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> The only valid critique of our approach I've heard is that it's a logistical pain to try and spread $100 billion around $5 million at a time. It's almost as

> The only valid critique of our approach I've heard is that it's a logistical pain to try and spread $100 billion around $5 million at a time. It's almost as if the fund was just a terrible idea to begin with. Masayoshi Son is famous for losing more money than anyone in modern history. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/how-sprints-new-boss-lost-70-billion-of-his-own-cash-and-still-stayed-rich/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/how-s... He made lots of investments but made all his money on Alibaba. In my opinion, he's actually a below average investor, and that bar is pretty fucking low. And it really shows when you look at how horribly the Vision Fund is performing. He got lucky once and has cultivated a personality around it, and people were dumb enough to believe him. He's not the brilliant investor that Warren Buffet is, he's the talented con man that Adam Neumann is. Maybe that's why he was happy to give him so much money.

N1H1L 6y ago
SoftBank is also Oyo's biggest investor, and get ready to hear about the billions they will lose there too.
- gordon_freeman 6y ago
  I had absolutely worst experience at Oyo. I had an overnight flight from Delhi to SFO and went there to get a few hours of sleep but ended up shouting frequently at their unprofessional staff for making too much noise. I could not get any sleep and thought I could have been better served by just reaching the airport early instead of staying at Oyo. Just adding my feedback here to illustrate that they have absolutely no oversight to maintain the quality standards at the hotels being booked by them.
  - mkagenius 6y ago
    Ritesh Agarwal the CEO of Oyo, is a bigger con-artist(1) than his fellow Neuman. Now if you indulge me, I propose that he will attribute his failure to Covid-19 and be forgiven unlike his fellow Neuman who didn't had that luck. Oh and an intereting fact, Sequoia just sold all its shares in Oyo, a few months back with a good ROI. Sequoia does make money even with con-artist founders. They are good. 1. https://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Will-the-real-Ritesh-Agarwal-please-stand-up.html https://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Wi...
    - robbiep 6y ago
      Already happening right? https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-12/son-s-2-billion-guarantee-at-risk-as-virus-hits-softbank-star https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/a...
    - geodel 6y ago
      One difference is at least now US media is calling Neuman what he is. Where as Ritesh dude is still an Indian hero as per local media.
      - threwrwe42342 6y ago
        > Where as Ritesh dude is still an Indian hero as per local media. He is not . The 'English media' is not the local media in India.
  - AJ007 6y ago
    There literally is no Oyo. They took hotels from the bottom x% of hotels, and guaranteed them revenue and got the Oyo sign slapped on the front door. Who could have thought this would work? Like starting a banana company by white labeling the bottom 1% of bananas in quality with your brand name. All the smelliest, most rotten bananas infested with bugs.
    - mikenyc 6y ago
      An amazing story of the guy who took over the banana industry, starting by buying all the "ripes" that were previously considered trash: https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/1250033314 https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/12500...
    - sriram_sun 6y ago
      > Who could have thought this would work? Some enterprising person on Airbnb! Trashy trailers repainted and rebranded as cabins around Redwood National Park. I'm not going back there, but there will be enough suckers if the traffic's heavy.
    - puranjay 6y ago
      Incredible that someone actually thought a new splash of paint and a big red brand can make up for the complete lack of culture, training, and motivation at the bottom rung of India's hotel industry. Did no one realize that they're in the hospitality industry?
- samizdis 6y ago
  There was a scathing Scott Galloway piece on OYO in January: https://www.profgalloway.com/oyomfg https://www.profgalloway.com/oyomfg "WeWork was an opportunistic infection highlighting the poor judgment of SoftBank. Oyo is the beginning of the end for Vision 1 as its brand moves from incompetent to malefactor. (And he's referenced it several times in other pieces.) Edited to add the quote from the linked OYO piece.
  - threw2342343 6y ago
    > a sizeable English-speaking population, and the world’s largest democracy. Only the latter turned out to be a bug, not a feature. Actually both of them are bugs. No country has done well by relying on brain-drain and mass labour export for its forex earnings (India's balance of trade is negative; education is restricted to English speakers). Democracies too typically work well once the pains of industrialization are worked out. These issues should be treasure troves for radical new research, but "Indian" researchers, are often more interested in pleasing their American peers than in solving problems in India (which ironically is itself the result of the first bug). Inevitably this results in BS 'social-justice' narratives, which are in vogue in the land of the free. Tragedy is that India is the prototypical example of how to ruin a grand civilization. Little wonder too. The Chinese speak of hundred year of humiliation; but Indians celebrate all the rapists and looters who ruined the nation over the past millennia. I imagine, it'll take a repeat of Europe (another 2 millennia of darkness), before they wake up.
  - CaptainZapp 6y ago
    I read it and thought it interesting and entertaining. He missed out on one global hotel brand, though, which covers the whole spectrum of cheap lodging to shameless luxury and does so successfully. Accor[1], offers the whole spectrum from Ibis Budget (used to be Formule 1 and ETAP) up to its Soffitel hotels and does so successfully. Personally I'm a fan of Ibis. Their offer is consistent and while the rooms are small and cooky cutter generic the beds are always good and the bathrooms work. Plus, they are usually well located and relatively cheap. So it is possible to have a successful budget hotel chain as part of your global brand and not even compromising your luxury offerings in the process. That said: You won't catch me dead in an OYO hotel,after seeing a few of those dumps in Malaysia. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accor
- puranjay 6y ago
  I don't think there is any startup with more ill will among customers than Oyo. The brand is completely toxic now, especially among India's younger millennial customers.
adventured 6y ago
He got lucky in a big way twice. The reason he was able to lose more money than anyone in history, is because the first time he got lucky like that was with Yahoo when a relatively small investment became worth tens of billions of dollars. He failed to sell though and Yahoo of course didn't have a sustainable position (unlike Alibaba). The epic boom in his Yahoo position is what initially made him famous during the dotcom bubble. It started the mythology of Masayoshi as a finder of those types of investments.
- sharadov 6y ago
  Masayoshi Son seems like someone who started believing like Midas, that anything he touches would turn to gold. I heard the guy speak, and he seemed full of himself. And he's taken Saudi money, I would not want to be in his shoes to say the least.
  - wolco 6y ago
    He is still way better off than your average hs commentor. It will be easy to pivot into anything.. flower shop.. ebay jeans store the sky is the limit.
  - chmod775 6y ago
    > Masayoshi Son seems like someone who started believing like Midas, that anything he touches would turn to gold. It is so incredibly common in the investment world to mistake extreme luck for skill and cling to flawed methodologies as if they were gospel because they worked once by chance. Your typical investment "strategies" are hardly better than someone bringing his lucky shoes to a gambling den.
- hkmurakami 6y ago
  Do you mean yahoo japan? They’re a separate company from Yahoo, and still very profitable and a 11 figure item on their balance sheet.
  - adventured 6y ago
    > Do you mean yahoo japan? No. Yahoo US was once worth ~$125 billion ($200b today) and Masayoshi's SoftBank owned 28% of it during the peak bubble days of 1999-2000. [1] Yahoo was a very big deal at the time, it was briefly an Internet juggernaut. That's a key reason why he was so rich during the dotcom bubble. That single position propelled his image and made him famous. To put into perspective how relatively massive SoftBank's Yahoo position was considered to be at the time in the tech world (and more broadly): if you go back to early 1995, it's a sum comparable to what Microsoft was worth ($30-$35b), and more than Intel was worth. The notion that a tech company could be more valuable than the old industrial giants like GM was still a rather confounding premise. [1] https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0705/6401146a.html https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0705/6401146a.html

N1H1L 6y ago

SoftBank is also Oyo's biggest investor, and get ready to hear about the billions they will lose there too.

gordon_freeman 6y ago
I had absolutely worst experience at Oyo. I had an overnight flight from Delhi to SFO and went there to get a few hours of sleep but ended up shouting frequently at their unprofessional staff for making too much noise. I could not get any sleep and thought I could have been better served by just reaching the airport early instead of staying at Oyo. Just adding my feedback here to illustrate that they have absolutely no oversight to maintain the quality standards at the hotels being booked by them.
- mkagenius 6y ago
  Ritesh Agarwal the CEO of Oyo, is a bigger con-artist(1) than his fellow Neuman. Now if you indulge me, I propose that he will attribute his failure to Covid-19 and be forgiven unlike his fellow Neuman who didn't had that luck. Oh and an intereting fact, Sequoia just sold all its shares in Oyo, a few months back with a good ROI. Sequoia does make money even with con-artist founders. They are good. 1. https://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Will-the-real-Ritesh-Agarwal-please-stand-up.html https://www.livemint.com/Companies/7CN7u5d4i3bfYgBAZLdLpM/Wi...
  - robbiep 6y ago
    Already happening right? https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-12/son-s-2-billion-guarantee-at-risk-as-virus-hits-softbank-star https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/a...
  - geodel 6y ago
    One difference is at least now US media is calling Neuman what he is. Where as Ritesh dude is still an Indian hero as per local media.
    - threwrwe42342 6y ago
      > Where as Ritesh dude is still an Indian hero as per local media. He is not . The 'English media' is not the local media in India.
- AJ007 6y ago
  There literally is no Oyo. They took hotels from the bottom x% of hotels, and guaranteed them revenue and got the Oyo sign slapped on the front door. Who could have thought this would work? Like starting a banana company by white labeling the bottom 1% of bananas in quality with your brand name. All the smelliest, most rotten bananas infested with bugs.
  - mikenyc 6y ago
    An amazing story of the guy who took over the banana industry, starting by buying all the "ripes" that were previously considered trash: https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/1250033314 https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/12500...
  - sriram_sun 6y ago
    > Who could have thought this would work? Some enterprising person on Airbnb! Trashy trailers repainted and rebranded as cabins around Redwood National Park. I'm not going back there, but there will be enough suckers if the traffic's heavy.
  - puranjay 6y ago
    Incredible that someone actually thought a new splash of paint and a big red brand can make up for the complete lack of culture, training, and motivation at the bottom rung of India's hotel industry. Did no one realize that they're in the hospitality industry?
samizdis 6y ago
There was a scathing Scott Galloway piece on OYO in January: https://www.profgalloway.com/oyomfg https://www.profgalloway.com/oyomfg "WeWork was an opportunistic infection highlighting the poor judgment of SoftBank. Oyo is the beginning of the end for Vision 1 as its brand moves from incompetent to malefactor. (And he's referenced it several times in other pieces.) Edited to add the quote from the linked OYO piece.
- threw2342343 6y ago
  > a sizeable English-speaking population, and the world’s largest democracy. Only the latter turned out to be a bug, not a feature. Actually both of them are bugs. No country has done well by relying on brain-drain and mass labour export for its forex earnings (India's balance of trade is negative; education is restricted to English speakers). Democracies too typically work well once the pains of industrialization are worked out. These issues should be treasure troves for radical new research, but "Indian" researchers, are often more interested in pleasing their American peers than in solving problems in India (which ironically is itself the result of the first bug). Inevitably this results in BS 'social-justice' narratives, which are in vogue in the land of the free. Tragedy is that India is the prototypical example of how to ruin a grand civilization. Little wonder too. The Chinese speak of hundred year of humiliation; but Indians celebrate all the rapists and looters who ruined the nation over the past millennia. I imagine, it'll take a repeat of Europe (another 2 millennia of darkness), before they wake up.
- CaptainZapp 6y ago
  I read it and thought it interesting and entertaining. He missed out on one global hotel brand, though, which covers the whole spectrum of cheap lodging to shameless luxury and does so successfully. Accor[1], offers the whole spectrum from Ibis Budget (used to be Formule 1 and ETAP) up to its Soffitel hotels and does so successfully. Personally I'm a fan of Ibis. Their offer is consistent and while the rooms are small and cooky cutter generic the beds are always good and the bathrooms work. Plus, they are usually well located and relatively cheap. So it is possible to have a successful budget hotel chain as part of your global brand and not even compromising your luxury offerings in the process. That said: You won't catch me dead in an OYO hotel,after seeing a few of those dumps in Malaysia. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accor
puranjay 6y ago
I don't think there is any startup with more ill will among customers than Oyo. The brand is completely toxic now, especially among India's younger millennial customers.

adventured 6y ago

He got lucky in a big way twice. The reason he was able to lose more money than anyone in history, is because the first time he got lucky like that was with Yahoo when a relatively small investment became worth tens of billions of dollars. He failed to sell though and Yahoo of course didn't have a sustainable position (unlike Alibaba). The epic boom in his Yahoo position is what initially made him famous during the dotcom bubble. It started the mythology of Masayoshi as a finder of those types of investments.

sharadov 6y ago
Masayoshi Son seems like someone who started believing like Midas, that anything he touches would turn to gold. I heard the guy speak, and he seemed full of himself. And he's taken Saudi money, I would not want to be in his shoes to say the least.
- wolco 6y ago
  He is still way better off than your average hs commentor. It will be easy to pivot into anything.. flower shop.. ebay jeans store the sky is the limit.
- chmod775 6y ago
  > Masayoshi Son seems like someone who started believing like Midas, that anything he touches would turn to gold. It is so incredibly common in the investment world to mistake extreme luck for skill and cling to flawed methodologies as if they were gospel because they worked once by chance. Your typical investment "strategies" are hardly better than someone bringing his lucky shoes to a gambling den.
hkmurakami 6y ago
Do you mean yahoo japan? They’re a separate company from Yahoo, and still very profitable and a 11 figure item on their balance sheet.
- adventured 6y ago
  > Do you mean yahoo japan? No. Yahoo US was once worth ~$125 billion ($200b today) and Masayoshi's SoftBank owned 28% of it during the peak bubble days of 1999-2000. [1] Yahoo was a very big deal at the time, it was briefly an Internet juggernaut. That's a key reason why he was so rich during the dotcom bubble. That single position propelled his image and made him famous. To put into perspective how relatively massive SoftBank's Yahoo position was considered to be at the time in the tech world (and more broadly): if you go back to early 1995, it's a sum comparable to what Microsoft was worth ($30-$35b), and more than Intel was worth. The notion that a tech company could be more valuable than the old industrial giants like GM was still a rather confounding premise. [1] https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0705/6401146a.html https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0705/6401146a.html