After graduating, he entered the Ministry of Agriculture, beginning a career as a government official in 1911,[1] at the relatively late age of 29.

[1] In 1920, Gotō was offered the post of Director of the Musashi Railway, a struggling company in need of capital to finance its expansion.

This was the first of many acquisitions in which Gotō bought weak companies and transformed them into profitable members of a growing railway and real estate group.

It was also around this time that he persuaded the Tokyo Institute of Technology to relocate along his railway from its former campus, which had been damaged in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.

Together with numerous new residential developments along the railways, this strategy brought steady passengers and increased the value of the company's real estate holdings.

After the end of the World War II, he was banned from public office by the GHQ (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers).

[1] By the time of his death, his strategy of aggressive acquisitions had built the Tokyu Group into one of Japan's largest corporate empires, with businesses ranging from railways and department stores to hospitals, schools, and leisure and entertainment companies.