Nikesh Arora explains exactly why he quit Softbank job

Made using a photo by Erik Solheim.

Google exec Nikesh Arora made a surprise move to Japanese telco giant Softbank back in October 2014. He was effectively being groomed to take the top spot at Softbank when billionaire founder and CEO Masayoshi Son stands down.

That’s what made Nikesh’s resignation last week such a shock. The move left one big question hanging in the air – er, why exactly?

Nikes, 48, explained why over the weekend in an interview with Fortune. It boils down to Son not being ready to hand over the reins anytime soon, which would leave Nikesh a “CEO-in-waiting.”

It went like this, 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.”

Well, this is getting awkward…