Gambling Man by Lionel Barber, framework 2 of 8
The Yahoo! formula
The repeatable cycle Masa built from his Yahoo! investment.
Lionel Barber's framework, from Gambling Man, pp. 66 to 147.
- Find a cutting-edge US internet business
Look for a strong American company early, as with Yahoo!, E*Trade or Morningstar.
- Attract the foreign partner into a joint venture
Offer to be the gateway to Japan, with a Japanese version built on his terms.
- Own majority control of the venture
Take a majority stake in the Japanese unit and often put SoftBank executives in charge.
- Take the units public
List the venture, as with Yahoo! Japan on Jasdaq in November 1997.
- Use the proceeds for more deals
Recycle the cash and the market value into the next round of bets.
From chapter: PART TWO: RISE AND FALL, pp. 66–147
More from this book
All 8 frameworks-
Framework 3 · AI Kitao's bond liberalisation play How SoftBank refinanced a $500m bank loan and broke the main-bank system.
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Framework 4 · Offers and pricing The Vodafone Japan turnaround How Masa turned a third-rate mobile business into a challenger to NTT Docomo.
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Framework 5 · Offers and pricing Whole-company securitisation The financing structure that let a BB-rated SoftBank borrow for Vodafone Japan.
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Framework 6 · Growth and strategy The 30-Year Vision brainstorm How Masa ran strategy sessions for SoftBank's 30th anniversary.
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Framework 7 · Hiring and teams The Sprint turnaround under Claure The cost and capital moves used to fix Sprint after the failed T-Mobile merger.
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Framework 8 · Sales and negotiation Elliott's SoftBank playbook How the activist fund approached Masa and what it asked him to do.