[The Editors' Verdict] How to Learn 'Tenbagger' Strategies from Masayoshi Son

Can Reading Economic News Make You Wealthy?
Developing an Eye for Industries, Not Just Stocks
Consistent Reading and Critical Thinking Are Key

Global venture investor Masayoshi Son (Korean name Son Jeong-ui), chairman of Japan's SoftBank Group, visited the Blue House in July 2019 and met then-President Moon Jae-in. Chairman Son said, "What Korea should focus on going forward is first AI (Artificial Intelligence), second AI, and third AI." This was his answer to the president's question about what Korea should concentrate on to lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Looking back now, Chairman Son conveyed the insight that "the day when AI will determine the future is not far off" to Korea, and gave investors a hint to invest in future industries that would soon become tenbaggers (stocks yielding tenfold returns). Considering the current global AI boom, Chairman Son's advice from four years ago is strikingly accurate.

Going further back, a similar situation occurred 25 years ago. In June 1998, invited by the late President Kim Dae-jung, Son visited Korea and was asked how Korea could overcome its economic crisis. He replied, "First, second, and third is broadband (high-speed internet)." Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, who was present, nodded in agreement. Whether Son's advice played a decisive role or not, subsequent focused investments in high-speed internet helped Korea become an IT powerhouse. The growth of related industries became a driving force in overcoming the foreign exchange crisis.

This month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited Korea and met President Yoon Suk-yeol. Like 25 years ago and four years ago, the president asked, "Which field should Korea focus on?" Altman's answer was "semiconductors." He elaborated, "In the AI era, non-memory semiconductors are needed, but due to the massive amount of data, demand for memory semiconductors will also increase significantly," adding, "To meet this demand, Korean semiconductors are essential, and many countries earnestly want to cooperate with Korea."

Sometimes, the futures envisioned by geniuses come true soon. Whether one sees these as opinions or as confident forecasts varies greatly depending on the listener. Is there a way to properly recognize this? By following the news with a longer perspective, reading and synthesizing it, some degree of verification and confirmation is possible. Even if statistics cannot be produced, a kind of big data can accumulate in one's mind.

Individual economic news often does not help much with investment. Sometimes a particular stock rises and is covered in the news, but the news no longer holds investment value. Isn't there a saying, "Buy on rumor, sell on news"? To see the flow rather than the facts, and the industry rather than individual stocks, training is needed. Understanding the flow and reading between the lines requires consistently reading and thinking about economic news, which is the best method.

Four years ago, SoftBank Ventures, led by Masayoshi Son, was investing in domestic AI-related startups such as Suar Lab, Vpro11, and Lunit. Suar Lab, a software solution company, successfully exited in 2019 by being sold to the U.S. machine vision specialist Cognex for 230 billion won. The medical AI company Lunit, which went public on KOSDAQ in July last year, currently has a stock price approaching five times its initial public offering price.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.