SoftBank Vision Fund Layoff: Preparations are underway for massive layoffs in SoftBank Group. Around 20% of its employees will be laid off from its Vision Fund team worldwide.
The reason for this massive layoff is that SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is betting heavily on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in America and the layoffs in SoftBank Vision Fund are a part of this. News agency Reuters has received this information quoting sources. This is the third time since 2022 that the Japanese investment group’s flagship fund is facing a setback in employees. More than 300 employees are working in the Vision Fund worldwide.
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The decision to lay off companies despite strong business results
SoftBank Vision Fund, which is conducting layoffs for the third time in three years, had previously conducted two layoffs when the group was grappling with significant losses. The fund is now laying off nearly 20% of its employees at a time when it reported its strongest quarter since June 2021 last month, driven by strong profits from public holdings like Nvidia.
What is the strategy of SoftBank Vision Fund?
SoftBank Vision Fund will continue to make new bets and invest more resources in AI-related initiatives. For example, the fund will now focus more on the $50 billion Stargate project, which will build a massive data center network in the US in partnership with OpenAI. A Vision Fund spokesperson confirmed the layoffs, stating that the company is constantly evolving in line with its long-term strategy to create greater value for stakeholders’ investments. This reflects Masayoshi Son’s evolving strategy. He initially bet on AI and is now focused on aggressively investing in foundation models and the infrastructure layer of AI, even at premium valuations.
Over the past 12 months, Masayoshi Son has invested $9.7 billion in OpenAI through Vision Fund 2, which manages a fund of approximately $65.8 billion. SoftBank is also pursuing a capital-intensive infrastructure strategy for its chip designer Arm. As part of this, it has acquired chip companies like Graphcore and Ampere Computing, as well as shares in Intel and Nvidia. The aim is to build an ecosystem of chips, data centers, and models that can help drive future AI adoption.
