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Masayoshi Son: Double Down on Winning Investments Rather Than Fixing Losers

Nikesh Arora · Nikesh Arora: $300B, 40 Acquisitions, Still Paranoid · Aug 17, 2026 · at 49:34

Nikesh Arora, former president of SoftBank and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, recalls an investing lesson from Masayoshi Son on venture capital allocation.

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“He looked at me and says, if you put in that much effort on the company that's doubling, they might quadruple. We might make more money on the one that quadruples than you fixing the one that's broken. That's an insight. Like, that was an insight from him to me. It's like, as operators, there's a tendency to try and fix everything because we don't want things to break. As an investor, he said, double down on your winners. They're going to be way more interesting for you than the ones that are going to not make money.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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