Naruatsu Baba, the 39-year old billionaire and founder of mobile game developer Colopl Inc. breaks the mold of your typical Japanese executive: he's completely immodest about his success.

"Professionally, I've never really made any mistakes," Baba said in an interview, sitting next to a life-size R2-D2 and a soccer jersey signed by Japan midfielder Keisuke Honda. "No matter how small a matter, I've always delivered something decent regardless of the deadline or the circumstances. But that's probably a given for anyone who has made it to my position."

Those words are backed by the company's valuation of $1.9 billion on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Baba still owns half of Colopl and wrote most of the early code for games himself, including one that had players earning points by walking around with their phones, an early precursor of "Pokemon Go's" signature egg-hatching feature.