Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora says how he saw SoftBank's Masayoshi Son do everything his mother told him 'not to touch'

Nikesh Arora

, former

SoftBank

president and current CEO of

Palo Alto Networks

recently shared an insight about his former boss and Softbank founder Masayshi Son. Arora described the Softbank founder as a man who defied every rule of caution and went ahead to win big. Arora described Son’s career growth to that of Benjamin Button, suggesting that he lived his life in reverse.Speaking on a podcast recently hosted by Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, Arora mentioned that Son’s life approach as been similar to that of Benjamin Button, referring that the Japanese billionaire is aging in reverse between the ages to 50 and 60. “He was going, touching everything his mother said don’t touch,” Arora quipped, mentioning that Son has a fearless investment style which is totally opposite of traditional risk aversion.Arora who worked with Son during his tenure at Softbank said that the tech billionaire has an unmatched appetite for risk. “Masa’s the other way around. ‘What are we going to do today? Great. All in,’” he recalled. He further added that Son’s bold bets resulted in both dramatic wins and losses. Arora stated that Son also struck gold with his early investments in Yahoo! Japan, Alibaba, and ARM Holdings, but also faced near-bankruptcy and public scrutiny after some missteps with WEWork. Despite this volatility, Son’s net worth still stands at $38.8 billon, which makes hie the second-richest person in Japan.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son predicts this AI company will be world's most valuable

SoftBank is ‘all in’ on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. CEO and Founder

Masayoshi Son

said the company is betting heavily on the

artificial intelligence

(AI) company, with planned investments worth 4.8 trillion Japanese yen (around $33.2 billion). Son said he believes OpenAI, currently unlisted and not profitable, will eventually become “the most valuable company in the world.” Speaking at a shareholder meeting, Son said SoftBank’s long-term goal is to play a leading role in the era of artificial superintelligence (ASI)—a concept he described as AI that is 10,000 times smarter than humans. The Japanese tech conglomerate has been expanding its partnership with OpenAI this year, including joining the $500 billion Stargate project.