#40 The Chronicler

Behind the Balance Sheet

Lionel Barber is the former editor of the Financial Times and probably the only journalist on the planet to have interviewed Presidents Obama, Trump and Putin. Under his stewardship, the FT metamorphosed from a newspaper into a digital subscription business, and was sold to the Japanese company Nikkei for 44x earnings. And as editor, Barber fully backed up former guest Dan McCrum in his investigation of Wirecard. I was delighted when Lionel agreed to come on the show to talk about his new book, Gambling Man, a biography of Masa Son, founder of Softbank and creator of the $100bn Vision Fund. I have long been curious about Son, who for 3 days at the peak of the dot.com boom was the richest man in the world. Barber spent 3 years writing his meticulously researched book for which he interviewed 150 subjects, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, as he explains in our discussion. Some of his stories, including his description of Son’s inner sanctum, are marvellous. If you enjoy this episode, head over to our Substack, (sign up button on https://behindthebalancesheet.com/), take the monthly paid option and get exclusive additional content, including Steve's interview with Alok Sama, former CFO of Softbank International.