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Behind ARM is an venture capitalist investment firm called SoftBank who's intent on making a huge windfall on the sale of ARM either from a takeover or an IPO.

Behind ARM is an venture capitalist investment firm called SoftBank who's intent on making a huge windfall on the sale of ARM either from a takeover or an IPO. Now that their plan for a sale to Nvidia has been foiled their looking for other ways to squeeze more money out of the pockets of their customers. Probably to increase the valuation of ARM before they take it public. The only thing this will result in is an increase in the take-up of RISC-V, speeding ARM's demise. Or maybe this is simply Softbank's plan: burn more brightly one last time before petering out.

bee_rider 4y ago
Isn't Softbank generally pretty well regarded? I'd be surprised if they went with a strategy of chasing away all of Arm's customers.
- als0 4y ago
  They are a textbook example of how to make terrible investments. They are definitely a shadow of what they used to be.
  - selectodude 4y ago
    Softbank lighting hundreds of billions of Saudi money on fire makes them a global treasure as far as I'm concerned.
    - Maursault 4y ago
      Was it really hundreds or merely dozens? Help me understand this please.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  Wasn't Softbank an investor in WeWork? [1] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-20/wework-stock-we-will-softbank-ever-make-its-17-billion-back https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-20/wework-st...
  - robocat 4y ago
    VC funds depend on a few massive successes, but the majority of their investments are expected to flame out. You cannot judge a fund by its glaring investment failures! But 95% of VC funds don’t make enough to beat their risk (see link in <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32773493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32773493>). Conversely, even that 95% number only implies that VC funds are poor investments: perhaps a 5% chance to win 100x is worth a bet? Our intuitions are usually wrong when it comes to power laws.
- foobiekr 4y ago
  SoftBank is not well regarded. They put a lot of stupid money into not great companies. They are generally viewed like the Saudi sovereign fund - dumb money but big.

bee_rider 4y ago

Isn't Softbank generally pretty well regarded? I'd be surprised if they went with a strategy of chasing away all of Arm's customers.

als0 4y ago
They are a textbook example of how to make terrible investments. They are definitely a shadow of what they used to be.
- selectodude 4y ago
  Softbank lighting hundreds of billions of Saudi money on fire makes them a global treasure as far as I'm concerned.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    Was it really hundreds or merely dozens? Help me understand this please.
mmastrac 4y ago
Wasn't Softbank an investor in WeWork? [1] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-20/wework-stock-we-will-softbank-ever-make-its-17-billion-back https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-20/wework-st...
- robocat 4y ago
  VC funds depend on a few massive successes, but the majority of their investments are expected to flame out. You cannot judge a fund by its glaring investment failures! But 95% of VC funds don’t make enough to beat their risk (see link in <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32773493 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32773493>). Conversely, even that 95% number only implies that VC funds are poor investments: perhaps a 5% chance to win 100x is worth a bet? Our intuitions are usually wrong when it comes to power laws.
foobiekr 4y ago
SoftBank is not well regarded. They put a lot of stupid money into not great companies. They are generally viewed like the Saudi sovereign fund - dumb money but big.