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SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

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Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#81

Post by alberth »

siavosh wrote: post #76

Can someone knowledgeable explain SoftBank? Is it partly a Japanese sovereign fund...I've become less and less interested in its investments as it seems to simply act like a giant government money channel with questionable investments that don't seem to make sense from a typical VC/PE perspective. Ie is its ultimate goal not merely profit?

It's just a VC.

But it's so big (maybe biggest in the world), so its reach and influence is immense. And as a result, it has raised money from nations and other enormous entities.

Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big.

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#82

Post by jawiggins »

siavosh wrote: post #76

Can someone knowledgeable explain SoftBank? Is it partly a Japanese sovereign fund...I've become less and less interested in its investments as it seems to simply act like a giant government money channel with questionable investments that don't seem to make sense from a typical VC/PE perspective. Ie is its ultimate goal not merely profit?

SoftBank was founded by Masayoshi Son. It was originally a tech company that resold software (imagine Steam but for desktop apps), but very quickly it morphed into something like a PE firm that would do continual leveraged buyouts of existing firms. They've bought companies that run conferences, tech magazines, one of their more formative M & A deals was to buy the Japanese Vodafone arm. Many of these deals actually went pretty poorly, with Masayoshi overpaying for the firms he bought and then being saddled with very large debts to repay the loans. Masa was wiped out and faced bankruptcy multiple times.

Later on the would move away from leveraged buyouts and start investing in startups more similar to how a VC firm would in the US. He notably invested early in Yahoo and Alibaba.

The company is not a sovereign fund - it's really run at the behest of it's founder. If you want to read more about the story, there was recently a great biography that chronicled the story: Gambling Man (https://www.amazon.com/Gambling-Man-Greatest-Disruptor-Masay...)

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#83

Post by rabunite »

alberth wrote: post #53
klelatti wrote: post #5

So Softbank now competes with Arm's customers and (unless I've missed something on new governance arrangements) also gets access to confidential information on Arm's customers' businesses (plans, volumes etc). Hmmm.

Isn’t Ampere essentially the only company making server grade ARM chips. And all the rest of ARM customers are making mobile/desktop. So Ampere is going after a completely different segment that the rest of ARM customers aren’t addressing.

Nvidia is making arm server cpus.

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#84

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

alberth wrote: post #81
siavosh wrote: post #76

Can someone knowledgeable explain SoftBank? Is it partly a Japanese sovereign fund...I've become less and less interested in its investments as it seems to simply act like a giant government money channel with questionable investments that don't seem to make sense from a typical VC/PE perspective. Ie is its ultimate goal not merely profit?

It's just a VC. But it's so big (maybe biggest in the world), so its reach and influence is immense. And as a result, it has raised money from nations and other enormous entities. Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big.

> Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big.

I'm not sure how many folks these days would consider him an "oracle". He clearly did fabulously well with some early Internet investments, but he also was famous for folly after folly of overpriced investments in the 2010s (the Softbank "Vision Funds").

I'd be curious if there is a simple accounting list of Softbank's major investments ranked from biggest winners to biggest losers. I guess it pretty much highlights the dynamics of the VC business model - you only need a few giant winners to offset the boatload of losers. In Softbank's case, I'm guessing their biggest winners are Yahoo Japan (which was the dominate site in Japan for a long time, and long after the US Yahoo fell into irrelevance) and Alibaba, which saw their early $20 million investment balloon into billions.

But did Softbank have any winners from their 2010s spending spree (along the time where they shoveled good money after bad into WeWork)?

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#85

Post by trynumber9 »

lvl155 wrote: post #56

Are we peak ARM yet? Jokes aside, with coming decline in x86, why is AMD so slow to introduce ARM products?

What ARM core is available for AMD to use that is better than what AMD has been shipping in Turin?

Adapting Zen to a simpler-to-decode architecture would cost more than licensing a core from ARM. The Zen 5 front-end is adapted for working around deficiencies of x86 with dual-decode SMT craziness.

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#86

Post by alberth »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84
alberth wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a VC. But it's so big (maybe biggest in the world), so its reach and influence is immense. And as a result, it has raised money from nations and other enormous entities. Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big.

> Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big. I'm not sure how many folks these days would consider him an "oracle". He clearly did fabulously well with some early Internet investments, but he also was famous for folly after folly of overpriced investments in the 2010s (the Softbank "Vision Funds"). I'd be curious if there is a sim…

He made a big bet on NVIDIA when no one else did.

(Though he sold too soon and missed out)

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#87

Post by mola »

awongh wrote: post #70
riffraff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps you think this explains something but honestly it does not. I mean, yes, these people are ex-israeli army, but why would Google want to pay 32B for ex-IDF people? Surely there's more of them out there?

They're referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 You can scroll down to see the companies founded by alumni. The Meta CISO is ex-8200.

The unit gets to pick the most talented before the rest of the army. Most israeli startups are founded by unit alumni.

I'm not sure I understand what reverse merger means, or what OP is implying

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#88

Post by sgerenser »

bionade24 wrote: post #77
alberth wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Ampere essentially the only company making server grade ARM chips. And all the rest of ARM customers are making mobile/desktop. So Ampere is going after a completely different segment that the rest of ARM customers aren’t addressing.

Isn't Marvell/Cavium still in the ARM server business, too?

Not since 2020: https://www.networkworld.com/article/969117/marvell-exits-th...

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#89

Post by jonas21 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84
alberth wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a VC. But it's so big (maybe biggest in the world), so its reach and influence is immense. And as a result, it has raised money from nations and other enormous entities. Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big.

> Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big. I'm not sure how many folks these days would consider him an "oracle". He clearly did fabulously well with some early Internet investments, but he also was famous for folly after folly of overpriced investments in the 2010s (the Softbank "Vision Funds"). I'd be curious if there is a sim…

They've made close to $100B on ARM (which they acquired in 2016). This dwarfs the $14B they lost on WeWork. Of course WeWork gets far more attention because it's a such an entertaining story.

Re: SoftBank Group to Acquire Ampere Computing for 6.5B

#90

Post by huijzer »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84
alberth wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a VC. But it's so big (maybe biggest in the world), so its reach and influence is immense. And as a result, it has raised money from nations and other enormous entities. Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big.

> Run by Masa who many consider an oracle because his placed massive bets years before other people and those bets have paid of big. I'm not sure how many folks these days would consider him an "oracle". He clearly did fabulously well with some early Internet investments, but he also was famous for folly after folly of overpriced investments in the 2010s (the Softbank "Vision Funds"). I'd be curious if there is a sim…

VCs are indeed partly about giant winners offsetting the losers. But according to Taleb, the main part is to convince other people to put money in your fund and get rich from the management fees. So from that perspective, VC is mostly about pretending your fund does well and getting people to buy in. That's probably why VCs love to buy companies in overhyped industries.
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