14 years ago, the founder of SoftBank boldly poured $20 million into an unknown website, connecting Chinese companies with foreign customers.

Yesterday, Alibaba applied to list on the stock exchange in the US.

Alibaba’s IPO will further burnish Son’s reputation as one of the world’s most erudite investors.

Masayoshi Son (left) and Alibaba founder Jack Ma at an event in 2010. Photo: Bloomberg

After spending about 22 billion USD to buy the third largest carrier in the US – Sprint Nextel last July, Son poured more than 1 billion USD into mobile phone distributor Brightstar and expressed interest in T-Mobile network.

`He is truly the Warren Buffett of Asia. When investing in venture capital, the criteria for evaluating success is how much you initially spent and how much you get now. Sometimes, you will profit 500 times more, in

Over three decades, Son used borrowed money to turn the software wholesaler he founded in 1981 into a phone company with operations spanning two continents.

The 56-year-old billionaire has created an empire, investing in more than 1,300 technology businesses.

His largest investment ever was $22 billion to buy 70% of Sprint shares, helping them reach 50 million subscribers in the US.

However, Masayoshi Son is not always lucky.

The group’s investments of hundreds of millions of dollars in other companies such as Alibaba and Nippon also decreased in value by several tens of millions of dollars.