SoftBank Vision Fund (2017)
Masayoshi Son launched the $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund — the largest technology investment vehicle ever assembled at the time — backed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and other institutional investors. The fund poured billions into companies like WeWork, Uber, and dozens of AI and robotics startups, betting that massive capital deployment could reshape entire industries.
The fund's sheer size gave SoftBank enormous influence over startup valuations and strategy, pushing companies to prioritize growth over profitability.
Several marquee investments, most notably WeWork, collapsed in value. The Vision Fund posted tens of billions in losses before recovering partially. The experience became a cautionary tale about whether scale of capital alone can create technological transformation.
Bezos's reported $100 billion fund echoes Son's thesis that massive capital can reshape industries, but targets physical manufacturing rather than software platforms. The key question is whether Prometheus's technical thesis — AI trained on physical data — is more grounded than Vision Fund bets that relied primarily on market dominance.