Masayoshi Son's Past with Nvidia
However, times have changed, and I hope that the once glorious scene can be recreated on this land.Yesterday, I saw a video of a speech featuring Jensen Huang and Masayoshi Son. Jensen Huang reviewed a series of astonishing achievements created by Masayoshi Son in the history of internet development:
Masayoshi Son brought Bill Gates to Japan.
Masayoshi Son brought (Yahoo's founder) Jerry Yang to Japan.
Masayoshi Son contributed to Alibaba's success in China.
Masayoshi Son brought Steve Jobs to Japan.
These four achievements span four stages of contemporary information technology development: software, networking, e-commerce, and mobile.
Jensen Huang summarized this series of achievements as follows:
Masayoshi Son is the only entrepreneur in the world who has found the winners of each stage in this era and collaborated with them.
Even more astonishing is that about 10 years ago, Masayoshi Son bought Nvidia stock in the secondary market and at one point was Nvidia's largest shareholder.
At that time, Masayoshi Son privately approached Jensen Huang and told him:
The market does not understand Nvidia's value; Nvidia's future is limitless. You should buy all of Nvidia's stock; I can lend you money to buy the stock.
Masayoshi Son also said:
Nvidia will have to endure for a while because Nvidia is creating the future.
Unfortunately, Masayoshi Son sold all of his Nvidia shares in 2019.
During the entire speech, there was one scene that was quite poignant:
When Jensen Huang mentioned that Masayoshi Son was once Nvidia's largest shareholder, the now gray-haired but still spirited genius lowered his head, embraced Jensen Huang tightly, and laughter echoed throughout the venue.
Was the laughter tinged with embarrassment? Regret?
Was it a lament for missing out on history? Or a helplessness over fleeting opportunities?
Perhaps only Masayoshi Son himself can truly feel the reality of it.
However, the more mixed the emotions, the more one can see the greatness of such an investor across eras.
A great investor is not one who never makes mistakes in investing, but one who can continuously create investment miracles, and any miracle he creates is enough to shine throughout his peers' lives.
The reason Masayoshi Son can create these miracles, besides his extraordinary thinking, is that he looks beyond just the money; he focuses on the entrepreneurs behind the projects and imagines their future.
Masayoshi Son invests in cutting-edge technology industries. This is very different from investing in traditional industries: cutting-edge technology investments are about the future—future industries, future models.
These industries and models either do not exist in modern society or are still in very early experimental stages, with the potential to be falsified and go to zero at any time.
Therefore, investing in such projects carries enormous risks.
Nvidia went public in 1999, but Masayoshi Son only bought Nvidia stock in the secondary market around 2014, more than 10 years after Nvidia's IPO.
In fact, Nvidia's explosive growth only occurred in recent years due to the explosion of artificial intelligence.
In 2014, Nvidia's performance was far from as impressive as it is today.
I don't know why Masayoshi Son said that the market did not understand Nvidia's value back then. Did he see Nvidia's potential in cloud computing, or did he really see Nvidia's potential in artificial intelligence?
In any case, being able to see through such projects requires imagination, creativity, and patience, along with a bit of extra passion and innocence.
An investor who is solely focused on money can only see tangible benefits, only the money right in front of them, and cannot see the grand vision beyond, cannot penetrate the present to see the distant future, and certainly cannot see the light through the darkness.
The reason Jensen Huang was on stage with Masayoshi Son is that Jensen Huang attended Nvidia's Japan summit and, at Masayoshi Son's invitation, worked together to promote the development of artificial intelligence in Japan.
The prosperity of capitalism has not only created countless stunning technologies but also countless great companies and countless great entrepreneurs.
In my view, this is the greatest practical achievement of humanity's industrial revolution over the past few hundred years.
Although our country does not yet have entrepreneurs like Masayoshi Son, over the decades of reform and opening up, our country has also seen a large number of outstanding entrepreneurs emerge.
However, times have changed; I hope that the once glorious scene can be recreated on this land.
