He is often referred to as Japan's Bill Gates. But his $4.5 billion buying spree over the past 18 months has made Masayoshi Son something closer to the Napoleon of the multimedia business. First he swallowed Ziff-Davis, the American computer-magazine giant. Then he bought 37% of Yahoo, the U.S. Internet search-engine company. In June he and another corporate conqueror, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, acquired a 21% interest in TV Asahi, which will be the entrepreneurial duo's base for a 150-station satellite network called Japan Sky Broadcast. And in September, Son's Tokyo-based Softbank paid $1.5 billion for 80% of California-based Kingston Technology,...
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