From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Masayoshi son is here. He is the chairman of softbank corporation. It is one of japans largest mobile carriers and one of the largest tech companies. In 2013 it acquired sprint for most 22 billion. It has stakes in over 1000 other companies. Forbes recently estimated his net worth at 18. 4 billion. It makes him the richest man in japan. I am pleased to have him at the table for the first time. Thank you very much. Youre going to speak to the u. S. Chamber of commerce this week. What are you going to tell them about the wireless revolution . I would say that mobile internet, the internet highway, is the most important infrastructure for the weaver century or the 21st century. That theres so clear is no other infrastructure that is more important for the 21st century. However, the u. S. Is number 15 in the world when someone did the survey. Out of 16, number 15. In terms of what measurement . Speed. Only company the u. S. Daily country the u. S. Beats was the philippines. They did not beat south korea or japan. Countries, the u. S. Was beaten. It is a good enough situation for the 21st century, the most important infrastructure, u. S. Is lagging behind. The u. S. Has been number one in infrastructure for almost everything in the 20th century. The television, almost everything. You believe that is because two carriers, verizon and at t, have more than 60 of the market . Thanre than 75 and more 80 for corporate. They are stifling innovation, in your judgment . They are happy with where they are. They make a ton of money and free cash flow, all dividends going back to the shareholders. Theyre very comfortable where they are, which i dont blame them. If i were in their shoes, i would be happy. Because they are in such a happy position without facing a real competition from some strong challenger, they can relax. Ught sprinto and now you want to buy tmobile. If we could, but we have not agreed you have not made an agreement with tmobile. What are your chances . I dont know. Is it money or Something Else . I am not here to talk about any details in that situation. Why not . Look, in general we have to we have to make a deal. We would like to make a deal happen but there are steps and details that we have to work out. Tom wheeler is chairman of the fcc. He wassuggested that make sure there is competition in the market. He is not in favor, generally, in mergers between, say, sprint and tmobile. You own sprint, and therefore you would have a huge position in the american market. Yes. And theye is a take more than 80 of the free market cash flow. Onescomes the two little who were not able to fight without enough scale. That is no good. I think it needs to be change. Make a dealyou can and had sprint and tmobile, what would you be able to do as a carrier in the United States . We need a certain scale. Toe we have enough scale have a threeheavyweight fight you like that, dont you . Yes. I would like to have a real fight, not a pseudofight. Fight,annot have a real we grow a more massive price warm. Price war. You are willing to postpone profits in order to gain market share . Exactly. I want to be number one. If we were number three and if we had enough chance, i want to be number one. I would go to price competition very aggressively and Network Competition to create a worlds best network. Of 16. Is number 15 out i am ashamed of that. I am not here to criticize the u. S. s situation. Im here to say, i now own part of the responsibility and i would like to provide u. S. Citizens with the worlds number one network. Let me go back to japan. What was it like growing up in japan, the son of korean and chinese parents . It is not easy. Japan is a homogenous country. One culture with one race. If you are considered an outsider, it is not easy. , i stick up enough. People know that i am myself. And at 16, you came to San Francisco and made your way to berkeley. You graduated. What did you want to do when you got out . I wanted to start my own company. When i was a student at berkeley at 19 years old, i wanted to start a Small Company and may the first electronic dictionary. Translator and dictionary. And then sold it . Sharp forrps to 1. 7 million. For a 19yearold kid, it is not bad. I did another computer game that maybe 1. 5 million. I got a little over 3 million when i was 19. I never used venture capital. You never went out and raise money, but you had money yourself . That is better because you dont have to if you are partners you have, the better off you are. If you succeed. If you can get by without the capital. When did you go back to japan . Graduated ier i went back. I promised my mother that as soon as i finished haulage i would be back. I kept my word. And then you begin your march to war you are today. You seem to have done a by two things. Not only your own company but investing in other companies. You have had a keen eye for what may be an excessive a successful investment. Just the most recent ones alibaba. Is going to be a huge payday for you. It will be one of the largest ipos around. We are lucky. You need luck once in a while. Your heroes are the formers of sony. You like them because they have passion, vision, they are founders of a huge brand. They are pioneers. They pioneered the electronic industry. They pioneered the Automobile Industry in japan, fighting with the incumbents, not helped by the government but they made themselves. You admire bill gates and steve jobs a lot. Steve jobs, you thought, was what . Leonardo da vinci. With art and technology combined. And engineering as well. 500 years later, people would compare steve jobs with da vinci. That is my view. Looking for somebody to a carrier, in japan, for the iphone, you said, me that was two years before he introduced the ipo the iphone. If i entered into the mobile business, the mobile carrier i need a weapon. So i called him up and went to see him. Ipodught my drawing of an in a mobile capability. I gave him my drawing and steve , dont give me your drawing. [laughter] i have my own. Dont i dont need your drawing, masa. I dont need to give you my dirty paper, but i want you to have your own product. Give it to me for japan. He says, youre crazy. Butre not close to anybody you came to see me as the first guy. I give it to you. Is that right . So you walked away as the carrier in japan that would be affiliated with the iphone. Before i acquired vodafone japan. I said to him, if you can give me exclusively for japanese market, that will be fantastic. Write it down and sign it for me. [laughter] he said, masa, im not going to sign up for you because you dont even own a mobile carrier yet. Steve, you give me your word. I will bring you a carrier for japan. And you did. I did. There was some concern as to whether the japanese consumer would like the iphone. Why do you think it would . Its the industrys technology direction. Before iphone, most of the handsets were just a crappy handmade software without operating systems so that not so many standalone applications and software could come as a platform. Like a pc. This is an internet device that you can carry around. It is not a mobile phone. It is an internet machine. It is my view. He is the first guy who could create a device with an operating system so that it would be a platform for every application, for surfing the internet. Bill gates you know and admire bill gates. Very much. Both are my heroes. What you think bill gates missed so much . He had such a fantastic success. With the operating system for pc. When you were so successful in to thing, you have something protect. It is difficult to cannibalize and he was retiring from the company. He no longer had the passion to go on to the next thing. He had other things that he wanted to do in terms of philanthropy. Someone once said to me about steve that unlike others, he saw everything with a beginners eye. Besought with a freshness. He was not encumbered by the way it had been. He does not care about anybody elses idea. He hadated himself to create it himself with a clear eye for the future. That is what i admire the most. He has tremendous focus. You more the financial guy who understands how to make a deal, but also understands how to find the companies that you want to make a deal about rather than being a creative guy . If steve is art and technology you are . I am finance and technology. No art . I love art, but i am not an artist. Isme, what is more important the information revolution. That is more important to create a new lifestyle. If i can help bring in toormation revolution mankind, i dont have to do everything. I can bring everybody elses talent. I can bring the infrastructure you bring the roadway that they come on. Yes. I dont have to create the ferra ri or honda. I can create a highway for all of the beautiful automobiles. I can create the toll gates. I can create the entire ecosystem for the automobile revolution. That is what im trying to do. I am bringing information revolution. For these internet devices, the highway itself as an infrastructure is not good enough. That was a big problem for japan, so i challenged ntt because they had 99 market share on the information highway. Did they give you fiber lines or something . I asked the government to d ate,late deregul unbundle all of the copper and fiber services. To create the information revolution and create the information highway, you need a lot of capital. That requires a lot of finance. Money is not the most important thing to me but money is required to invest tens of billions of dollars. My impression is that you want to be the biggest in the world, period. Fair enough. Google is laying a lot of fiber in the United States. They want to provide the highways, too. They have designated markets where they have there is also comcast now buying time warner. John malone wanted to be part of that. Who knows . Maybe comcast will by john malones company. Orit going to be the telcos the Cable Companies . That is a very good question. This is a capitalintensive industry. Emerging from the wireline broadband information highway and the wireless information highway. This kind of device can get with wired or wireless broadband. Either way, and ipad is an ipad. What people care is how the ipad or iphone can function seamlessly and fast. Fixedlineast, only broadband could provide highspeed internet for this device. Now wireless is becoming very powerful. There will be alternatives. And that is the revolution right there, what wireless is able to do without the fiber. That raises the question of the velocity of wireless and how good it is. You have complained about the carriers here in terms of they are not innovative, but you say they have a faulty system. Network andy slow you get disconnected all the time. It is poor quality. It is just poor quality. I think there is a way to fix it. How would you fix it . First, i need the scale of company. Scale of the subscriber. Sizeu have to have enough to compete with the big boys. I need to become a heavyweight. It is a heavyweight fight. [laughter] i cannot be a tiny mosquito. That will not work. They will squish you. Right. They would ignore us so they could stay profitable and be fat. I want to make them fight back so that they also become muscle instead of fat. It is good it is called competition. It is good for the United States. I want to show them our technology that we have, which is much faster. After 200 megabits per second, this is much faster than fixedline broadband. We have the technology for that. Your wireless is faster than fixedline broadband . Yes. We are ready have that. Tokyo is fast. Where is it the fastest in the world . Extent. Alia to some with a crowded user, japan and seoul are the top two. You have this giant battle systems,perating android and apple. Which is better . Apple is like a ferrari. For highand the users, it is highend users, it is beautiful. Android is more general. It is for countries who cannot products. Hend so it depends on what they can do for particular kinds of customers. This. G is serious about what you think of samsung . Samsung is a great company, great company. They are going to succeed. Theyre going to continue to grow. How did they do it . They have so many , fromlogies semiconductors to the lcd displays and all these things. They have Product Technology and they have a passion to make success. Take me back to the. Com bust. What happened to you . For three days, i was reaching up to bill gates. Ellison was richer than bill gates for a couple of days. But you were there for three days. Did you tell everyone when you are really richest man in the world when you were the richest man in the world . I did. [laughter] before i said it, i was sitting down. Youve got a chance to tell them, and it was over. For three days we were 200 billion in market cap. Crash. Then came the what were you after the crash . 2 billion. 99 down in whaone year. 70 billionfrom dollars to 609. Did you have a doubt you could come back . I had a confidence. I had a confidence that our number of users kept growing, because our profit kept growing. Eithererreaction up or down. That was my belief. The internet will continue to grow. As long as Internet Users continue to grow, the traffic continued to grow, it will come back. That was my someone said to me the other day, google is going to be the Biggest Company in the world. Arc my word. Mark my word. There is a good possibility for that. When ibm was growing, people said ibm. When microsoft was growing, microsoft forever. Now google has that position. Who knows . 30 years later were 300 years later what is going to happen . They call that disruptive technologies. Disruptive. Initely smart people, great engineers come and great vision. Great engineers, and great vision. There one of the most capable companies. I have a high amount of respect for them. As i said, technology evolves. Technology continues to grow over 300 years. Apple still has tim cook, johnny ives, and others. They are a great company. They were running it whilst he was sick while steve was sick. Great company. Those companies, amazon, Facebook Jeff bezos is a bit like you. He likes to get market share. He is willing to cut prices to get market share. He is very smart. Longterm view. What did you think of the facebook application acquisition of whatsapp . Very smart. So you wouldve paid 16 billion if you had facebook users . For no doubt. No doubt for one moment. What is your philosophy for this . If you can figure out what it is worth, then get it. If you have to pay the top price, but you see the potential, do it. Yes. I am looking at the future, not the past or the present. In 10 years, 20 years, what can we do if we get more power . Here is what they say about you. They say not only that you want to be the Wireless Infrastructure and have the worlds biggest carrier, but you also want to be in content. Content, application, the service. Those are the fruits and flowers on the basis of the platform. We want to provide the platform, which is the infrastructure, and then we want to help grow those bunch of different flowers and fruits. That is our view. It is like john malones Cable Company with liberty media. Video is worthy world is in terms where the world is in terms of power. The internet. You are interested in solar, wind. You are looking at those as future technologies that will change the world. Yes. That was not my initial interest at all. Of the only because earthquake in japan three years ago. Without electricity, the internet does not work. Communications do not work. All of the japanese people are suffering from the shortage of electricity. What did you decide about nuclear as a result of that . I dont believe nuclear is a longterm solution. I am against it. You are . That is why i am trying to provide alternative solutions. It is not just a business decision. You think this is best for japan . For the people of japan and the world. What you think of your Prime Minister . Well, he is a smart guy. I dont agree with everything what dont you agree . Dont give me that position. [laughter] im going to have a problem back in japan if i have i say those comments. [laughter] you think he is too nationalistic . Well, he can be much more, you know, how do you say, balanced. You would like to see a more balanced . I would hope that he would have at least people would see him more balanced. At least he is not perceived as a balanced situation. That is not good for him or the country. We live in a global world. Do differences in culture matter . , internet is already connected worldwide. Governments, the divides the barriers between the countries. This is our world. There is no boundary. We can travel around the world in less than one second. People can communicate with each other, meet and face each other over the internet instantaneously. The world would have much more eace and we would forget about these frictions and so on. What else are you interested in . Revolution is the only thing to which i dedicate my life. This is the only thing that i am so excited about. Agriculturale revolution, the industrial revolution, and the information revolution. That is not a small subject. Lastis a subject that will the next 300 years. That is why i say we have a 300 year vision, we want to focus this information revolution and the technology evolves. As i said, i dont care what technology. I dont care about this if this technology is invented by us or our employees. I dont care. I want to bring everyone be innovation, bring them into our ecosystem together. Many American Companies are interested in one brand, one business to conquer all over the world. I am not that kind of guy. I believe in partnership. In my view, investing into the will help them grow their passion in their way. This passion, that passion. If i can assist with all of these exciting entrepreneurs who come up with Great Technology or services, i will be more than happy. I dont need to be a hero. Inould rather them be a hero the ecosystem that we create. That is my 300 year vision. Product,epend on one one business model, or one brand. I would rather be a Silicon Valley. They are my partner, of course. I am interested in creating. , allpect Silicon Valley the passion and things happening. I want to create a virtual Silicon Valley in the Softbank Group family that our many brands, and bring synergy. You will get it in social media, as well . One way or the other. Thank you for coming. It is good to see you. Is here, an deneuve