How Japan's SoftBank taught the market to love lossmaking startups

How Japan's SoftBank taught the market to love lossmaking startups

REUTERS/Issei Kato

A few years after Bom Suk Kim dropped out of Harvard Business School to launch what would eventually become Coupang, South Korea’s largest e-commerce company, he was at a crossroads. He already had a fast-growing e-commerce site on his hands, and was considering taking it public.