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Billionaire explains what it was like to lose $70 billion in one go

Billionaire explains what it was like to lose $70 billion in one go
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Only around 1 in 4 million people get to experience what it’s like to be a billionaire in their lifetime.

So, the rest of us will never know the feeling of immense wealth – or, what it’s like to lose a mind-boggling sum all in one go.

Unlike Masayoshi Son, who was the Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank in the 90s, who had the misfortune of losing $70 billion in one day.

SoftBank is a holding company involved in tech space, and at one time Son’s net worth was rising at the rate of $10 billion a week.

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However, after briefly surpassing Bill Gates’s personal wealth, the collapse of the dot-com bubble saw him lose $70 billion, which marks the single biggest financial loss anyone has ever suffered.

Son is still a billionaire, despite losing $70billionYoshikazu Tsuno/AFP via Getty

He recently spoke on an episode of The David Rubenstein Show, saying: "My personal net worth was increasing by $10 billion per week."

"Then I became richer than Bill Gates. Before I talked to anyone else, our stock started crashing. So six months after that our share price went down 99 per cent."

Son is still a billionaire today, so it’s not all bad.

"We almost went bankrupt and somehow I survived," he said, explaining that he then began making a series of less risky investments including Vodafone in Japan.

"That time I said 'now is the time to go to the next stage', which is the… mobile internet. So, I had to go get the license of the government for the Spectrum or acquire Vodafone Japan."

"I convinced the bank that I can turn around Vodafone Japan and it will become successful with great cash flow. They believed me and lent me money."

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