Nikesh Arora explains why he quit his Softbank job

SoftBank COO Nikesh Arora surprised the business community when he leaped from his role as Google’s Chief Business Officer to Japanese telecom company SoftBank. He rose up the ranks quickly to become CEO Masayoshi Son’s successor when he stepped down sometime in his 60’s.

That changed quickly last week when Arora resigned. He pointed out Son was fit to carry on for five, if not ten more years, and there was no point in him staying on.

He explained in a recent interview with Fortune that he was not interested in being “CEO-in-waiting.”

In his own words:

Honestly, as you might have read, heard, seen Masa present on Wednesday at the shareholder meeting, he was here six weeks ago we were chatting and getting ready for the annual shareholder meeting. There’s a slide in there that [indicates Son will still be running the company] in his 60’s. I said, “You’re about to turn 60 next year, are you ready?”

He’s like, “Ready for what?”

I said, “You told me when you turn 60, I was going to be CEO.”

He said, “You know what, honestly I haven’t really thought about it that hard.”

I said, “Well you’ve been going out there telling people out there that I’m your successor so I would really appreciate your thoughts.” He went back, he reflected, we chatted on the phone a few times. I think he came to the conclusion that he works really hard, he works anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day and he still hasn’t contemplated what life would look like if he gave up most of what he did. He’s a very hands-on CEO, as he has said publicly. He’s helping design the network at Sprint and has meetings with hundreds of people every week–when we do deals he gets involved in every element of the deal, like how do you structure the terms, which is great, but he’s a hands on CEO.

He said, “I still feel young. I can do this for a lot more time.”

*Awkward* He might not have seen that coming…

I said, “How much time? Two to three years?”

He said, “At least five if not ten.”

And I said, “That’s a long time frame, which is your prerogative, you can make that decision. You’ve gone and told people I’m your successor and given the impression that you’d change things when you turned 60. I’m not worried if it’s 60, 61 or whatever but if it’s five to ten years, then you’re telling me something different.” He said “Yeah,” so I said “Okay.” I decided it’s probably better to become an advisor for a year and help out and keep the continuity with our portfolio of companies and the team we hired. But I don’t stay CEO-in-waiting.

Nikesh admits Son hadn’t decided on the exact date he’d like to leave the company in somebody else’s hands. “Honestly, I don’t think he had fully thought through what it meant to transition the CEO role after 3 years,” Nikesh said.

When asked about his India investments, Nikesh says it’s too soon to tell how his investments are doing, even the ones not doing well including the likes of Housing.com.

You can read the full Q&A over on Fortune.

Image credit: Indiatimes