SoftBank Vision Fund Employees Depict a Culture of Recklessness

Every six weeks or so, the SoftBank Vision Fund, the biggest source of investment money flowing to Silicon Valley, convenes a multihour video conference call for 75 people on three continents to catch up on its startups. Masayoshi Son, the Japanese billionaire and founder of the fund’s parent company, SoftBank Group Corp., usually dials in from Tokyo. Masa, as Son is universally known, can be charming and effusively complimentary on the calls, according to three regular participants. Or he can be enraged, berating presenters and demanding a perpetually shifting yet unfailingly detailed set of metrics. Or he ...