Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built

Key Takeaways

Under Consideration — to be added.

Interconnections

Under Consideration — to be added.

Highlights

• China changed because of us in the past fifteen years. We hope in the next fifteen years, the world changes because of us. —Jack Ma
• has made a career out of being underestimated: “I am a very simple guy, I am not smart. Everyone thinks that Jack Ma is a very smart guy. I might have a smart face but I’ve got very stupid brains.”
• Employees are discouraged from ever complaining—a pet peeve of Jack’s—and encouraged instead to shoulder personal responsibility, carrying out or delegating tasks rather than waiting for orders from on high.
• “It is difficult for an elephant to trample an ant to death, as long as you can dodge well,” and “With good strategies, you will definitely survive. To this day, I’ve realized one thing: Don’t be nervous if you face huge competition in the future.”
• Alibaba might as well be known as “1,001 mistakes.” But there were three main reasons why we survived. We didn’t have any money, we didn’t have any technology, and we didn’t have a plan. —Jack Ma
• Jack exhorted the group assembled in his apartment to “learn the hard working spirit of Silicon Valley … If we go to work at 8 A.M. and get off work at 5 P.M., this is not a high-tech company, and Alibaba will never be successful.”
• “If you plan, you lose. If you don’t plan, you win.”
• When building up his team Jack preferred hiring people a notch or two below the top performers in their schools. The college elite, Jack explained, would easily get frustrated when they encountered the difficulties of the real world.
• “Today is brutal, tomorrow is more brutal, but the day after tomorrow is beautiful. However, the majority of people will die tomorrow night.
• “Alibaba employees don’t need experience. They need good health, a good heart, and a good head.”
• “It is not necessary to study an MBA. Most MBA graduates are not useful… . Unless they come back from their MBA studies and forget what they’ve learned at school, then they will be useful. Because schools teach knowledge, while starting businesses requires wisdom. Wisdom is acquired through experience. Knowledge can be acquired through hard work.”
• “If you can’t tolerate your opponents, you will be definitely beaten by your opponent… . If you treat your opponents as enemies, you have already lost at the beginning of the game. If you hang your opponent as a target, and practice throwing darts at him every day, you are only able to fight this one enemy, not others… . Competition is the greatest joy. When you compete with others, and find that it brings you more and more agony, there must be something wrong with your competition strategy.”
• “eBay wants to buy the Chinese market, but we want to create China’s Internet trading market.”
• “I’ve seen lots of people yelling ‘Fight the Shaolin Temple!’ at the foot of the Shaolin Temple; that’s complete nonsense. However, if I reach your doorstep to challenge you, I pretty much know that I will defeat you. In the future there will be no need to yell; as soon as you stand on the doorstep, people will be scared.”
• “A global technology platform sounds great, like a Boeing 747 flying is great. But if the airport is a school yard, you cannot land. Even if you want to change a button, you have to report to, like, fourteen guys.”
• “eBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I am a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win.”
• “Some say that the power of capital is enormous. Capital does have its power. But the real power is the power of people controlling the capital. People’s power is enormous. Businessmen’s power is inexhaustible.”
• Nobody knows the future. You can only create the future. —Jack Ma
• “Once you find out
• what you should do, then you need to stay focused.
• “They were unwilling to invest in the company’s future. It is like farming. If you only care about harvesting, but not fertilizing or cultivating, eventually the land will lose its vitality.”
• “Raise money when we don’t need it. When you need it don’t go out to raise money, it’s too late.”
• Control the wallet, the thinking goes, and you control the battlefield for a vast array of new opportunities beyond e-commerce, with financial services being the most lucrative.
• “Consumption is not done by government—it’s done by entrepreneurship and the market economy. So, we have a great opportunity. Now it’s our turn, not the government’s turn.”
• “China is important; China is a rising economy. It is the second-largest economy in the world. People should learn more about China.”