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.

Name (English)

Takafumi Horie

Name (Japanese)

堀江貴文

Born

October 29, 1972 (age 53)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Scorpio / Rat

Origin

Yame, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

businessperson / socialite / critic / tarento

High school

Kurume University Junior and Senior High School

University

Kurume University Junior and Senior High School

Motto

Private

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

Tags

• Fukuoka Prefecture
• businessperson
• socialite
• critic

Last updated

2026-07-26

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.