In 1982, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis. Before he recovered, the company hired an outside president

There was. And it’s the stretch when sales grew fastest.

The entry on Masayoshi Son in the Japanese encyclopedia Nipponica has a short sentence about the year after founding.

Diagnosed with chronic hepatitis in 1982, he spent until 1984 in recovery.

Nihon SoftBank was founded in September 1981. Less than a year later, its founder was recuperating.

Then in April 1983, someone from outside sat in the president’s chair.

That was Yasuhiko Omori, an executive at Nippon Keibi Hosho, today’s SECOM. He was neither from the founding family nor placed there by a shareholder.

During the years the founder couldn’t stand at the front of his company, sales grew from ¥2.3 billion in the second fiscal year to ¥11.5 billion in the year to December 1985.

Son’s founding years are usually told as a story of bold decisions.

This column reads the other part left in filings and reference books: the period when the founder wasn’t at the company.

Listed companies fall outside the criteria for our case articles, so this is handled as a column rather than a case.

From the 1981 founding to the 1986 return as president

A ¥50 million condition for a ¥10 million company

According to Son’s own account in PRESIDENT Online, Nihon SoftBank, which he founded at 23 in 1981, had capital of ¥10 million.

It had almost no sales record and almost no name recognition.

As a PC software wholesaler, that company applied to Hudson, a pioneer among game companies, for exclusive distribution rights.

Hudson’s condition was: “Bring ¥50 million in cash in one week and we will give you exclusive rights.”

Five times the company’s capital, in cash, within a week.

How this ended isn’t stated in the free portion of the article.

Only the arrangement of the numbers, five times the capital, shows where the newly founded company stood.

The nature of the business can also be read from reference books.

The Britannica entry says Nihon SoftBank was the first in Japan to wholesale computer software and took 60% of the distribution market, without saying when.

According to the securities report, in May 1982, eight months after founding, it launched two monthly magazines and entered publishing.

Wholesaling software to stores and publishing magazines that introduced that software ran side by side from the first year.

Depending on the document, it was founded in Tokyo or in Fukuoka

Where was Nihon SoftBank born?

The securities report gives the September 1981 founding address as Yonbancho, Chiyoda, Tokyo.

A third-party compilation citing Nikkei Business and others says in its text that the company was founded in Fukuoka City. The summary box on the same page says Tokyo.

Which is closer to the reality of the founding couldn’t be settled from the sources read.

The first line of the same company becomes Tokyo or Fukuoka depending on the document.

The founding story is often told from Fukuoka, and a listed company’s filing keeps a Tokyo address. Both are true at once.

According to the same compilation, the start-up money came from selling to Sharp the patent on a translation device Son developed while studying in the United States.

The encyclopedia likewise says he signed a license agreement with Sharp for a translator he devised as a student. Neither gives the sale price.

Sales grew during the two years the founder was away

Diagnosed in 1982, in recovery until 1984.

This period recorded in the encyclopedia overlaps with the time the company’s numbers moved fastest.

According to the third-party compilation, second-year sales were ¥2.3 billion with 21 employees. By the third year they were ¥4.5 billion with 89.

In April 1983 Yasuhiko Omori became president. The compilation says Son brought him in from outside less than two years after founding, to make up for his own lack of management experience.

Sales for the year to December 1985 were ¥11.5 billion.

Son returned as president in February 1986, and Omori’s tenure fell short of three years.

1. September 1981: founded

   It started as a software wholesaler with ¥10 million in capital.

2. 1982: the founder steps away

   Diagnosed with chronic hepatitis, he was in recovery until 1984.

3. April 1983: a president from outside

   Yasuhiko Omori, formerly of Nippon Keibi Hosho, took the chair.

4. February 1986: the founder returns

   By the year to December 1985, sales had reached ¥11.5 billion.

How far Son was involved while recovering can’t be told from the sources read.

Stories that he gave instructions from his sickbed are often told, but they couldn’t be confirmed.

Even so, the order remains in the compilation’s figures. The president’s seat went to an outsider, and across that tenure sales went from ¥2.3 billion to ¥11.5 billion.

We see this as the least-told part of SoftBank’s founding years.

Nihon Densan’s founding is recorded with almost every role gathered in its founder. Set beside it, Nihon SoftBank gave the president’s seat to an outsider in its second year.

Neither is the right answer.

What SoftBank has is a record of how a company ran when its founder fell ill.

What could and couldn’t be confirmed

The limits need stating.

There’s a widely known story of Son giving a speech to employees, standing on a mandarin-orange crate on the first day.

As noted in the column tracing 22 founding legends to their sources, it couldn’t be confirmed in readable sources.

The legend centers on the founder, the documents keep the company

Son’s founding years have been told as the ¥10 million company handed a ¥50 million condition, or as the speech atop an orange crate.

In each scene the founder stands at the front.

Lay out the filings and reference books and another scene appears.

A founder who left the front line through illness the year after founding, a president brought in from outside, and sales that grew fivefold across that time.

The legend is told around the founder.

What the documents keep is the company that went on moving while he was away.