I would be careful to even call them just a telco.

I can say for a fact they have other robotics efforts as well. Yes they have not had the best luck in monetizing them.

Ironically, we are associated with some of their newer R&D efforts in robotics: https://skymind.ai/press/softbank

I can say they have not made ideal decisions in a lot of areas, but I wouldn't count them out based on 1 bad robot. They are a lot more diverse than that.

Source: I have softbank as a customer, have dealt with numerous executives here, and actually live in japan. I don't just read the news.

"The stake Naspers bought for just $32 million in 2001 -- when Tencent was an obscure Web firm in a nation where few people used the Internet -- is now worth $175 billion."

"While the investment has made Naspers the most valuable company in Africa, its market capitalization of about $122 billion lags well behind the value of the Tencent holding, suggesting investors assign no value to its other businesses."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-22/naspers-s...

There have been a few massive percentage returns that have been similarly outsized over the years, not equal to the top line scale however. Peter Thiel's investment into Facebook produced something like a 5,000 fold return.

The parents of Jeff Bezos put $50,000 into Amazon in its initial $1m round, which has produced something around a $2b to $3b fortune for them (a ~40,000+ fold return).

There have also been some infamous misses that would have produced comparably extreme returns. Paul Allen owned 25% of AOL right before it become a giant; he sold his position for a few hundred million dollars in a fit, because they wouldn't allow him to buy a larger position in it; that stake would have solidly been worth $40 billion at the peak. [1]

Larry Ellison wanted to buy a very large position in Apple, in the process of returning Jobs to the CEO role. Jobs talked him out of it on a moral high ground basis. [2] It's hard to speculate what that might be worth today or if Ellison would have screwed everything up instead, could have been a couple hundred billion dollar miss.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/1115/6412186a.html

[2] https://www.cultofmac.com/428587/larry-ellison-steve-jobs-sh...

Excite had the chance to buy Google way back, IIRC, for $800K by Larry and Sergey. Probably the tech would have died down there, but the founders hired the right people, chased money instead of ethics and Google is worth 3/4 of a TRILLION.

> But one investment—$20m sunk into Alibaba—is regarded as one of the best in history. The Chinese internet titan went public in 2014 in the world’s biggest IPO. SoftBank’s 28% stake in the firm is now worth $140bn.

Frankly that's luck. No doubt he is smart and has smart people working for him but that's pure luck. All but one gone and that tiny $20 mil investment saves it all.

All investment is "luck" if you put it that way.

> All but one gone and that tiny $20 mil investment saves it all.

That investment didn't save it all. Softbank was a multibillion dollar company before and after their investment in alibaba. With or without alibaba, they would still be around.

Not sure where you are getting the idea that alibaba saved softbank. Softbank's Alibaba stake makes softbank very valuable, but it would be around without alibaba.

Without Alibaba they would have lost, say, 100% of their investment in the 90's. Makes a great "trust us with $100 Billion, we have a great record" pitch.

Also, "still being around" and worth a lot of money and still being trusted with investment money are two very different things.

Cash for investments have to come from somewhere.

https://i0.wp.com/www.eurotechnology.com/b/wp-content/upload...

Softbank didn't originate with Vodafone; it was already 25 years old and a sprawling conglomerate, well-known for many ventures, when it acquired the mobile operator.

Also, your chart doesn't fit your story. Softbank offered the iPhone in 2008 and the other carriers got it in 2012–2013, but that corresponds to a dip and then a very modest gain in the chart.