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You had the opportunity to invest in Jeff Bezos at the very beginning, but you didn't . Why? I am so stupid. Don't make me blush. I have regretted this my whole life. He and I sat face to face in a small hotel in Switzerland, talked for a few hours about investments, and we almost agreed , you know, uh...
What year was that? Before its IPO. So we were talking, you know, SoftBank is investing $100 million for 30% of his company, and the valuation we were talking about was around $300 million, and he said, "No, Masayoshi, you're crazy. We're not a $ 300 million company." He said, "We're a $ 350 million company." So this difference was only $50 million, and we talked, and I said, okay, okay, maybe you're right, maybe we're wrong, and I'll talk to my guys in Tokyo and get back to you, and right after the trip I went to talk to my people, and everyone said, maybe this is a crazy idea, maybe you're right , but where's the money?
And after an hour of discussion, I said: well, you're right, we don't have any money. So we abandoned this idea. Let me ask you about one thing that was in the news over the last year, and you called it a mistake, so I'm wondering what lesson you learned from that. WeWork, of course, was what you said was a mistake.
Now that you've thought about it and taken the time to learn from it, what was the lesson? Well, I think that's a lesson that Adam Newman learned himself, that he made a mistake, and he's a smart guy. I think he accepts and admits that he made a few mistakes. I think he's a smart guy, an energetic guy, he has a lot of abilities.
He can convince people, he is a great leader. Uh , but he made a certain mistake. You know, every person makes mistakes, and in the end, well, you know, his investments, his decisions, and I am partly responsible for his mistake. So I still love him. I still respect him. I'm sure he'll come back and do many more great things in the rest of his life.
So I, I, I firmly believe that one day he will become very successful, and he will say that he, he learned a lot, uh, from his, his, uh, past life. But, uh , you know, again , we suffered big losses on the WeWork investment, billions of dollars, and that's my mistake, okay? Eh, but fortunately, we have other successful projects.
So overall we're still, we're still in the black, uh, you know, by tens of billions of dollars. Er , er, so I hope that other investments in our Vision Fund will bring us additional profits. How much time do you spend thinking about the mistakes you made? You know, there are people who forget about them right away, and there are people who study them for a very, very long time.
Well, first of all, there are two types of people when you make a mistake. One type of person does not want to accept, to admit that you made a mistake, and such people try to find all sorts of excuses and arguments as to why you made the wrong decision. And the other group accepts and admits the mistake.
And I'm one of those people who would rather , uh, you know, uh, accept my stupidity and my ignorance, my, you know, uh, bad decisions, so that I can learn from my mistakes. I don't need to justify my mistake. I accepted: sorry, I was a fool. Yes? Uh, so I can learn quickly and try not to make the same mistake.
I don't want to bring this up again and again, but it's better to accept it so I can become smarter. What?
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