Gambling Man: The Secret Story of the World's Greatest Disruptor, Masayoshi Son

"The defining account of an era in business history." --Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition

The unputdownable first Western biography of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, financial disruptor and personification of the 21st century's addiction to instant wealth, from the former editor of the Financial Times.

As Wall Street swooned and boomed through the last decade, our livelihoods have--now more than ever--come to rely upon the good sense and risk appetites of a few standout investors. And amidst the BlackRocks, Vanguards, and Berkshire Hathaways stands arguably the most iconoclastic of them all: SoftBank's Masayoshi Son.

In Gambling Man, the first Western biography of Son, the self-professed unicorn hunter, we go behind the scenes of the world's most monied halls of power in New York, Tokyo, Silicon Valley, Saudi Arabia, and beyond to see how Son's firm SoftBank has defied conventional wisdom and imposing odds to push global tech and commerce into the future.

From the dizzying highs of Uber, DoorDash, and Slack to the epic lows of WeWork and tech-infused dogwalking app Wag Son and SoftBank have been at the center of cutting-edge capitalism's absolute peaks and valleys. In the process, Son, son of a pachinko kingpin who grew up in a slum in Japan, has been a hero, a villain, and even a meme-ified hero to the internet tech- and finance-bro set all at once.

Based on in-depth research and eye-opening interviews, Gambling Man is an unforgettable character study and alarming true story of twenty-first-century commerce that will stick with you long after you turn the final page.


About the Author
Lionel Barber is the former editor of the Financial Times. As editor, he interviewed many of the world's leaders in business and politics, including US Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Russian president Vladimir Putin, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Barber has cowritten several books and has lectured widely on foreign policy, transatlantic relations, and economics. He also served on the Board of Trustees at the Tate and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He graduated in 1978 from St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, with a joint honors degree in German and modern history and speaks French and German fluently.