Thank You and Farewell

Dear Colleagues, Partners and Friends,

Today, after 9 of the most rewarding years of my career, my professional journey with SoftBank and Masa comes to an end and a new chapter begins. I’m forever grateful for the immense challenges and incredible professional opportunities I’ve been given to tackle throughout my time at SoftBank, and as I reflect on this journey, I truly consider myself to be one of the luckiest people in the world – not just for the experiences, but for the incredible people I’ve worked with along the way. 

I’ve had the great fortune to work alongside the world’s finest professionals over these past 9 years – at Brightstar, Sprint, WeWork and SoftBank; as well as some of the most incredible founders and CEO’s of our portfolio companies - who made every single achievement possible. Today, I want to pause to celebrate and thank every single one of you. 

My journey with SoftBank began in 2014 after SoftBank acquired Brightstar, a company I founded from the back of my car selling used cell phones and grew it to become the world’s largest global wireless distribution and services company and the largest Hispanic-owned business in U.S. history with revenues in excess of $10 billion.  

After I sold Brightstar to SoftBank, I was asked by Masa to tackle one of the most difficult and daunting missions – the opportunity to turnaround Sprint, a company who had lost over $46.5 billion in the preceding seven years with debt of nearly $32 billion. By 2017, with an incredibly talented team of Sprint employees, we were able to generate a net income of $7.4 billion and deliver the best financial results in its 120-year history. My biggest takeaway from this experience is that the answer to solving Sprint’s challenges was easily found by listening to our customers and our employees. Before joining Sprint, I had no experience running a wireless telecommunications company, but when we took the time to really listen to what our customers wanted and what our employees needed in order to deliver the best experience, we were able to create a value proposition that ultimately took Sprint from losing millions of customers to gaining millions of customers.  

While we were all laser focused on Sprint’s turnaround, we were also committed to serving our communities. One thing I’ve taken a lot of pride in throughout my career is using power for good, and that’s exactly what we did at Sprint through the launch of the 1Million Project, a $2B commitment and one of the largest corporate social responsibility initiatives in history to end the digital divide by providing 1 million internet-connected devices to low-income high school students across the United States, reducing the "homework gap" for children who do not have internet access at home.  

Sprint’s turnaround ultimately paved the way for the long-sought merger with T-Mobile in April 2020, the 7th largest stock merger ever with one of the most challenging regulatory review processes in US history including DOJ and FCC approvals, congressional hearings and hard-fought battles with State Attorneys General. The entire experience was life changing for me – accomplishing something no one thought could ever be done with a goal to end the wireless duopoly and put the US at the forefront of 5G. T-Mobile is now the #2 wireless provider in the United States.  

After a successful tenure at Sprint, Masa promoted me to become SoftBank’s Chief Operating Officer with full operational responsibility for $350 billion in assets. The opportunity to move to Tokyo would become one of my most rewarding experiences at SoftBank where I spent time alongside Masa learning the fundamentals of venture investing, meeting hundreds of entrepreneurs along the way and getting the chance to be part of the initial group that launched the Vision Fund, a true global disruptor in venture capital. 

In early 2019, with the knowledge I gained as an investor, I had a bold idea to transform venture and entrepreneurship in Latin America, an underrepresented region near and dear to me with very little capital available. Together, with three great partners – Shu Nyatta, Paulo Passoni and Andre Maciel, we launched the now $8 billion SoftBank Latin America Fund, the largest VC fund in Latin America. A few years later, the Latin America Fund has become one of the best performing funds at SoftBank with a diverse portfolio of 80 companies across nearly every sector, including two-thirds of the regions unicorns. What makes me most proud is the positive influence we’ve had in a once abandoned region. With our support and leadership, Latin America has emerged as a thriving region with exponential growth in entrepreneurs and founders and a booming Venture Capital market.  We’ve proven to the world that LatAm entrepreneurs are as good as the rest, the only thing lacking was capital. And now, with offices in Mexico City, Brazil and Miami, we’ve created a truly local fund with an incredible team of investors and functional support teams across Government Affairs, Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Communications, Operations and many more that have disrupted the region forever.  

Through our experience launching the SoftBank Latin America Fund, and together with my partner Shu Nyatta and my dear friends Paul Judge and Stacy Brown-Philpot, we took another bold step in June 2020 with the launch of the SoftBank Opportunity Fund in record time in the wake of social unrest following the killing of George Floyd just one week prior. As a Hispanic entrepreneur, I’ve experienced firsthand the challenges other minorities face when trying to raise capital. But I have always believed if there was a dedicated pool of capital available specifically for founders of color, we could show the world the true potential that exists and deliver amazing results. The George Floyd tragedy was the tipping point for me to stop thinking about it and finally act. All it took was one phone call to Masa, who immediately understood that as a global organization we couldn’t be left behind and had to do something about it. In record time, we committed to invest $100 million in companies led by underrepresented racial minorities, especially Blacks and Hispanics, establishing the largest fund of its kind. To date, the Opportunity Fund has invested in ~50 companies, many of which have already reached unicorn status, and we are confident the fund will continue to deliver great results. It was incredible to watch other funds follow in our footsteps, taking action and putting their money where their mouths are to help these amazing founders and entrepreneurs fulfill their dreams.  

My next adventure at SoftBank started in the fall of 2019, when Masa asked me to join WeWork as its Executive Chairman, at a time when the company faced bankruptcy along with a failed IPO. WeWork was one of the most ridiculed companies in the world at the time – we were at war with employees, customers, landlords – and it was only a matter of weeks before we were out of cash. But while much of the world had turned their backs on WeWork and thought the company was impossible to fix, SoftBank was inspired by the founder’s vision. We firmly believed in the WeWork product and brand and we saw great potential to disrupt the multi-trillion-dollar commercial real estate market. We recruited Sandeep Mathrani as WeWork’s new CEO and together we reset the business model to launch the company to profitability and growth, successfully taking the company public in October 2021, just two years after stepping in. Despite a global pandemic that fundamentally changed work as we know it, WeWork continues to defy all odds.  

Throughout my tenure at SoftBank, we also generated billions of dollars in value from other assets under management under the leadership of my partners Michel Combes, Alex Clavel and Saurabh Jalan. We significantly increased SoftBank’s portfolio value through the IPO of SoFi, which has become a diversified and publicly traded fintech leader; the IPO of Lemonade, which has shown impressive growth; the sale of Boston Dynamics to Hyundai; the sale of 80% of India’s stake in SB Energy to Adani; and the reset of Cybereason’s strategy resulting in $300 million in new financing by leading investors. 

In each of these experiences, our success was the result of not only superb individuals but also world-class, fearless teams who worked tirelessly and who, as a result, have become synonymous with having a history of making history. These efforts could not have been realized without the respect-based culture that we espoused, synergized with our “anything is possible” mentality. It simply could not have been better.

Going Forward

I leave SoftBank confidently knowing we have achieved every single endeavor I initially set out to do there, and then some. What the SoftBank teams accomplished in these last nine years is nothing short of amazing. Even more than the tens of billions of dollars in financial value we’ve created are the priceless friendships and partnerships we’ve built at every level. 

What’s left to be done at SoftBank Group International is now in the very capable hands of my friend and partner Michel Combes, who has been by my side through many of our greatest accomplishments at Sprint and SoftBank. I’m confident in his ability to carry the torch forward from here and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the team under his leadership.  

I now eagerly await the next professional chapter, about which I will make an announcement when the time is right. I move forward with the knowledge that everything I’ve learned up to this point in my career – as an entrepreneur, a founder, an operator, and an investor – will prove to be the foundation for future successes. I couldn’t be more optimistic and have a feeling that my most exciting adventure is just around the corner.   

In Closing (For Now)

In closing, I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported me over these past nine years, beyond the wonderful partners and teams that I described above -- my friends, family, and especially my wife, Jordan, and six resilient children who have accompanied me every step of the way (including on our many moves from Miami to Kansas City, then to Tokyo, back to Miami, and now in New York). Lastly, I want to extend one last sincere thank you to Masa, my friend and mentor, who always believed in my abilities and entrusted me with some of the most incredible opportunities throughout these nine, wonderful years. 

Sincerely,

Marcelo