Source: Sina Technology In 2023, 23-year-old Sam Altman (Sam Altman) spoke enthusiastically at the company's annual developer conference, praising the company's new app store for promoting his developed software (a friend positioning service called Loopt). "We think this is a new mobile era and we are excited to participate in it," Altman said. Today, 16 years later, Apple has invited this entrepreneur again - but the situation is different this time. Now the company needs his help, just as he needed Apple. Currently, the OpenAI startup run by Altman is at the forefront of the generative AI field. In order to catch up in this field, Apple has established a partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iPhone's operating system. Although the controversial Altman is unlikely to appear on stage at the press conference, this agreement will be the focus of next week's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, indicating how much the power dynamics in Silicon Valley have changed in recent years. This agreement allows OpenAI to reach millions of Apple users, including those who may hesitate to use ChatGPT. For Apple, this collaboration brings the hottest technology of the artificial intelligence era - a chatbot with super powers that can be combined with its own services. Apple has been developing a series of artificial intelligence features, including features that run on its devices and other features that require cloud computing. Apple has also introduced artificial intelligence technology for the Siri digital assistant, but the company's self-developed chatbots have not yet met standards. Technology veteran Dag Kittlaus said that the collaboration with OpenAI is likely to be a "medium-term relationship" for Apple. Before Siri was acquired by Apple, he was co-founder and operator of Siri. "But one thing is certain, they will strive to cultivate their own capabilities in this regard. " On the morning of June 11th Beijing time, CEO Tim Cook will deliver a keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference, which is considered the largest sales promotion of Apple in recent years. The company must convince consumers, developers and investors that Apple can thrive in the era of artificial intelligence. Due to the stagnation of Apple's existing businesses, five of its six quarters' revenue declined, and it faces greater pressure. In the field of artificial intelligence services, Apple once took the lead by releasing the Siri digital assistant in 2011, ahead of Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant entering the market. But the company quickly fell behind its competitors, and the first appearance of ChatGPT in 2022 caused earth-shaking changes. In November 2022, OpenAI's chatbot inspired consumer imagination and prompted tech giants to compete to develop their own artificial intelligence services. Since then, Apple's main competitors have made progress. Gemini's chatbot is competing with ChatGPT for the dominant position in this emerging market. Microsoft is OpenAI's biggest supporter and has begun to integrate its AI-assisted Copilot into software. Amazon has also demonstrated an artificial intelligence-enhanced version of the Alexa voice assistant. In contrast, Apple has remained silent about its ambitions in artificial intelligence until now. Cook said last year that the company will act cautiously in new areas and will only add artificial intelligence technology on a "thoughtful basis." Recently, he believes that Apple will have an advantage in the field of artificial intelligence because the company can seamlessly integrate hardware, software and services together. Behind the scenes, Apple employees have been working hard to fulfill this promise. Before and after the release of ChatGPT, a small team in Apple's artificial intelligence and software engineering departments began using a framework called Ajax to develop ChatGPT's competitors. Apple software chief Craig Federighi urged managers to add as many artificial intelligence features as possible to the latest version of the iPhone and iPad operating system (internally referred to as "Crystal"). The service department led by Eddie Cue began to build the infrastructure of new data centers to support online artificial intelligence services. Employees also began researching how to apply artificial intelligence to Apple Music and the company's productivity applications.
Author: Zheng Jun

Masayoshi Son had no words, can only awkwardly hold Masayoshi Son Reiji, pretending to cry. Although he didn't actually cry, his heart was extremely frustrated and bitter.

If you ask Masayoshi Son what his most regrettable decisions of the past few years were, the billionaire will immediately think of two things: impulsive investment $WeWork (WE.US)$ and the subsequent sale $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ of stocks. Every time these two decisions are mentioned in public, business tycoon and investment mogul Masayoshi Son will have a wry smile on his face. These two decisions cost him nearly $200 billion in losses.

Nvidia AI Summit held on Wednesday in Tokyo, Japan, the highlight is definitely the dialogue between Huang Renxun and Masayoshi Son, two technology industry leaders. Starting this year, Nvidia has been holding AI summits in multiple locations globally, bringing together industry leaders, technical experts, and researchers to discuss the development direction of the AI industry.

When Huang Renxun held the event in Tokyo, he certainly invited the Japanese technology giant and founder/CEO, Masayoshi Son. $SoftBank Group (ADR) (SFTBY.US)$ Huang Renxun still wore his iconic leather jacket in Tokyo, while Masayoshi Son remained in his comfortable casual attire. These two seasoned business leaders have known each other for many years, with particularly close interactions over the past decade, engaging in numerous transactions and frequently participating in each other's events.

Two decisions made by Masayoshi Son left him regretting deeply.

When recommending Masayoshi Son, Huang Renxun gave his old friend high praise. 'He is a unique entrepreneur and innovator in the world, with a unique vision to identify winners of each era and cooperate with them. He brought Bill Gates and Jerry Yang into the Japanese market, helped Alibaba bring cloud computing to China, and introduced Steve Jobs and the iPhone to Japan.'

The relationship between the two is so good that after the formal compliments to Masayoshi Son, Huang Renxun started teasing his old friend, 'You may not know, but Masayoshi Son was once the largest shareholder of Nvidia.' What he said is true, Softbank once held as much as 5% of Nvidia shares.

Suddenly revealing this past event, Masayoshi Son was speechless at the moment. He could only awkwardly hug Huang Renxun, pretending to cry. Huang Renxun laughed and embraced Masayoshi Son saying, 'Let's cry together.' However, in the subsequent conversation, Huang Renxun teased Masayoshi Son again, 'Can you believe it, if you were now the largest shareholder of Nvidia?'

Masayoshi Son once again holds his head in his hands, with a face full of mixed emotions. This is definitely one of the most embarrassing decisions in Masayoshi Son's brilliant investment career. In 2017, SoftBank acquired nearly 5% of Nvidia's shares from the public market when Nvidia's stock price was at a low point, spending only 0.7 billion USD, becoming Nvidia's largest shareholder. However, just two years later, SoftBank completely sold off these shares, cashing in 3.3 billion USD.

From the perspective at that time, it was a very good return on investment. But if SoftBank had held onto these shares until now, they would be worth nearly 180 billion USD. In other words, SoftBank polished off its Nvidia shares before the AI era arrived, completely missing out on the latter's surge in the AI era and also missing out on over two hundredfold investment return.

Every time Masayoshi Son brings up this issue, he cannot hide his deep regret. At the SoftBank shareholders' meeting in July this year, he publicly blamed himself once again, "Every time I think about these missed opportunities, it is truly frustrating. I almost sold Nvidia shares with tears in my eyes, missing out on such a big fish."

Masayoshi Son has great admiration for Huang Renxun and is very bullish on Nvidia's growth prospects, so why did he sell Nvidia shares with tears in his eyes? This is another "speechless and regrettable" investment decision made by Masayoshi Son.

At the end of 2018, Masayoshi Son led SoftBank to heavily invest in the shared office venture WeWork. Despite the warning signs in WeWork's financial statements after its aggressive expansion, Masayoshi Son, who solely relied on intuition for his investments, decided to boldly jump into this big pit, promising to invest 10 billion USD when WeWork was valued at its highest (47 billion USD).

However, to Masayoshi Son's surprise, right after SoftBank's investment, WeWork immediately began to have financial difficulties, and its valuation started to plummet. As the largest shareholder, SoftBank was trapped and unable to do anything. Years later, with WeWork's bankruptcy, SoftBank's investment of over 10 billion USD became basically a total loss. The money invested in WeWork came from selling the remaining shares of Alibaba.

At the end of 2019, during a dialogue between Masayoshi Son and Jack Ma at the University of Tokyo, Masayoshi Son reflected on his investment journey, saying, "I was too bold, so sometimes I lose a lot of money." His face was full of bitter smiles, just investing in WeWork that year resulted in a loss of 7 billion USD.

Perhaps at that time, he did not anticipate that, in order to pay for his mistakes, he would create even greater regrets later on. Due to frequent huge losses from investing in companies like WeWork and Uber, the SoftBank Vision Fund's financial statements that year were very ugly. He had to sell some other investments to balance the books, and the relatively profitable Nvidia shares became the sacrificial lamb.

Although Masayoshi Son's impulsively selling off Nvidia shares led to him missing out on the huge returns from Nvidia becoming the world's most valuable company in the AI era, Son's acquisition of Arm has also caught the wave of AI, allowing Son, who once faced embarrassment and couldn't face investors due to losses, to turn the tables once again.

Selling off all the Nvidia shares caused SoftBank to miss out on a $180 billion investment return. When combined with the over $10 billion losses from investing in WeWork earlier, Masayoshi Son missed out on nearly $200 billion worth of investments in 2019.

Jensen Huang rejects the proposal to privatize Nvidia

After a disagreement with Jensen Huang, Masayoshi Son also revealed another little-known story between the two. Prompted by Son, Huang disclosed to the audience that ten years ago, Son had proposed to help privatize Nvidia, but Huang declined the offer. With a smile, Huang said, 'Now I regret it.'

It was August 2016 when SoftBank had just spent $32 billion to acquire the UK chip designer Arm. At that time, Masayoshi Son stated that the acquisition of Arm was for investing in the future of the Internet of Things. Having just acquired the cornerstone enterprise of the mobile processor era, Son ambitiously set his sights on the leader in graphic processing chips, Nvidia. He wanted to merge Nvidia and Arm to create a super chip company.

At that time, Nvidia had not yet entered the wave of the AI era and its core business was still the limited-scale gaming market. Its market cap was even only $40 billion. With Son's and SoftBank's strength, acquiring Nvidia after Arm was not a difficult task. However, a direct acquisition of Nvidia might face resistance from friends, especially since it was a company founded and led by Jensen Huang for decades.

But a direct acquisition of Nvidia may face opposition from friends, especially since Jensen Huang personally founded and led the company for decades. In 1993, Huang and two friends founded Nvidia at a Danny's fast-food restaurant in San Jose, exploring the future opportunities of graphic processing chips. Over the following decades, Huang has been leading the company, making him Silicon Valley's longest-serving CEO.

During that time, Silicon Valley did not yet favor super voting power structures, and the chip industry had huge financing needs, so Nvidia's equity structure was very decentralized. Huang only held 3.5% of Nvidia's shares and voting rights, with SoftBank holding 5% as the largest shareholder. It was only this year when Nvidia's market cap soared that Huang's personal assets exceeded $100 billion, making him the richest Chinese person globally. However, his low voting rights did not affect Huang's control over Nvidia, as he had already fully integrated with the company.

Huang Renxun would naturally not be willing to sell the company he had painstakingly built, let alone let go. He had previously even declined an invitation to become the CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor. According to Taiwan Semiconductor's founder and CEO Zhang Zhongmou's recollection, in 2013 he personally invited Huang Renxun, hoping that he could take over the leadership of Taiwan Semiconductor. Because at that time, the then 82-year-old Zhang Zhongmou was not confident enough in the internal promotion of Taiwan Semiconductor, he believed that Huang Renxun, who possessed both vision and execution ability, was the best candidate.

At that time, Taiwan Semiconductor's market cap exceeded one billion US dollars, nearly ten times that of NVIDIA. Zhang Zhongmou thought Huang Renxun might be interested. However, Huang Renxun felt that he did not have the ability to lead both companies separated by thousands of miles at the same time, and was more concerned about affecting NVIDIA's growth prospects, so he politely declined Zhang Zhongmou's offer. The latter had to choose to appoint Wei Zhejia and Liu Deyin as co-CEOs, and he himself retired completely after another five years.

A few years later, Huang Renxun once again politely declined the olive branch extended by Masayoshi Son. Son's proposal was very dignified: he would lend money to Huang Renxun to privatize NVIDIA, allowing Huang Renxun to still lead NVIDIA, and then merge NVIDIA with Arm.

Huang Renxun recalled with a smile, "Masayoshi Son told me at the time, 'The market does not understand the value of NVIDIA, your future is limitless. Your pain may continue for a while, as you are investing in the future, so let me give you money to buy NVIDIA.'" The man in the leather jacket continued, "Yes, Masayoshi Son wanted to lend me money to privatize NVIDIA. Now, I regret not taking his money."

It's hard to imagine what the situation would be like now if Huang Renxun had actually taken Masayoshi Son's money to privatize NVIDIA and merge it with Arm. Perhaps Huang Renxun was unwilling to let NVIDIA's normal development trajectory be affected, so he politely declined Son's proposal to privatize NVIDIA. Moreover, after privatization, the true owner of NVIDIA would be Masayoshi Son, and Huang Renxun was also unwilling to see the company he had founded and led for decades become a SoftBank subsidiary.

Although the man in the leather jacket rejected SoftBank's privatization proposal, he did not forget Son's plan to merge NVIDIA with Arm. Four years later, NVIDIA announced a $40 billion acquisition of Arm, realizing Son's original idea, but the absolute protagonist became Huang Renxun.

This acquisition immediately shook the entire technology industry, as Arm's chip design is almost the cornerstone of the entire mobile field. Despite NVIDIA's promise to continue maintaining Arm's open licensing model and customer neutrality, it faced opposition from the US antitrust regulatory authorities, and after more than a year of persistence, it had to abandon the plan to acquire Arm in early 2022.

Not selling Arm ushered in an AI spring for Masayoshi Son.

Not succeeding in selling Arm, taiwan semiconductor instead welcomed Masayoshi Son's turnaround capital. By the end of 2022, with OpenAI releasing ChatGPT, the boom of generative AI arrived. Arm's internet of things story did not deliver value, but instead saw a value explosion in the AI era.

As the Arm CEO said at the IPO, "We have broad growth in cloud datacenters and the automotive industry. And in the transition to AI-based computing, Arm is more centrally positioned. Arm's chip designs are not only in almost every smartphone but also in every electric car and datacenter. It's hard to find an AI device without an Arm-designed chip."

Last September, Arm successfully went public again and has been on the rise ever since, with a current market cap exceeding $140 billion. Masayoshi Son's extravagant $31 billion acquisition a decade ago finally reaped rewards in the AI era. The arrival of the AI era reignited Masayoshi Son's adventurous spirit. He stated last summer that SoftBank would shift from defense mode to offense mode, seeking investment opportunities in the AI field, planning to invest over $10 billion.

OpenAI is the investment object Masayoshi Son desires the most. According to his own account, he is not only a heavy user of ChatGPT but also "bothers" OpenAI CEO Ultron every day. After almost a year of waiting, Masayoshi Son finally got the investment opportunity. Just this month, OpenAI completed a new round of financing worth $6.6 billion, with a company valuation reaching $157 billion, and SoftBank also participated with $0.5 billion.

In addition to investing in AI companies, Masayoshi Son has an even larger plan: SoftBank actively lays out the AI chip field through acquisitions like Graphcore, Arm's self-developed AI chips support, and collaboration with nvidia, aiming to secure a place in this rapidly growing market.

In July this year, SoftBank acquired the UK AI chip design company Graphcore. The acquisition amount was reported to be around $0.5 billion. Subsequently, Graphcore began aggressive expansion, demonstrating SoftBank's ambition in the AI chip field. Arm is set to launch AI chips early next year, with mass production expected later in the same year; its initial foundry partner was intel, which later changed to taiwan semiconductor.

Arm's move into chips is to challenge nvidia's leading position in the AI chip market. This also means Masayoshi Son and Huang Renxun will become competitors. Of course, the relationship between the two tech industry leaders involves competition as well as cooperation.

During this AI summit, SoftBank and nvidia announced collaboration on a series of AI projects in Japan. SoftBank's telecommunications division will use nvidia's latest Blackwell chip to build a supercomputer, as Masayoshi Son aims to capitalize on the AI trend. In addition to the supercomputer, SoftBank will use nvidia chips to provide AI services via cellular networks, suitable for applications like remote support for autonomous vehicles and robot control.

"We will purchase a large quantity of your chips," Masayoshi Son said to Ren Xun Huang with a smile.

Editor/rice