Can we really judge his investments just yet? There haven't been any exits/bankruptcies just yet (apart from Housing.com) , so it's too early to judge. And it looks like he left over disagreements with how soon he would takeover from Masayoshi Son.

My (uninformed) read was that was allowing him to save face. You are right, though. It can take a while to determine effectiveness of acquisitions. Perhaps it was performance on the large ones?

It could also be cultural. It's very hard for foreigners to run Japanese companies, even iconoclastic ones.

Let us not forget about the allegations of malpractice, even though he has been given a clean chit by an "internal" investigation. There might be more to it than meets the eye.

http://qz.com/711829/softbank-says-an-internal-investigation...

Yes. At the very least it's an angry investor. Even if you're in the right, it's hard to stave off angry owners. (They are after all, the owners)

This is still behind a paywall. You can search for the WSJ title and follow a search engine link to bypass this.

There is a web link under the article that achieves the same result.

Which link? I am curious.

Thanks. That's what I copy/pasted, but I guess the link refreshes.