He got lucky in a big way twice. The reason he was able to lose more money than anyone in history, is because the first time he got lucky like that was with Yahoo when a relatively small investment became worth tens of billions of dollars. He failed to sell though and Yahoo of course didn't have a sustainable position (unlike Alibaba). The epic boom in his Yahoo position is what initially made him famous during the dotcom bubble. It started the mythology of Masayoshi as a finder of those types of investments.

Masayoshi Son seems like someone who started believing like Midas, that anything he touches would turn to gold. I heard the guy speak, and he seemed full of himself. And he's taken Saudi money, I would not want to be in his shoes to say the least.

> Masayoshi Son seems like someone who started believing like Midas, that anything he touches would turn to gold.

It is so incredibly common in the investment world to mistake extreme luck for skill and cling to flawed methodologies as if they were gospel because they worked once by chance.

Your typical investment "strategies" are hardly better than someone bringing his lucky shoes to a gambling den.

He is still way better off than your average hs commentor. It will be easy to pivot into anything.. flower shop.. ebay jeans store the sky is the limit.

Do you mean yahoo japan? They’re a separate company from Yahoo, and still very profitable and a 11 figure item on their balance sheet.

> Do you mean yahoo japan?

No. Yahoo US was once worth ~$125 billion ($200b today) and Masayoshi's SoftBank owned 28% of it during the peak bubble days of 1999-2000. [1] Yahoo was a very big deal at the time, it was briefly an Internet juggernaut. That's a key reason why he was so rich during the dotcom bubble. That single position propelled his image and made him famous.

To put into perspective how relatively massive SoftBank's Yahoo position was considered to be at the time in the tech world (and more broadly): if you go back to early 1995, it's a sum comparable to what Microsoft was worth ($30-$35b), and more than Intel was worth. The notion that a tech company could be more valuable than the old industrial giants like GM was still a rather confounding premise.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0705/6401146a.html

That's how "vision" investors are supposed to work. You expect 99% of your investments to fail and 1% to give you 1000X returns.

That said, I agree that WeWork isn't exactly "vision".

Honestly speaking, isn't the whole VC industry dependent on luck?

No, entire VC industry is dependent on FED not luck.

It's easy to call someone lucky on a successful investment.

You need more than a luck to pull it off.

Yes. You need money and connections.

Not really.

Maybe you need to be lucky and (have money)

Is harder to be lucky if you're poor

SoftBank is also Oyo's biggest investor, and get ready to hear about the billions they will lose there too.

There was a scathing Scott Galloway piece on OYO in January:

https://www.profgalloway.com/oyomfg

"WeWork was an opportunistic infection highlighting the poor judgment of SoftBank. Oyo is the beginning of the end for Vision 1 as its brand moves from incompetent to malefactor.

(And he's referenced it several times in other pieces.)

Edited to add the quote from the linked OYO piece.

I read it and thought it interesting and entertaining.

He missed out on one global hotel brand, though, which covers the whole spectrum of cheap lodging to shameless luxury and does so successfully.

Accor[1], offers the whole spectrum from Ibis Budget (used to be Formule 1 and ETAP) up to its Soffitel hotels and does so successfully.

Personally I'm a fan of Ibis. Their offer is consistent and while the rooms are small and cooky cutter generic the beds are always good and the bathrooms work. Plus, they are usually well located and relatively cheap.

So it is possible to have a successful budget hotel chain as part of your global brand and not even compromising your luxury offerings in the process.

That said: You won't catch me dead in an OYO hotel,after seeing a few of those dumps in Malaysia.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accor

I had absolutely worst experience at Oyo. I had an overnight flight from Delhi to SFO and went there to get a few hours of sleep but ended up shouting frequently at their unprofessional staff for making too much noise. I could not get any sleep and thought I could have been better served by just reaching the airport early instead of staying at Oyo. Just adding my feedback here to illustrate that they have absolutely no oversight to maintain the quality standards at the hotels being booked by them.

Ritesh Agarwal the CEO of Oyo, is a bigger con-artist(1) than his fellow Neuman. Now if you indulge me, I propose that he will attribute his failure to Covid-19 and be forgiven unlike his fellow Neuman who didn't had that luck. Oh and an intereting fact, Sequoia just sold all its shares in Oyo, a few months back with a good ROI. Sequoia does make money even with con-artist founders. They are good.

1. https://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Wi...

Already happening right?

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/a...

One difference is at least now US media is calling Neuman what he is. Where as Ritesh dude is still an Indian hero as per local media.

> Where as Ritesh dude is still an Indian hero as per local media.

He is not . The 'English media' is not the local media in India.

There literally is no Oyo. They took hotels from the bottom x% of hotels, and guaranteed them revenue and got the Oyo sign slapped on the front door.

Who could have thought this would work? Like starting a banana company by white labeling the bottom 1% of bananas in quality with your brand name. All the smelliest, most rotten bananas infested with bugs.

An amazing story of the guy who took over the banana industry, starting by buying all the "ripes" that were previously considered trash: https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/12500...

> Who could have thought this would work? Some enterprising person on Airbnb! Trashy trailers repainted and rebranded as cabins around Redwood National Park. I'm not going back there, but there will be enough suckers if the traffic's heavy.

Incredible that someone actually thought a new splash of paint and a big red brand can make up for the complete lack of culture, training, and motivation at the bottom rung of India's hotel industry.

Did no one realize that they're in the hospitality industry?

I don't think there is any startup with more ill will among customers than Oyo. The brand is completely toxic now, especially among India's younger millennial customers.