I heard that a16z did something similar when they started - they were willing to pay a significant premium because 1) they had more conviction in their bets and

I heard that a16z did something similar when they started - they were willing to pay a significant premium because 1) they had more conviction in their bets and 2) to win deals/access when starting off. Softbank is just doing this on steroids, and we'll see what happens. Though I am glad that this much capital is at least being directed to high growth tech companies creating things (rather than being used for financial engineering like MBS/CDOs)