The slightly pudgy and pale 32-year-old has become a fixture on Japan's media circuit as his Internet company Livedoor made a hostile takeover bid for Fuji Television network and its subsidiaries earlier this month.

If Horie succeeds, then he will have control over not only one of Japan's most popular television stations, but a media empire that extends from radio to newspapers and to publishing.

While details of how such a young man came to bring fear into one of the country's most established media groups through acquiring stocks in Fuji's parent company continues to rivet the nation, for the younger generation, Horie is nothing less than a real live hero.

At a conference last weekend geared towards university students and young workers interested in starting up their own businesses, Horie was the star attraction of the day-long program.

"Of course I'm interested in starting up my own business eventually, probably in healthcare...but today, what I really want to do is shake Horie-san's hand and maybe get some of his go-getting ways to rub off on me," said Tatsushi Sato, who is in his first year as an employee of a major Japanese food manufacturer.

Sato was only one of the hundreds of students who took part in the government-backed conference, most of whom wanted to have a glimpse of their role model.

Yet less than a decade ago, few people like Sato who graduated from a renowned university and found a good job at a blue-chip Japanese company straight out of school would have considered abandoning a career that was effectively guaranteed until retirement.

While Sato may or may not actually follow up on his dream -or perhaps whim - to found a start-up company himself, there is no doubt that more and more younger Japanese are becoming increasingly attracted to the idea of being their own boss and striking it rich.

To be sure, there is no guarantee that starting up a business will lead to prosperity. In fact, statistics prove otherwise, and show that while getting started as an entrepreneur is relatively easy, it's far more difficult to remain in business and make a profit.

Yet that's precisely what makes Horie and the astonishing success of Livedoor, which is a cross between an online department store and auction house, so appealing to many who are dissatisfied with Japan's current status quo.

As for Horie himself, he has gone out of his way to be admired and to shock those around him, from refusing to wear a business suit and instead donning a rumpled t-shirt even for meetings with senior executives of corporate Japan, and to making himself available to television interviews around the clock.

Horie has publicly denounced the management of Fuji Television for not being able to see how vulnerable they were to a takeover bid in the first place, and also attacked them for refusing to meet with him about the possibility of working together.

Fuji TV chairman Hasashi Hieda in turn has used the media to voice his objection to Horie's business practice.

A hostile takeover bid "might work in America and other places...but this is Japan, and it's not our way" of doing business, he declared, adding that television companies had a responsibility to viewers wanting quality programming as much as shareholders simply out to make a profit.

Indeed, as the public dispute between Livedoor and Fuji Television intensifies, it appears that more people are becoming more sympathetic towards the 63-year-old Hieda than the maverick dot-commer.

"While Horie's logic of owning a majority stake wins control of the company is true in principal, it's not certain whether that logic will hold true within the Japanese business community," cautioned Shukan Bunshun, a weekly news magazine.

But at the same time, many analysts point out that the dispute could prove to be a turning point for Japanese companies, as it may well prove that no business is too big or too powerful to be taken over by an outsider. In short, the days could be numbered for the survival of a culture of executives abiding by unwritten rules and not stepping on each others' toes.

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