Ex-SoftBank CFO on OpenAI, Bubbles, and When to Sell

Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing

The Motley Fool

Business, Investing

4.3 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With great swings, come great wins and great losses. Few companies know that better than SoftBank, the Japanese holding company made famous for its investments in Alibaba, Arm Holdings, WeWork, and other tech names that have dominated headlines from the past decade-plus. Alok Sama is the former President and CFO of SoftBank and the author of the new book “The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble.” Ricky Mulvey caught up with Sama to discuss: OpenAI’s latest fundraising round. “Happiness for everyone” as an investment philosophy. The illusion – and reality – of power. Help Motley Fool Money win Signal’s Best Money and Finance Podcast: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2024/shows/general/money-finance Companies discussed: MSFT, NVDA, META, ME, ARM, BABA, OTC: SFTBY Host: Ricky Mulvey Guest: Alok Sama Producer: Mary Long Engineer: Desireé Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	People often ask me, you know, you're cynical about Silicon Valley, you're cynical about Wall Street,
0:07.0	which you seem to put Massas on on the pedestal. And that's the reason. I mean,
0:10.4	you have this quality that completely eludes me and you know when he tells me that that you know you're not enough of a hunter I get where he's coming from I could not have the I don't see what he does I don't see risks the way he sees it.
0:29.1	I'm Mary Long and not to look Samma former president and
0:32.1	CFO at Soft Bank International, and author of the new book, The Money Trap. Lost illusions inside the tech bubble.
0:39.4	Soft Bank is a Japanese holding company that's made big bets on some of the biggest names in
0:44.2	tech.
0:44.8	Alibaba, bite dance, arm holdings.
0:47.2	Also, Uber, Door Dash, Lemonade, Open Door, and a lot more.
0:51.2	Some of those bets have paid off handsomely. Others quite the opposite.
0:56.2	From 2014 to 2019, Samo was a top executive at Soft Bank where he worked closely with the firm's
1:01.2	founder Masayoshi San and had a front row seat as the company
1:04.8	launched its legendary $100 billion vision fund.
1:08.7	My colleague Ricky Mulvey recently caught up with Samma for a conversation about the delicious circularity in AI markets,
1:14.8	the difference between being a hunter and being a cook, what it means to live in the future,
1:19.2	and knowing when to sell.
1:21.2	Quick programming note before we get to today's show.
1:23.6	Since this conversation runs a bit longer than usual,
1:26.1	we won't be posting an episode tomorrow.
1:28.0	Enjoy the day off, fools.
1:29.1	We'll see you again on Monday.
1:38.4	We'll get into the book, but I want to start with this open AI news because you know, you're comfortable talking about your former employer, you just wrote a book about them, and they're
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Motley Fool, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Motley Fool and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.