孙正义钦定接班人、软银新总裁有何来头？

    谷歌前高管尼克什•阿罗拉去年加入软银集团，负责这家日本公司的投资战略，这项任务此前一直由软银传奇创始人孙正义亲自主抓。加入软银之前，阿罗拉曾在谷歌经营盈利颇丰的欧洲业务，并最终跻身这家搜索巨头的最高领导层。他最早是一名投资分析员，还在德国电信工作过，这些经历让他成为软银这家通信和互联网公司的合适人选。

    以昵称“Masa”闻名的孙正义不但凭借其巨大成就而成为日本最知名的企业家，他还是一名杰出的投资者。早在很久以前，他就投资了雅虎日本和阿里巴巴公司。后者也许堪称史上最佳投资之一，2亿美元的投入如今已经升值到了大约700亿美元。

    阿罗拉表示，孙正义打算把他的投资“爱好”转变为软银未来发展的基石。他已经走马上任9个月了。自阿罗拉加入软银以来，该公司已经进行了9次投资，包括最近出资1亿美元投资美国定位广告技术公司Banjo。其他的投资手笔还包括2.5亿美元投资Uber在东南亚的竞争对手GrabTaxi，6.27亿美元投资印度电子商务公司Snapdeal.com，斥资9000万美元投资印度房地产网站housing.com。

    坊间传闻，软银还试图收购境况不佳的梦工场动画公司，不过据说该计划最终流产了。

    上周，孙正义宣布阿罗拉将于今年6月担任软银总裁，此举震惊了科技界和投资界。如此一来，这位出生于印度的高管就会成为软银高层管理团队的一员，团队中还包括在软银工作了20年、经验丰富的罗恩•费舍尔。57岁的孙正义还表示，47岁的阿罗拉有望接替他担任首席执行官，尽管孙正义本人还没有退休计划。

    宣布这一决定时，阿罗拉正在日本，随后他已返回在硅谷的办公室。在这篇访谈中，他谈到了自己在软银扮演的角色、与孙正义的关系、软银为何冒险收购不景气的美国通讯公司Sprint等诸多问题。

    你是如何与孙正义走到一起的？

    在过去37年中，孙正义成功地确认行业趋势，并利用合资或自己出资投资于这些趋势——或是向这些趋势本身投入重金，或是投资相关公司背后的企业家。他收购了沃达丰日本公司，并将其改造为软银集团。他意识到了iPhone的重要性，并通过与史蒂夫•乔布斯合作得到了日本的专营权。几乎没有其他的网络公司能实现如此成功的转型。他发现了这种机遇。

    他还是个伟大的投资家。当初投资雅虎日本时，他花费了不到1000万美元，现在这笔投资已经转变成了该公司40%的股权，价值大约在80亿到100亿美元之间。阿里巴巴并非他挖到的第一桶金。他十分机敏，善于把握趋势。如果你看看软银的演变历程，会发现这是一家强大的日本公司，有一个人担任全球的首席执行官，而孙正义则负责所有的投资。我们结识于6年前，当时雅虎和微软正商谈搜索合作，还没有花费大量时间解决雅虎日本的问题。孙正义想确保他们拥有最好的搜索引擎，于是他来到谷歌，和我坐下来聊了聊。随后，他提出了一个与雅虎不相抵触的交易协定。这是他预判趋势的又一个例子。进行交易时，他敢于冒险，绝不斤斤计较。就在那时，我们成了朋友。他总是遵守诺言，以大局为重。

    我们花了许多时间来探讨电信市场。最后，我们的谈话由浅入深，孙正义说：“我们干嘛不合作呢？我需要把自己的事情当爱好来做，投资全球的科技公司，以此投资软银的未来。”

    你是怎样代表软银来进行投资的？

    对我来说，这几乎就像一家资金充足的初创公司开始大展拳脚。软银的资产负债表非常健康，超过50%的资产都位于日本境外。我们开始讨论一切事情。我和孙正义、罗恩•费舍尔花了些时间与马西罗•克罗尔（Sprint公司首席执行官）谈话。我们还探讨了日本业务。另外，我还用了不少时间与我们投资的印度公司的企业家们交流。就这样，我用了9个月来投资，与我们投资的公司并肩合作，并开始打造一个全球化团队。

    你寻求哪种类型的投资？

    孙正义和我观点一致：如果你去研究创新公司，会发现几乎每一家都有同样的生命周期。它们颠覆了旧有格局，成为了市场领袖，然后走向成熟期，可能是因为创始人选择了新的方向，或是商业模式被模仿，或是竞争加剧。然后，这些公司就很难成为创新领袖了。我们可以坐下来讨论一下：你如何才能创立一家长期拥有创新力的公司？其中一种方法是找到企业家，培养他们。如果我们每过几年，都能找到5至10个合适人选，与他们一起创造未来。

    在软银最近投资的公司中，有哪些经验可供我们借鉴？

    我们更倾向于伺机而动，而不是固守一个主题。我们的核心思路是确保要投资的是一个大型目标市场。孙正义有个说法：两条小鱼，有一条会成为鲸鱼，另一条会成为金枪鱼。显然，我们想要投资那条潜在的鲸鱼。

    对威瑞森公司收购美国在线这笔交易，你有何评价？

    没有。Sprint是威瑞森的竞争对手，蒂姆（阿姆斯特朗）是我之前在谷歌的同事，我和他们之间的交集太多了。

    软银对试图收购梦工厂的行为有过什么评论吗？或者你现在来说几句？

    没有。

    你对Sprint有什么看法？

    在孙正义收购这笔资产后，我们本应该更快地进行改组。现在，马西罗正在清理那些早就该收拾好的事情。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    审校：任文科

    Former Google executive Nikesh Arora joined SoftBank last year to oversee the Japanese company’s investment strategy, a task overseen so far by the legendary SoftBank founder, Masayoshi Son. Before joining SoftBank, Arora had been the top business executive at Google , having risen in the search giant’s ranks after running its highly profitable European business. He started his career as an investment analyst and also worked at Deutsche Telecom, making him a fit in all sorts of ways for SoftBank, a communications and Internet company.

    Besides the improbable achievement of becoming the most recognizable entrepreneurs in Japan, Son, known by the nickname “Masa,” has proven to be an extraordinary investor. He wagered early on Yahoo Japan and Alibaba. The latter investment alone may be one of the greatest investments ever, parlaying a bet of about $200 million into a stake worth in the neighborhood of $70 billion.

    Arora says Son aims to turn his “hobby” of investing into a foundation for the future of SoftBank. Already, Arora has had a busy nine months. Since he joined the company SoftBank has made nine investments, including the recently announced $100-million stake the U.S. geolocation advertising technology company Banjo. Others include a $250-million stake in GrabTaxi, an Uber competitor in Southeast Asia; a $627-million investment in Snapdeal.com, an Indian e-commerce company; and the $90 million SoftBank invested in housing.com, a property site in India.

    SoftBank also was rumored to have attempted to acquire the ailing film studio DreamWorks Animation, a deal that was said to collapse just before it was done.

    Son surprised the technology and investing world earlier this week by announcing that Arora would become SoftBank’s president in June, making the Indian-born executive part of a top-level management team that includes Ron Fisher, a 20-year SoftBank veteran. Son, 57, also anointed Arora, 47, his likely successor as CEO, though he has no plans to retire.

    Arora, who was in Japan for the announcement, returned mid-week to Silicon Valley, where he is based. He answered questions about his role at SoftBank, the nature of his relationship with Son, and the future for SoftBank’s risky acquisition of the laggard U.S. telecommunications company Sprint.

    How did you come together with Masayoshi Son?

    Masa has been spectacularly successful over the last 37 years in identifying trends, investing in them–either by putting money into them or investing in the entrepreneurs behind them—through joint ventures, or by doing it himself. He bought Vodafone Japan and made it into SoftBank. He identified the importance of the iPhone and, by working with Steve Jobs, he got exclusivity in Japan. Very few No. 2 or No. 3 networks have been transformed into successful companies. He saw the opportunity.

    He’s also a great investor. He turned a less-than-$10-million investment in Yahoo Japan into a 40% stake worth around $8 billion to $10 billion. Alibaba is not his first big return. He’s been very astute in his ability to identify trends. If you look at the evolution of Softbank it’s been a strong Japanese business with one person as a global CEO and with Masa doing all the investing. We met six years ago when Yahoo and Microsoft were doing their search deal. They hadn’t spent a lot of time figuring out Yahoo Japan. He wanted to make sure they had the best search, and he came to Google and sat down with me. He structured a deal that didn’t conflict with Yahoo. It was another instance of him anticipating a trend. And when he does a deal he acts boldly, without nickel and diming anything. That’s when we became friends. He is always true to his word and focused on the big picture.

    We spent a lot of time talking about the telecom market. We ended up going from peripheral conversations to deep conversations to Masa saying, ‘Why don’t we work together?’ He said, ‘I need to take what I do as a hobby, investing in global technology companies, to investing being part of SoftBank’s future.’

    How are you approaching the task of investing on behalf of SoftBank?

    For me it’s almost like a very well-funded startup playing in the big leagues. It has a strong balance sheet, and more than 50% of the assets are outside of Japan. We started talking about everything. He, Ron Fisher and I all spend time with Marcelo [Claure, the CEO of Sprint]. We also spend time on the Japanese business. I’ve spent a lot of time with the entrepreneurs of the Indian companies we’ve invested in. So I’ve spent the nine months investing, working with portfolio businesses, and starting to build a global team.

    What types of investments are you looking for?

    Masa and I share an insight: If you look at innovative companies, almost every one goes through a lifecycle. It creates disruption, becomes a market leader, and then matures, either because the founders move on or the business model is copied and competition increases. Then it becomes very hard to be the innovation leader. We sat down and said: How do you create innovative companies for the long term? One way is to find the entrepreneurs and nurture them. If we can find five to ten people to work with every few years we’ll build for the future.

    What themes should we take away from the companies SoftBank has invested in recently?

    We’ve been more opportunistic than thematic. The theme is that we want to make sure it’s a big addressable market. Masa has a saying, that of two small fish, one will become a whale and the other will become a tuna. We obviously want to invest in the fish that will become whales.

    Would you like to comment on Verizon’s agreement to buy AOL?

    No. There are so many related situations with Sprint, a competitor to Verizon, and Tim [Armstrong], who I worked with at Google.

    Did SoftBank ever comment about its attempt to buy DreamWorks, and would you like to now?

    No.

    What are your thoughts on Sprint?

    After Masa acquired the assets, we should have gone for restructuring faster. Now Marcelo is cleaning up the things that should have been cleaned up a while ago.