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Comment by joejerryronnie | Hacker News Reader

Masayoshi Son, the founder of Softbank, has raised a $100 Billion fund to invest in, among other things, the singularity. I'm sure the ultimate plan for Boston Dynamics is to build robotic/cyborg parts that will augment humans. I know this sounds a little out there but Masayoshi Son is a serious visionary and plays the long game - e.g. Softbank's 300 year vision plan.

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It's crazy as an American when I realized how old some Japanese companies are.

This hotel has been operating since 705 AD: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishiyama_Onsen_Keiunkan

Planning for 300 years doesn't seem so insane in context.

If you work for a robotics company people will always ask you if the things you're creating can be used for cybernetics but really that's never the point. The problem Boston Dynamics is solving is much harder than human augmentation in that they have to make their robots respond to the environment. And they have no expertise at integrating with human nervous systems. And the remaining bits are also different but not as fundamentally.

If I buy ordinary shares in SoftBank am I distantly investing in the vision fund. I.e is the vision fund manager as part of SoftBanks core assets?

I've seen this #100B investment being used in multiple places now- Trump creating jobs in US- Softbank, Trump getting investment from Saudi Arabia- Softbank. investing in Robotics- Softbank.

Son is heavily promoting this Vision Fund right now. It's a big vote of confidence in his ability to buy and build wealth. He has support from Saudi sovereign funds, Apple, Qualcomm, etc. He's a guy who has lost huge and come back bigger than ever. Totally fearless. He once had $70B on paper, lost almost all of it, and recovered due to his stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. If Asia Has a bright future, he's definitely Going to be part of it.

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