A Five-Foot-Three Dreamer Who Moves Trillions: Masayoshi Son and Fifty Years of "Aim High"
At nineteen, a young man drew up a "50-year life plan" with a completely straight face: make a name in his twenties, build up capital in his thirties, take his big gamble in his forties, and complete his life's work in his fifties. This was no drunken boast over drinks — someone actually wrote that audacious blueprint and meant it.
Born in Tosu, Saga, and standing 160 centimeters tall, he can face the most renowned executives in the world and, without flinching an inch, tell them to "think bigger." His name is Masayoshi Son, a man who has decided on acquisitions worth one trillion, three trillion yen with the casual ease of buying a drink from a vending machine.
At the core of all that drive sits a single phrase he keeps as his motto: "Aim High." His life has been one long experiment in how far that phrase can be made real.
From Tosu to Berkeley
Masayoshi Son was born on August 11, 1957, in Tosu, Saga, Japan. He withdrew from Kurume University High School and left for the United States at a young age. In 1977 he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where his entrepreneurial talent showed early — he reportedly built up funds by selling a business while still a student.
In 1980 he graduated from Berkeley with a degree in economics. For a young man who had kept one eye on the future even while studying, the obvious next step waiting back home was to build a company with his own hands.
Founding Japan SoftBank — The Starting Point of 1981
Having married Masami Ohno in 1979 and started a family, Son founded Japan SoftBank Corp. in 1981. This became the launching point for what would grow into the SoftBank Group, an enterprise that would one day take on the world.
Over the following decade and more, he steadily built his footing. In 1994 he listed SoftBank shares over the counter, and around the same time he took part in founding Yahoo Japan. Just as a new continent called the internet was rising into view, he had already placed his bet on it.
A Cascade of Trillion-Yen Acquisitions
As the 2000s arrived, Son's scale became something else entirely. In 2001 he brought Japan Telecom under his wing and launched broadband service as Yahoo BB, handing out low-cost modems on the streets and driving Japan's internet adoption forward in a single push.
Then in 2006, he acquired Vodafone Japan for roughly 1.75 trillion yen, entering the mobile phone business in earnest. In 2016 he acquired Britain's Arm Holdings for some 3.3 trillion yen — a purchase that seized the heart of semiconductor design and signaled that he was already looking toward the next era, a world in which every device would be connected. Figures of one trillion, three trillion: he has never hesitated to move them.
The Words Behind "Aim High"
At the root of Son's actions lie a handful of phrases. His motto is "Aim High," a teaching he is said to have received from the management scholar Kazuo Noda, and he has openly named Soichiro Honda and Oda Nobunaga as the figures he most admires.
"True courage is born of thorough preparation; courage without preparation is mere recklessness." He draws a clear line between boldness and folly. His exhortation to "think big, be daring, and achieve it with all your passion" reflects a stance that prizes both the size of the dream and the energy needed to realize it. He has stumbled many times, yet each time he falls he comes back with an even bigger dream — and that relentless forward drive is precisely what makes him who he is.
Beyond the Executive — Investing in the Next Generation
His path extends beyond running his own company. In 2004 he became Representative Owner and Director of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, winning the hearts of a region and its fans through baseball. In 2017 he established the Masayoshi Son Foundation, setting out to support talented young people.
His reputation reaches around the globe. He has been named multiple times on Forbes' list of the world's most powerful people, won Entrepreneur of the Year at The Asian Awards in 2017, and in 2024 appeared on TIME's "100 Most Influential People in AI." Even before the vast new wave of artificial intelligence, he is once again looking forward, insisting there is so much yet to come.
A small man of 160 centimeters speaks of dreams to the world's giant corporations and stakes his bets in the trillions. He fails, he draws criticism. And yet, when those burning eyes tell you "we're only just getting started," even the listener begins to feel they could pull off something extraordinary.
A man who has actually run the full course of the "50-year life plan" he drew up at nineteen. That power to sweep others up in his vision may well be the greatest asset Masayoshi Son, the entrepreneur, has ever possessed.