A College Dropout Turned Internet Tycoon

The American-style Internet tycoon Takafumi Horie has many of thestandard credentials of an upstart. A dropout from Japan's topuniversity who became rich young, he has been quick to criticize Japan'sestablishment, which he once branded a ``club of old men."

In the process, his Internet company Livedoor expanded wildly,through a campaign of takeovers and stock splits into a company with a value of$6.3 billion. Until this week.

Now that value is sinking, upsetting the entire Japanese stockmarket, amid investigations of possible securities law violations, which Livedoordenies.

At 33, and noted for appearing in T-shirts, yet favoring asilver-blue Ferrari, Horie has a history of upbraiding Japan's settled ways.

Horie built Livedoor by combining a portal site with onlinebrokerage and banking and a host of other Internet services. It offerseverything from news and travel tips to a popular blog written by Horie.

He gained a certain renown and notoriety two years ago, when hetried to buy a professional baseball team in Japan. He grabbed headlines againlast year when he started a hostile takeover bid, still rare in Japan, forone of the country's biggest media conglomerates, and in September he ranin parliamentary elections, as a reform candidate, but lost to aprominent old-guard politician.