"A definitive biography [that] tells us a lot about the world we live in, how the intersection of technology and finance has created enormous fortunes and changed lifestyles everywhere."
--Peter Tasker, Nikkei Asia
"Gambling Man combines insight into its subject's complex and mercurial personality-comparable to Walter Isaacson's recent life of Elon Musk-with a rarer quality: patient detailing of the labyrinthine financial path that led Son from the margins of Japanese society to a place at the very pinnacle of the global plutocracy."
--Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and author of The House of Rothschild and The Ascent of Money
"The story of Mayoshi Son and Softbank's ambition and error across decades is fascinating in its own right and essential to an understanding of global tech and finance since the 1990s. With literary flair and stunning revelations, Lionel Barber delivers one of the very best biographies of a business titan to appear in years."
--Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ghost Wars, The Achilles Trap and Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
"Penetrating analysis of one of the most important and least understood figures in global finance today. Very few journalists have ever delved into Son's complex and opaque past in Japan and Korea, and even fewer have successfully analyzed his meteoric rise in modern venture capital. However Barber charts this extraordinary story with panache, with a style that is highly accessible to the general reader - but also credible for financial insiders. A must read."
--Gillian Tett, best-selling author of Anthrovision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life, and Saving the Sun: Shinsei and the Battle for Japan's Future.
"Fascinating... Masa's story has the makings of an Ian Fleming novel. Lionel Barber cracked the code in helping us all understand this remarkable individual."
--Steven A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder, Blackstone
"Not only a first-rate biography of an elusive billionaire... an analysis of the recent age of tech-driven globalization."
--Bloomberg
"Like Ron Chernow on John D. Rockefeller, or Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs, Lionel Barber has given us the defining account of an era in business history. Gambling Man confirms Barber's gift for brilliantly decoding the nuances of power. He dissects the layers of Masayoshi Son's empire to reveal the anatomy of modern risk."
--Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition