Takafumi Horie

Takafumi Horie is impossible to write about neutrally, which is a large part of why he is worth writing about. A kid from Yame, a small city in rural Fukuoka, he dropped out of the University of Tokyo, built an internet company, and by 2004 and 2005 was on national television trying to buy a baseball team and then a broadcaster. Japan had not seen that speed, or that lack of deference, before. Then came the securities fraud conviction and real prison time, which in this country is normally where the story ends. The door closes and stays closed. It did not. He came back with a rocket company, restaurants, books, a media operation, and no visible interest in apologising for existing. Opinions on him run hot in both directions and I understand both. What I cannot dismiss is that he keeps testing, with his own life, whether one failure really has to be final here.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Takafumi Horie

Name (Japanese)

堀江貴文

Reading

ほりえ たかふみ

Born

October 29, 1972 (age 53)

Origin

Yame, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

Height

173 cm

Weight

88 kg

Occupation

businessperson / socialite / critic / tarento

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Scorpio / Rat

High school

Kurume University Junior and Senior High School

Works summary

Appearances

50 (2004–2025)

By year

2004: 1, 2005: 2, 2009: 2, 2010: 4, 2011: 3, 2014: 8, 2015: 1, 2016: 1, 2018: 2, 2019: 3, 2020: 2, 2022: 1, 2023: 2, 2024: 1, 2025: 3

Debut work

堀江社長の起業家セミナー 100億稼ぐネットベンチャー虎の巻

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttps://horiemon.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/takapon_jp/
• Xhttps://x.com/takapon_jp
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takafumi%20Horie
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A0%80%E6%B1%9F%E8%B2%B4%E6%96%87
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1193093

Tags

• Fukuoka Prefecture
• businessperson
• socialite
• critic

Last updated

September 18, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.