A Second Helping

Lunch with the FT

Lunch with the FT has been a permanent fixture in the Financial Times for almost 30 years, featuring presidents, film stars, musical icons and business leaders from around the world. 
 
The column is now a well-established institution, which has reinvigorated the art of conversation in the convivial, intimate environment of a long and boozy lunch. 
 
This new and updated edition includes lunches with: 
Elon Musk 
Donald Trump 
Hilary Mantel 
Richard Branson 
Zadie Smith 
Nigel Farage 
Russell Brand 
David Guetta 
Yanis Varoufakis 
Jean-Claude Juncker 
Gwyneth Paltrow 
Rebecca Solnit 
Jordan Peterson 
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
And more...

Lionel Barber

A rare insight into the life of Masayoshi Son, the mysterious Korean-Japanese tech investor who has made — and lost — more money than anyone else this century... Barber sets out Son’s extraordinary backstory, details all the deals, big and small, that Son did to enrich himself and [gives] a privileged boardroom-table view of the gilded age of tech-utopianism and borderless finance [with an] eye for colour [that] is more than enough to keep the everyday reader engaged

Like Ron Chernow on John D. Rockefeller, or Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs, Lionel Barber has given us the defining account of an era in business history. Gambling Man confirms Barber's gift for brilliantly decoding the nuances of power. He dissects the layers of Masayoshi Son’s empire to reveal the anatomy of modern risk

Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition

Gambling Man is a brilliant achievement of investigative reporting and narrative writing. The story of Mayoshi Son and Softbank's ambition and error across decades is fascinating in its own right and essential to an understanding of global tech and finance since the 1990s. With literary flair and stunning revelations, Lionel Barber delivers one of the very best biographies of a business titan to appear in years

Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ghost Wars: the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden

Gambling Man is a pacy and highly professional telling of Son’s remarkable story, which skilfully draws out its broader historical themes

A sure-footed account ... Barber has a journalist's eye for his subject's telling idiosyncracies ... [his] detailed biography documents a career punctuaed with attention-grabbing successes and abrupt reversals

Lionel Barber has written a fascinating book about Masa Son, one of the world’s most prolific investors and business builders. Masa’s story has the makings of an Ian Fleming novel. It’s hard to imagine someone like Masa has done more things than almost anyone you could imagine. Lionel cracked the code in helping us all understand this remarkable individual

Steve Schwarzman, co-founder of the Blackstone Group

Son deserves far wider recognition than has come his way, and Gambling Man is a parable that should be read by every would-be business empire builder

A fascinating and richly reported insight into entrepreneurial excess and excitement, from Tokyo to Silicon Valley

Financial Times, Best Business Books of the Year

How did Son rise to the heights of global wealth and power? And how did he acquire the self-confidence to bounce back from repeated meltdowns? Lionel Barber answers these questions in Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son. It is not only a first-rate biography of an elusive billionaire; it is also, and just as intriguingly, an analysis of the recent age of tech-driven globalization from the unusual perspective of Japan

Highly entertaining ... in writing Gambling Man, Barber has produced a definitive biography of this fascinating figure who seems to be everywhere yet is somehow strangely elusive. The author seems to have interviewed every important person in Son's life, from his father to the American professor who went "red with anger" when he recalled his dealings with a young Son in 1978. Barber's book also tells us a lot about the world we live in, how the intersection of technology and finance has created enormous fortunes and changed lifestyles everywhere

Barber has written a lively and detailed account of the rollercoaster life of Masayoshi Son, founder and head of the Japanese investment company SoftBank, which is quite some feat when you consider “Masa” (as he’s known to friends) is said to have made a fortune of $200 billion (€183.5 billion), and also spent $200 billion by betting big on technology ... a dashing book

The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son

Gambling Man is the biography of one of the world’s least known but most consequential investors. Japan’s Masayoshi Son has made and lost several fortunes, investing or controlling assets worth $1 trillion in the past two decades through his media-tech giant, SoftBank. He bankrolled Alibaba, China’s internet colossus, before the world had heard about it; plotted with Steve Jobs to turn the iPhone into a wonder product; and financed hundreds of tech start-ups, fuelling the biggest boom Silicon Valley has ever seen. This book takes you on Son’s wild ride, from his birthplace in a Korean slum in post-war Japan to the modern-day temples of power. It speeds through Donald Trump’s golden skyscraper in Manhattan, the royal palaces of Riyadh and the throne rooms of China’s Marxist rulers; all places where Son has deployed his unique blend of financial engineering and crazy risk-taking. Son’s story captures a 25 year-span of hyper-globalisation in which money, technologies and ideas flowed freely. From the launch of the microchip to the advent of artificial intelligence, he has ridden the technological wave which has created extraordinary wealth and economic change. His topsy-turvy business career is testimony to the power of optimism, daring to dream, ever in search of the Next Big Thing. As an ethnic Korean in Japan, Son has overcome adversity and discrimination to become Japan’s best-known businessman and empire-builder but he remains an elusive, intensely private figure. This book, by a former editor of the Financial Times, contains a wealth of new information and has had the co-operation of many of the key participants, including Son himself. Written with a verve appropriate to its subject, Gambling Man reveals the man behind the money, what drives him, why he matters, and what he plans for his next act.

Lionel Barber

Praise for Gambling Man

A rare insight into the life of Masayoshi Son, the mysterious Korean-Japanese tech investor who has made — and lost — more money than anyone else this century... Barber sets out Son’s extraordinary backstory, detail ...

Like Ron Chernow on John D. Rockefeller, or Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs, Lionel Barber has given us the defining account of an era in business history. Gambling Man confirms Barber's gift for brilliantly de ...

Gambling Man is a brilliant achievement of investigative reporting and narrative writing. The story of Mayoshi Son and Softbank's ambition and error across decades is fascinating in its own right and essentia ...

A rare insight into the life of Masayoshi Son, the mysterious Korean-Japanese tech investor who has made — and lost — more money than anyone else this century... Barber sets out Son’s extraordinary backstory, detail ...

Like Ron Chernow on John D. Rockefeller, or Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs, Lionel Barber has given us the defining account of an era in business history. Gambling Man confirms Barber's gift for brilliantly de ...

Gambling Man is a brilliant achievement of investigative reporting and narrative writing. The story of Mayoshi Son and Softbank's ambition and error across decades is fascinating in its own right and essentia ...

A rare insight into the life of Masayoshi Son, the mysterious Korean-Japanese tech investor who has made — and lost — more money than anyone else this century... Barber sets out Son’s extraordinary backstory, detail ...

Like Ron Chernow on John D. Rockefeller, or Walter Isaacson on Steve Jobs, Lionel Barber has given us the defining account of an era in business history. Gambling Man confirms Barber's gift for brilliantly de ...

Gambling Man is a brilliant achievement of investigative reporting and narrative writing. The story of Mayoshi Son and Softbank's ambition and error across decades is fascinating in its own right and essentia ...

Books by Lionel Barber

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter