📶 return of the Masa

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Masayoshi Son is one of the funniest people in tech.

He’s one of the wealthiest people on the planet, but he still has the risk tolerance of somebody with nothing to lose.

It’s hard to not respect that.

Yesterday he announced he was betting the house on future of America, and we’re breaking down why in today’s piece.

Let’s get into it.

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Masayoshi Son is back at it, this time committing $100 billion into US companies over the coming years.

Why it matters: This move would reassert SoftBank as the leading tech investor after spending the past few years as a laughing stock of the ZIRP-era of venture hype cycles.

But this story matters for more reasons than that alone.

What happens next: SoftBank’s $100B bet is part of a larger shift where AI infrastructure becomes the hottest asset class in tech.

Expect to see:

Bottom line: SoftBank’s move is about owning the picks and shovels of the AI gold rush, but the larger story here is that there is only one place to invest your money right now, and that is America.

The combination of:

Has given more optimism to invest in the US than we have had in decades.

If you’re a capital allocator, where else would you rather put money to work?

How has the art investing platform Masterworks been able to realize an individual profit for investors with each of its 23 exits to date?

Here’s an example: an exited Banksy was offered to investors at $1.039 million and internally appraised at the same value after acquisition. As Banksy’s market took off, Masterworks received an offer of $1.5 million from a private collector, resulting in 32% net annualized return for investors in the offering.

Every artwork performs differently — but with 3 illustrative sales (that were held for 1+ year), Masterworks investors realized net annualized returns of 17.6%, 17.8%, and 21.5%.

Masterworks takes care of the heavy lifting: from buying the paintings, to storing them, to selling them for you (no art experience required).

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- Clay

Here are the results from our poll question in Monday’s piece:

Is 10 years enough time for venture funds to return capital back to LPs today?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 It's more than enough time - you should be able to return capital faster (3)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 It's not enough time - funds need longer (3)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 It's the perfect amount of time and doesn't need to be adjusted (3)