer of SoftBank, the chief executive officer of SoftBank Mobile, and current chairman of Sprint Corporation. According to Forbes magazine, Son&#x27;s estimated net worth is US $20.4 billion and he is the richest man in Japan,[2] despite having the distinction of losing the most money in history (approximately $70bn during the dot com crash of 2000).[3]

&gt; <i>in the interest of furthering his 300-year plan to build the largest company on the planet</i><p>At least they are not just looking for short-term and short-sighted profits, but that&#x27;s a looong time.

I find it amazing and absurd to see how so much money is invested in such a short amount of time.<p>Sadly from what I understand most of it will go towards later stages.<p>I would like to see this kind of money made available to early stage new ideas that need a lot of capital to get of the ground.

&quot;It’s neither soft nor, technically, a bank&quot;<p>Jesus christ.

$60B of the $100B number is from countries (Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi) where human rights issues are still a big thing these days.<p>Maybe we can think about that whenever we see where SoftBanks new fund is invested in - it&#x27;s 60% money from folks which do not care much about some basic human rights.

How does an entrepreneur get an introduction to SoftBank and pitch?