Searching for India’s Son

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From times unknown, countries that have successfully made a mark in the world have a known ‘poster boy’ for the revolution.

Poster Boys

When the Industrial era began, it was with likes of Henry Ford and Rockefeller who made fortunes out of the business sponsorship of technological revolution disrupting a sector or industry.

Countries like India had their fair share with entrepreneurs and industrialists in Tatas and Birlas. Then in the poster boys like NRN and Azim Premji with the IT labour outsourcing movements to low cost havens like India.

The only static in technology is that it is anything but static.

I see what we propagated and learned 10 years back is history and redundant now.

While, what is in trend for 5-6 months is already being called out as outdated by many. But there is a common theme in all this change.

At one hand we have likes of Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and the now-not-so-famous Travis Kalanick. On the other side of the world is Jack Ma, Robin Li and likes.

To top it all, there is one gentleman who is dominating above and beyond all this. That is Mr. Masayoshi Son.

Masa, you see, unlike the traditional doer is the enabler with much required capital for funding businesses. With Softbank, he made a killing in multiple successful exits like Alibaba and also in the upcoming Sprint exit. He was also the brain behind the sell-off the darling of Indian startup ecosystem – Flipkart – to the traditional retail behemoth – Walmart. Another deal where Masa made a very significant gain in no time.

Vision Fund

Now he has come up with the Vision Fund. A single fund of $100B commitments that has changed the face of technology investing. The chart above shows the size and significance of this fund and its ability to influence the future of technology’s, and so the common man’s, world.

The question though remains is whether India have such a poster boy to be the face of Indian Tech Investing or a powerhouse that is an underling waiting to surface its face to the world. I see we might be losing another opportunity here if we dont have one.

Do comment if you think there is an India’s Son out there.