Richest man

Chapter 25 Asia: Nobutada Saji (2)
He is a firm-willed and dedicated person, and he is planning to change his Japanese surname "Amben" back to his Korean old surname "Sun" after he arrives in the United States.In Sun Zhengyi's mind, finding his most fundamental thing will be an eternal pursuit.

By chance, Sun Zhengyi bought a copy of "Popular Electronics" magazine, and a photo on it deeply attracted him: it was an enlarged IC chip produced by Intel Corporation.Sun Zhengyi was stunned. He saw the densely packed lines, as if he saw an empire building.He later recalled: "When I discovered that the size of computers is so small, if these chips are mass-produced, it will lead the world into the era of personal computers... At that time, I made up my mind that I must engage in the computer industry in the future."

In order to realize his ideal, Sun Zhengyi decided to work part-time, but he didn't want to wash dishes like others. He thought it was not creative, and he wanted to make money through his own inventions and creations.So he made a rule for himself: every day, he must spend 5 minutes on an invention, no matter how big or small.A year later, there were as many as 250 invention records in his "Invention Research Notes", which is equivalent to a small experimental library.And this includes the "multi-language translation machine" that brought him the first 100 million yuan in his life-that is Sun Zhengyi's most proud invention. It is equivalent to today's electronic dictionary. As long as you input Japanese words, The translator will report the correct English.

After the machine was manufactured, Masayoshi Son brought it back to Japan to seek investment, but his promotion was rejected by Canon, HP, Casio and other companies one after another. In the summer of 1977, 19-year-old Masayoshi Son came to Sharp Corporation in disappointment after hitting a wall at Panasonic. This time he was interviewed by Sasaki, known as the father of the Japanese electronics industry.Sasaki was moved by Sun Zhengyi's entrepreneurial passion and decided to cooperate with Sun Zhengyi, so Sun Zhengyi got his first contract worth 100 million US dollars.

At the age of 21, Sun Zhengyi returned to Japan and re-established the Japanese "Heyin World Co., Ltd."But at first he didn't think about what he wanted to do. He just knew that "once the career starts, it will take several years to invest in it. If it doesn't work, if you try it again, you will go far."To this end, he made 40-year forecast profit and loss calculation sheets, forecast balance sheets, capital turnover sheets, and organizational charts for 10 projects in more than two years.All the documents were piled up to be more than ten meters high.In the end he settled on computer software sales.

In September 1981, Masayoshi Son founded Japan Software Bank in Ono City, south of Fukuoka City, with a capital of 9 million yen. The office is on the second floor of a metal building with only two employees.On the opening day, Masayoshi Son held the first employee representative meeting, at which he delivered an impassioned speech, which was actually his life plan: "The sales scale will reach 1000 billion yen within 5 years. 100 billion yen. To make the company develop into a super company with several trillion yen and tens of thousands of people..." The "excellent" speech made the only two employees resign not long after.

However, I believe that these two employees must have regretted it later, because as Sun Zhengyi said, one month later, he used the opportunity of a trade fair to form a partnership between Software Bank and Hudson, the largest software company at that time. Partner, and since then opened the door to software management.In just a few months, Software Bank signed exclusive agency contracts with 42 personal computer stores and 94 software vendors, thus becoming the largest software marketer in Japan and controlling 40% of the Japanese software market.

Then, Sun Zhengyi opened the door to the publishing industry by chance: in less than a year, he successfully turned a magazine that was losing 2000 million yen per month into profit.The reason why he got involved in the publishing industry is still unbelievable now, because the computer media at that time refused to publish the advertisement of the software bank company, and Sun Zhengyi did it himself in a fit of anger.However, those who are familiar with Sun Zhengyi and those who have seen Sun Zhengyi's life plan at the age of 19 think that this is not surprising at all. A genius does not need many reasons to do a career.

In the spring of 1983, Sun Zhengyi suffered from severe chronic hepatitis due to overwork. At that time, he was just 25 years old and the company had only been established for a year and a half.Sun Zhengyi resigned from the position of president and began to recuperate from illness.During this period, he read a large number of books on management and history. Some media said that there were as many as 4000 books. Among the books he read during this period, Sun Zhengyi was most impressed by the introduction of "Sun Tzu's Art of War" and The Lanchester Law book.

Sun Zhengyi said: "Sun Tzu and Lanchester are both very good strategists. Interestingly, their ideas are very similar. In short, if you don't fight a losing battle, you must win it. War is not gambling. It is scientific and reasonable. The true spirit of these two art of war is to win without fighting, and M&A is to win without fighting. Many domestic operators and media practitioners cannot understand the true meaning of my M&A strategy. If they carefully read "Sun Tzu's Art of War" and "Lanchester Law", I believe that their views on mergers and acquisitions and my business strategy will change a lot..."

During his illness, Sun Zhengyi found the most powerful weapon to build his own empire, and after recovering from his illness, he was about to pick up the weapon and charge forward: in 1994, Software Bank successfully went public and raised 1.4 million US dollars of funds; In 1995, Masayoshi Son began to aggressively enter the Internet industry.In his mind, building a cyber empire would be his ultimate goal.However, such opportunities did exist in the Internet industry at that time. According to records, in 1995, the global Internet e-commerce transactions were only 3 million US dollars, and there were only 17.7 URLs. Today, these data have reached more than 1000 billion. US dollars, 500 million, and it is still growing exponentially-this means that every step you take at the beginning may become the herald of the times.

Sun Zhengyi took action. He first spent 50 billion US dollars to control Ziff-Davis, the largest electronic publishing company in the United States, Comdex and other related companies. This is a company that specializes in researching the information industry. Where are new inventions and who invented new technologies? We all know that this is what Sun Zhengyi values ​​most. According to his own statement, he spent money to buy a treasure map.As a result, this treasure map led him to find a big gold mine - Yahoo.

At that time, Yahoo was just a small company composed of five students, and Yang Zhiyuan was only 27 or 30 years old at that time.But in Yang Zhiyuan, Sun Zhengyi saw the same entrepreneurial passion as when he was a student.So, Sun Zhengyi said to Yang Zhiyuan: "I will invest 1 million U.S. dollars now and occupy 1998% of the company's shares." As a result, when Yang Zhiyuan couldn't believe his ears, he received 1 million U.S. dollars from Sun Zhengyi .Of course, it turned out to be one of the most successful investments in history, because by 200, his $1998 million investment had grown to $2 billion.So in February 2, Masayoshi Son sold 28% of Yahoo's shares in exchange for US$[-] million, making a net profit of [-] million, and he also owned [-]% of Yahoo's shares.

In 2000, the 43-year-old Sun Zhengyi fulfilled the life goal set at the age of 19 ahead of schedule: in that year, he became the richest man in Asia, with assets exceeding 3 trillion yen. "If there is the tallest mountain in Asia, the one on top must be a Japanese named Masayoshi Son."

However, there is another meaning of climbing the highest: you will be the first to see the sun, which also means that if you fall from the top, you will fall the hardest!Sun Zhengyi is the one who was awakened by the sun and fell from the top.Since 2000, the Internet, which once created countless myths of getting rich overnight, has been shrouded in nightmares.Nasdaq, which represents the miracle of the Internet, has shrunk rapidly since 2000, and stocks have been forced to delist because they fell below the $1 mark.It also means that you may be a billionaire yesterday, but overnight, you have nothing. Winter has taken over the emerging industry of the Internet, and the cold wind is raging and icy cold.In 2001, the coldest year on the Internet, it was predicted that 80% of the websites would eventually have to be shut down.

It was at this time that the Empire State Building that Sun Zhengyi built with his dreams began to collapse.In just two years, Sun Zhengyi's wealth has shrunk rapidly, from a peak of 775 billion U.S. dollars to 15 billion U.S. dollars, a drop of 98%, almost creating another Guinness record in the wealth world (if there is such a If there is a record, it must be him). In 2001, the American "Forbes" magazine also deeply analyzed the reasons for Sun Zhengyi's fall from the altar, and just a year ago, it was "Forbes" that awarded him the crown of the altar.

Saji Nobutada: The new richest man who took over at the age of 55
When history makes all the once brilliant people fall, what kind of person will it arrange to appear? The answer is a low-key person.Since 2003, Japan's richest man has been occupied by one person, his name is Saji Nobutada.

Like Tsutsumi Yoshiaki, Saji Nobutada also gradually became the richest man by inheriting wealth, but compared with Tsutsumi Yoshiaki, Saji Nobutada endured for a longer time. It was not until 2000 that he officially took over Suntory - at that time Nobutada Saji is 55 years old.

Even today, Suntory has grown up in obscurity, and its reputation is far from being comparable to that of Sony and Toyota, nor can it be compared with Seibu or Softbank back then, but this does not detract from its becoming an excellent company with a long history.

Suntory was born in 1899 and was founded by Saji Nobutada’s grandfather Shinjiro Bird Well. Its original name was Bird Well Store. The goal of the establishment at that time was to produce whiskey. In 1923, Shinjiro Torii founded Japan's first distillery, the Yamazaki Distillery, in the Yamazaki area near Kyoto.However, the business of the Bird Well store was not booming at that time, even a little deserted.It was not until after World War II that the Japanese way of life was gradually westernized that Suntory's business became more and more prosperous. As the Japanese wine tasting culture became popular, Suntory's business scale continued to expand.But it can achieve the state where Japan's richest man is born like today, it is by no means a little help from the situation, which can be seen from Saji Nobutada.

Compared with Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, Saji Nobutada, who became the boss of Suntory when he was close to middle age, is undoubtedly more proficient in perseverance. Therefore, on the growth path of Suntory, you can see various unknown but extremely firm development strategies .Although the current Suntory Group is already a large company among the world's top 500, its main business is basically concentrated in the fields of daily consumer goods such as alcohol, beverages, and food. Extended industries related to consumer goods such as pharmaceuticals, catering management and entertainment are developing slowly.This is like a person spending decades or nearly a hundred years sharpening a sword. When the sword is completed, its benefits can be imagined!Today's Suntory has firmly occupied the position of the leader in the Japanese wine and beverage industry. It occupies 62% of the Japanese whiskey market share, and since it launched oolong tea in Japan in 1981, it has been in the forefront for more than 2003 consecutive years... all These honors reached the highest point in Suntory's history in [-]: their boss became the richest man in Japan.But for the honor, Saji Nobutada put an indifferent image aside. In a rare interview with the media, he said: "I never feel that I have created any miracles!"

Therefore, when many experts study Suntory today, they have to point out that it is a company with dual characters of silence and fashion. In other words, the success of Suntory is a combination of Sun Zhengyi’s focus and Tsutsumi’s perseverance: It also has a long history and was born as early as 1899, which is similar to Seibu; at the same time, its founder Shinjiro Torii started his business with the dream of "making whiskey belonging to Japan", which is also similar to Seibu. Sun Zhengyi is similar; it sticks to an industry for decades, thus becoming the most authoritative company in that field; when it sees development opportunities, it comes to China decisively, making China its new driving force for development; and when needed When the new image appeared, it had the courage to innovate, and invited Koizumi Kotaro, the son of Koizumi, as the image spokesperson, which set off a news storm that no one can explain... In all these ways, you can find Tsutsumi Yoshiaki in Suntory The shadow of Sun Zhengyi can also be seen, and it is in this combination that Suntory and Saji Nobutada have become real, making everything calm.

Regarding the elaboration of history, Francis Fukuyama, a Japanese-American scholar, has such a wonderful description: "History is not a blind pile of major events, but a meaningful whole...No one thought that he would discover all the mysteries of mathematics , but the accumulation of mathematical knowledge enables each generation to build on the achievements of the previous generation."

Today, when we study the development history of the richest man in Japan, you will see the crazy life of Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, the legendary experience of Masayoshi Son, or the silent mystery of Nobutada Saji.In fact, as far as these single events are concerned, they are all just a moment in history, but when we put such independent events on the stage of history and in a coherent passage, we find that the ending of any story seems inevitable De: Reading Yoshiaki Tsutsumi’s achievements, we can find that he is actually the inevitable result of Japan’s real estate madness; and Masayoshi Son’s success is the myth of “getting rich overnight” brought about by the rise of the Internet in the world. There is a legend of "overnight poverty"; and the appearance of Saji Nobutada is also inevitable, just like there will be a high tide when the tide is high, but when the tide is low, the apex still exists, but it is high when there is no high tide.

In the ebb and flow, what is deduced is a kind of commercial change.The Sri Lankans have passed away, but history has left their shadows; although it is no longer Yoshiaki Tsutsumi or Masayoshi Son standing on the stage of the richest man today, but a man named Nobutada Saji, will Nobutada Saji be the end? Should be no.If I want to do something, I either do it spectacularly, or I don't do it at all.

(End of this chapter)