Books: Rise, fall and rise of Masayoshi Son mirrors extraordinary era

There could hardly be a greater contrast in investment philosophy and personal style than that of Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank Group, and Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha. Yet, as author Lionel Barber reveals in his highly entertaining new biography of the Japanese entrepreneur, the two men did meet in 2017 when "Masa," as he is familiarly known, flew directly from Tokyo to Buffett's home ground in Nebraska, in an attempt to interest him in SoftBank's new $100 billion Vision Fund.

This was a Godzilla-size venture capital vehicle, featuring several companies with eye-popping valuations. The most notorious was WeWork, which called itself a "provider of co-working spaces." In reality, it was an office rental business hyped to the skies by its long-haired, and some said egomaniacal, founder, Adam Neumann, abetted by Son's insistence that he set his sights higher and higher. Barber quotes an unnamed SoftBank insider as claiming that giving Neumann that amount of funding was equivalent to "feeding a monkey alcohol" -- and so it proved.