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Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

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Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#11

Post by aaronbrethorst »

oooglaaa wrote: post #7

Saudi Arabia invested 45% of the 100B. It’s rare for a state to make such risky investments. Either they have a lot of available capital, and the 45B is nothing but a line item, or they’re trying to dig themselves out of a hole and they need to take on big, risky investments to do that.

Gotta do something to make sure you don't get sent to the Ritz Carlton Gulag[1]. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-07/saudi-ara...

[1] Note: not a joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Saudi_Arabian_purge

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#12

Post by shanghaiaway »

testb wrote: post #3
Animats wrote: post #2

It has already committed $65 billion to acquire big stakes in Uber, WeWork, Slack, and GM Cruise. Uber and WeWork[1] are money drains buying market share. GM Cruise is a "fake it til you make it" operation. Is Softbank the biggest dumb money operation of all time? (WeWork is strange. Most real estate businesses buy property and rent it out. WeWork rents property long term and rents it out short term.) [1] https://new…

What makes you say Cruise is faking? The disengagement data would suggest they're the most viable self-driving car venture behind Waymo.

The technology isn't there. There will never be self driving cars.

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#13

Post by oooglaaa »

pterhx wrote: post #10
oooglaaa wrote: post #7

Saudi Arabia invested 45% of the 100B. It’s rare for a state to make such risky investments. Either they have a lot of available capital, and the 45B is nothing but a line item, or they’re trying to dig themselves out of a hole and they need to take on big, risky investments to do that.

I don't know if $45B is a line item to them, but to give you a sense of scale of how much money the Saudis have, Aramco had a net income of about $34B in the first half of 2017 [0]. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-13/saudi-a...

That’s insane. That’s more than Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet’s 2017 net income combined.

How does a commodity business (oil and gas) generate so much profit?

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#14

Post by chillydawg »

oooglaaa wrote: post #13
pterhx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if $45B is a line item to them, but to give you a sense of scale of how much money the Saudis have, Aramco had a net income of about $34B in the first half of 2017 [0]. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-13/saudi-a...

That’s insane. That’s more than Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet’s 2017 net income combined . How does a commodity business (oil and gas) generate so much profit?

Getting oil out of the desert costs very little. A couple of bucks a barrel. Current market price was 80 bucks last I checked. Margin.

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#15

Post by contingencies »

shanghaiaway wrote: post #12
testb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say Cruise is faking? The disengagement data would suggest they're the most viable self-driving car venture behind Waymo.

The technology isn't there. There will never be self driving cars.

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done. - Peter Ustinov, via http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#16

Post by contingencies »

Animats wrote: post #2

It has already committed $65 billion to acquire big stakes in Uber, WeWork, Slack, and GM Cruise. Uber and WeWork[1] are money drains buying market share. GM Cruise is a "fake it til you make it" operation. Is Softbank the biggest dumb money operation of all time? (WeWork is strange. Most real estate businesses buy property and rent it out. WeWork rents property long term and rents it out short term.) [1] https://new…

Smart operations in the co-working space manage property, they don't rent it. Source: GGV interview with founder of Naked Hub @ https://soundcloud.com/ggvcapital/grant-horsfield-of-naked-h...

That said, I tend to agree Softbank news has suggsted some very weird pending or closed investments, notable eg. in our space = Zume.

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#17

Post by dbmikus »

oooglaaa wrote: post #13
pterhx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if $45B is a line item to them, but to give you a sense of scale of how much money the Saudis have, Aramco had a net income of about $34B in the first half of 2017 [0]. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-13/saudi-a...

That’s insane. That’s more than Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet’s 2017 net income combined . How does a commodity business (oil and gas) generate so much profit?

Extract and refine it cheaply and then do logistics and shipping better. If you can do that and have enough, everyone will buy.

Oil/energy companies are still some of the most valuable in the world.

EDIT: also, demand is sky high. And OPEC works to manage our prices for economic stability.

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#18

Post by cookingrobot »

oooglaaa wrote: post #13
pterhx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if $45B is a line item to them, but to give you a sense of scale of how much money the Saudis have, Aramco had a net income of about $34B in the first half of 2017 [0]. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-13/saudi-a...

That’s insane. That’s more than Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet’s 2017 net income combined . How does a commodity business (oil and gas) generate so much profit?

Unlike (almost) every other business on earth where you have to do work and compete with peers to make a profit on your efforts, all the value of oil is sitting in the ground underneath them. Oil wealth is just luck of being born on top of the right geology.

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#19

Post by jypepin »

oooglaaa wrote: post #7

Saudi Arabia invested 45% of the 100B. It’s rare for a state to make such risky investments. Either they have a lot of available capital, and the 45B is nothing but a line item, or they’re trying to dig themselves out of a hole and they need to take on big, risky investments to do that.

they are trying really hard to get away from oil as their only income

Re: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, and the $100B Blitz on Sand Hill Road

#20

Post by sidko »

oooglaaa wrote: post #13
pterhx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if $45B is a line item to them, but to give you a sense of scale of how much money the Saudis have, Aramco had a net income of about $34B in the first half of 2017 [0]. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-04-13/saudi-a...

That’s insane. That’s more than Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet’s 2017 net income combined . How does a commodity business (oil and gas) generate so much profit?

>That’s insane. That’s more than Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet’s 2017 net income combined.

That's not insane, that's false. Just Apple's 2017 net income was $48.35B [1], more than the $45B in the parent comment.

[1] https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/sec-filings/se...

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