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Jack Ma

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46
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2018-08-09
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2018-08-09
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1
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  1. “You see that from that day, you see that from the day that Alibaba was established until today, my share has been getting smaller and smaller. Jack argued that son, by contrast, had a stake in Alibaba of 30% from day one, and now it is over 30%. In a sign of the tension that had erupted between the two men, he invited journalists to look at Sun's approach to his own employees at Softbank. You can check if he's given anything to his employees. If he, meaning Sun, is asked to take out one percent of his stake, it's like pulling out a tooth from a live tiger. While Jack professed his admiration for his son's skills of negotiation, he also said son is the world's number one iron rooster. A Chinese idiom describing people who are extremely stingy, meaning there is no chance whatsoever”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Between what an employee is and how they should be compensated. This is Jack talking. He thinks that employees can be replaced at any time. I believe that we should give opportunities to young people in China sharing the future with them. He thinks that's not the case in Japan. I pay you wages, so if you want to do it, that's fine. But if you don't, there will be others. First of all, I don't think what happens in Japan is necessarily right. Second, this is totally wrong in China. I believe customers first, employees second. We shouldn't have this company, we couldn't have this company without our staff. We have completely different principles on this issue. The issue has been there since day one. Jack revealed that his disagreement with Sun was longstanding, that they had been fighting over it regularly in the past few years. $17,000 employees at Alibaba have shares, he said.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And then, so this is Jack and Mayo's son getting into it. Jack said that today's situation is not designed by us, but we are compelled to do it. So his direct words are, hey, you know, I'm just reacting to what's happening. The complexity of decision-making of shareholders and the board is also a problem of corporate governance in the future. Interestingly, Jack revealed that Alibaba's relationship with Yahoo was stronger at that point than with SoftBank. This is Jack talking. The problems between me and Yahoo are easy to solve. They are problems of interests. But the issues between me and Mayoshi son are not only issues of interests.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “In public, Jack insisted that Alibaba would remain independent, regardless of what happened with the bid. Alibaba has been independent for nine years, no matter what happens, we will go in our own way. But in private, he was alarmed. Alibaba wanted to trigger the right of first offer clause in the 2005 deal, which allowed it to buy back Yahoo's stake in the event of change of ownership.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Offset the price drop completely. And after the financial crisis was over, we didn't raise the prices. We created an opportunity to sell them more value added services, more of an internet style model. Jack actually told me he wanted to change it anyways. The crisis gave him the opportunity. Skipping ahead, I haven't talked about this much, but it's a theme throughout the entire book about the difficulty of operating a business in China and how you have this much stronger central government than you would see in like the United States or the West. So this is Microsoft and the Chinese government and then Jerry Yang is fired. Okay, so remember, Yahoo is a large shareholder in”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Jack realized that the downturn gave him a way to increase the loyalty of his paying customers. He initiated a dramatic reduction in the cost of their subscriptions, telling David, let's be responsible to our customers. They are paying fifty thousand wan. We can give them $30,000 won back. The stock market went crazy, David recalled, as investors called him up to complain. What? You're losing 60% of your revenue. But there was a method to Jack's madness. Jack was serious about putting the customer first. But David emphasized Jack was not espousing an ideology or let's give everything for free. Instead, Jack was always trying to understand how to get the money back later. He's just not greedy about getting the money first. Looking back on the price cut, David concluded the move was well timed. Revenues didn't drop at all. Customer volume growth.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “To build on this idea that he knows people. This is his unique reaction to the financial crisis. This is happening in 2008. As you can imagine, if Alibaba is connecting Chinese companies to companies all over the world, when you have an entire financial downturn like you saw in 2008, especially in the United States, his business is going to take a hit. So as the CEO of Alibaba.com, David Way was expecting the falling share price would trigger a lot of pressure from Jack. But he remembers Jack never picked up the phone or came to see me about the share price, never once. He never talked about profit growth, but there was one occasion when he did experience Jack's wrath. The only time he called me after midnight was when our team changed the website a little bit. He was shouting. The only time he ever shouted at me. I had never heard him so angry. Are you crazy? Jack wasn't yelling at him about the stock price.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Jack wanted to get this done. And he said the second was that the IPO allowed Alibaba to take care of its employees. Jack understands people more than any business. He knows business well, but if you ask me the three skills Jack has amongst people, business, or IT, IT is the worst, business second, first is people. Alibaba's B2B business was eight years old. Jack knew that he needed to give his employees an opportunity to cash in their shares. David remembers Jack telling his employees, you need to buy a house. You need to buy a car. You can't wait to sell the stock to get married to have a baby. The stock doesn't mean you don't like the business. I encourage you to sell some to build your life, to give a reward to your family, because you've been working hard. You've been away from your family, they need some reward. And indeed a few pages later.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Fight. In the end, $1 billion was enough to scare off eBay. We asked a lot, but we did not know when we got the money eBay would run away, which is exactly what happened. So the money wasn't used. Jack said he would do the Yahoo deal again, but in a better, smarter way, adding, nobody knows the future. You can only create the future. So, skipping ahead a little bit. This is another, I think, example of what I was just talking about, probably Jack's best skill Alibaba, the main Alibaba website, not Tabao and Tmail, is going to have an IPO in 2005 in Hong Kong. And then they have an IPO, a second IPO in 2014 in the United States. But this is one of the reasons.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I think that really hits on probably Jack's most valuable trait is he really does know people. And what he's saying is the real power is the power of the people controlling the capital, not just the capital itself. So Jack continues to talk about this, and he's going to throw out some jackisms here too. The moment she, meaning Meg Whitman, wanted to use money as her strategy, we knew she would lose. First, they didn't consider us a rival. Then they treated us too seriously as a rival. Neither of them was the right strategy. When we say if you have no enemy in your heart, you will be invincible to the world. We mean you have different strategies and tactics. In terms of strategies, you must pay attention. Whenever there is a rival emerging, you have to study whether it could become your rival, and if so, what to do. Whatever is stronger than you, you have to learn not to hate it. When you treat it too seriously as a rival and intend to kill it, your techniques are completely.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And he says, This was music to Jack's ears. He joked to Forbes magazine that eBay had deep pockets, but we will cut a hole in their pocket. When I heard that eBay would spend $100 million to break into this market, I didn't think they had any technical skills. If you use money to solve problems, why on earth would you need businessmen anymore? Businessmen understand how to use the smallest resources to expand. Some say that the power of capital is enormous. Capital does have its power, but the real power is in the power of people controlling the capital. People's power is enormous. Businessman's power is inexhaustible. That's the end of his quote.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “With the backing of Softbank, Jack took a move from Yahoo Japan's playbook. Remember, Softbank owns Yahoo Japan. In 1999, when Yahoo Japan launched its e-commerce business, the CEO asked his 120 employees to list items for sale on its new site to make it look active and popular. Four years later in China, Jack did the same. We had altogether seven, eight people in the Tabao team. Everyone had to find four items. I rummaged through my chest and cupboards. I barely had anything at home. We pulled about 30 items and I bought yours and you brought mine and that's how it started. I even listed my watch online. So this fight that they actually have with eBay, it's actually a case study in managing”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So, this is his idea of being the last man standing. Alibaba at the time is going through a lot of trouble. They're running through money. They're not making enough money. They're just having all kinds of problems with their websites. So it says the dark days of 2001 and 2002 would later become part of Alibaba's lore. Jack later referred to this period in one of his pep talks to the team. At that time, my slogan was, be the last man standing. Be the last person to fall down. Even on my knees, I had to be the last man collapsing. I also believe firmly at that time that if I had difficulties there must be someone who had worse difficulties. If I had a hard time, my opponents had an even harder time. At this time Tobayo is up and running, it's doing well, but it's having to fight the Chinese market against eBay.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “It is a robbery. Someone smarter than you has spent twenty years beating their head against a wall trying to solve the problem you're dealing with. You can steal that hard-won knowledge, that hard won knowledge and make it yours. That is power. That's part of the reason I love reading is because like I always said it's like having a one-sided conversation about somebody that's thought a lot about the topic they're writing about because to write a book in the case of Jack Ma, we're distilling 25 years of building businesses and you're not going to learn everything in that time, but it's one hell of a shortcut. And as far as the amount of time signal-to-noise ratio or time to value ratio, I think it's extremely high.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So that quote, I mean, obviously, I think he's got a flair for the dramatic. So I don't think he means every, I mean, he says most NBA graduates are not useful. That's probably not true. But I do think it's interesting his idea where he's like, okay, well, schools are teaching you know knowledge, but you need wisdom, and wisdom is required to experience. So you'd actually learn more from trying business first. And this is knowledge can be acquired through hard work. I saw this tweet that I think is interesting as far as a fast way to learn, which I think is what we're trying to do here by reading books about people that have already successfully founded companies. You're kind of, you're receiving their wisdom, the wisdom that they've acquired to experience, which is basically distilled in book form. So this is a quote that I came across that I want to share with you. It says, reading is not a chore. Reading is theft.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So, this part I highlighted is the note I left is wisdom is distilled experience. Jack reveled in the attention he received at Harvard, including the moniker Crazy Jack, the Time magazine gave him shortly after. He particularly enjoyed talking about the reversal of Fortune of being once rejected by Harvard, but later being invited there to give a talk. I did not get an education from Harvard. I went to Harvard to educate them. Jack has always been dismissive of business schools. 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 teach wisdom, wisdom is acquired through experience. Knowledge can be acquired through hard work.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “And then he wants to assemble what he calls a team of regular people skipping ahead again. Alibaba was co-founded by a total of 18 people, six of whom were women. None came from privileged backgrounds, prestigious universities are famous companies. This was a team of, quote, regular people, bound together by Jack's energy and his unconventional management methods.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “The reality was that Jack late to the portal game had to find his own niche in China. The portals were trying to capture the growing number of individuals coming online, but Jack was going to stick with what he knew best, small businesses. In contrast to the business-to-business sites in the United States that were focused on large companies, Jack decided to focus on the shrimp. He found inspiration from his favorite movie Forrest Gump, in which Gump makes a fortune from fishing shrimp after a storm. American B2B businesses are whales, but eighty five percent of the fish in the sea are shrimp sized. I don't know anyone who makes money from whales, but I've seen many making money from shrimp.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Jerry Yang is traveling to China to look for opportunities. And Jack winds up getting assigned to be his tour guide. So Jack became increasingly frustrated as he watched the triumphate of Porto Pioneers gain momentum. Here I was. I've been practicing for five years in the internet field, Jack recalled. Everything changing very quickly. If I stayed in Beijing, I couldn't do something really big. I couldn't realize my dreams as a public servant. But his government perch ended up giving Jack another lucky break. His first encounter with Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo. As the general manager of InfoShare and a fluent English speaker, Jack was asked to receive Jerry Yang and his colleagues, who in late nineteen ninety seven came to Beijing to look for opportunities for Yahoo in China. Jack's experience as a self appointed”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “And resourcefulness, not capital. Jax invented quote that the internet would change everything was right. The problem was that he had launched his venture too soon. Jack put his dreams on hold, taking a job in Beijing at the unit of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. So he goes back working for the government. There he was, like a fish out of water, counting the days until he could jump back into the entrepreneurial sea of China's internet, which is about to get a whole lot bigger.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Jack had lost control of his pioneering venture. At that time, I called myself a blind man riding on the back of blind tigers. The China Pages episode provided him with some important lessons, as well as good materials for his speeches, such as 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 realized one thing. Don't be nervous if you face huge competition in the future. Jack points to China pages as influencing the way he would structure his subsequent ventures. From then on, I have held a firm belief. When I start a business in the future, I will never hold the controlling stake of the company, making those controlled by me suffer. I will give plenty of understanding and support to lower levels, he felt he was the one that was being forced to suffer. I have never once had a controlling stake at Alibaba. I am proud of this. I am the CEO of the company because I lead it with my wisdom, courage,”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “So he winds up getting a little bit of business, skipping a little bit of ahead. This is where he loses control. They're almost running out of money, so he's forced to merge with a state-owned enterprise. It's one of these telecoms that we're interested in getting in the internet. And he thought it was going to be some kind of joint venture partnership. And they wind up screwing him over. And what happened is there's like seven people on the board seat. And because this quote-unquote joint venture, the state-owned enterprise awards itself five out of the seven board seats. So they would basically have an idea and then at the board seat just every single idea, none of his ideas were passed. So they just wanted to really basically squeeze him out. And this is some of the lessons that he learned.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “As she filmed, as she filmed, Jack was getting shown the cold shoulder. He was almost bankrupt. In the documentary through a window to the Beijing streets outside, Jack made a resolution to himself. In a few years you won't treat me like this. In a few years you will all know what I do, and I won't be in dire straits in Beijing.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “By the end of the year, there were only 204 internet users in the whole province, but Jack was among them and it was finally able to load a website in front of his first clients. Now check this out. On the 486 computer he brought back from Seattle in his suitcase. It took three and a half hours to download the front page. I was so excited. Skipping ahead in a few pages and a little bit on the timeline. This is an example of more perseverance. So he's running China Pages. He's got some clients, but we're going to just see you right here. While Jack was good at gaining publicity, China Pages still wasn't winning much business. And its efforts to open doors with the central government came to naught. In July 1996, China's national broadcaster broadcast a documentary called Ma Yang the Scholar, that's Jack's name, which showed Jack being rebuffed by a government official.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Put them online. Then they printed out screenshots of the websites and mailed them to Hang Zao. Finally, Jack took the printed materials to his friends and announced that although they couldn't check this themselves, their websites were now online.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “So, the idea for the company is it's just going to be a directory, a listing of all the businesses in China, and try to help those businesses find more customers. So this is really interesting. The note I left myself was the internet on paper. China pages needed more clients if it was going to survive, but demonstrating what China Pages was all about was not easy. For one very basic reason, in Hangzhou at the time, it was impossible to get online. Instead, Jack came up with an alternative approach. First, he spread the word through his friends and contacts about what the internet could do for their business. He then asked those interested to send him marketing materials to introduce their companies and products. Next, Jack and his colleagues translated the materials and sent the materials by mail to VBN in Seattle. VBN is his partner. They're the ones running the website in the United States and Seattle. Then designed the websites and”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “A phone call from my friend Jack, you've got five emails. I said, what is email? Three emails came from the United States, one from Japan, and one from Germany. Back and hangs out. He returns now, he said about building his concept of an online yellow pages. He named the business China Pages. In this, his second venture, he would dive head first into the entrepreneurial sea, leaving his teaching days behind. So this company is going to be called China Pages, and it says the company was one of the first in China devoted to the Internet. To fund his startup, Jack borrowed money from his relatives, including his sister, brother-in-law, and parents. Jack's wife Kathy was the first employee.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “A changed man So he's up in Seattle at the time. And this is the first time that he sees the internet. And this is the genesis of his second business. And he says, Jack recalled his first online session. My friend Stewart said, Jack, this is the internet. You can find whatever you can find through the internet. I said really? So I searched the word beer, a very simple word. I don't know why I searched for beer, but I found American beer, German beer, and no Chinese beer. I was curious, so I searched China and no China, no data. Intrigued, Jass Jackass Stewart for help. I talked to my friend. Why don't I make something about China? So we made a small, very ugly looking page for the translation agency and I listed it on there. The site for Hope Translation was just text without any images plus a telephone number and the price for translation work. It was so shocking we launched it at nine forty in the morning, twelve thirty.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “So he was hired to assist as an interpreter in helping resolve a dispute with an American company over the construction of a new highway. So the fact that he's, remember back when he was 14, he spends every day, I think, for eight or nine years practicing his English. So because he spoke English so well, the government lists him to try to resolve this dispute with an American company. So they're going to send him to America, and this is where he's going to see the internet. After a year of negotiations, no agreement had been reached and the initial funding promised by the partner in the United States had not materialized. Jack was tapped to find out what was going on and hopefully end the deadlock. First, Jack traveled to Hong Kong, where he was told that the company's funds were held in the United States, so Jack embarked on his first trip there. He would stay for a month. The trip would give him his first exposure to the internet, and he would return to China.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “First exposure to the internet. In 1994, his Hope Translation venture had gotten off to a troubled start. While his monthly office rent was almost $300, his first month's income was just over $20. Hope may spring eternal, but cash is king. Jack was facing a crunch to support his venture, Jack started His translation company also became a trading company. Hope started to sell gifts, flowers, books, and even plastic carpet. A range of items that foreshadows Taboo. Jack recalled we did everything. This income supported the translation agency for three years until we started to make ends meet. We believe that as long as we kept doing it, we would definitely have a future. Soon an unexpected journey, which looked first as like a disaster, was about to give Jack of lucky break. This is what I mean by the obstacles away.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “where he sold bread door to door in the dorms to make ends meet. So I really like that, those few paragraphs there. Just as a reminder that people do a lot more with a lot less. And this is Jack on the advantage that these founders had. Jack summed up the dynamism of his home province. As entrepreneurs from Sang Jing are greatest advantages are that we are hardworking, courageous, and good at seizing opportunities. We have these excellent qualities because we were given nothing. We are not like other provinces which had resources of coal or ore. We entrepreneurs have markets. As long as we are in places where there are people, we will always be able to find opportunities. It will be in the same in the future. I really like that thought into, well, this part reminded me, the note I left myself was the obstacle is the way.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Jack's first business was focused on helping local companies find customers overseas. Jack later recalled, I had to teach during the day and had no time to help others do translation work. But lots of retired teachers had nothing to do at home, and their pension was low, so I wanted to found a translation company to be an intermediary. With its narrow focus on translation, Jack would not find commercial success with Hope. But his first venture gave him direct exposure to the entrepreneurial revolution and his first tentative steps as an entrepreneur himself. The Chinese word for hope was Hibo, which literally translates to vast like the sea. Popular slang for leaving a government job and entering the private sector at the time was to jump into the sea. Jack wanted to get his feet wet as an entrepreneur, but he wasn't quite ready to take the plunge and abandoned his public sector job as a teacher. Entrepreneurship is such a well established part of modern Chinese.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “But Jack's teaching days were coming to an end. He resolved to launch his own business before he turned thirty. Working part time on his new business after class, he named his first company Hope. In january nineteen ninety four at the age of twenty nine, Jack founded the Hangzhou Hibo Translation Agency. So when I was reading this, it's interesting to me because there was somebody, I think Northwestern University just did a study because there's like this myth that permeates that if you don't start a company when you're young that it's just not going to happen for you when it's the opposite is true. So the results of the study was a person is 46 years old is three times as likely to found a successful business as a person who's 25. And it talks about it's the definitive new study that dispels the myth of the Wonder Kit. So when you're young, you certainly have an advantage in the sense that you probably have a lot less to lose.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Jack found inspiration in the book Life written by the Chinese author Liu Yao. The book relates the story of a talented man living in a village. Gao struggles but ultimately fails to escape the clutches of poverty. Jack resolved to have a different fate and took the high test again. This time his math score improved slightly to 19 out of 120. But his overall score dropped considerably. Jack once again set out applying for jobs to make ends meet. He sent out eleven job applications but all met with rejection. Jack likes to tell the story of how even KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken turned him away, the only one of twenty four candidates they didn't hire. Undeterred, Jack became a regular every Sunday at the library”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Jack took the high test but failed badly, scoring one out of 120 in math. His hopes crushed, he took to menial labor delivering heavy bundles of magazines from printers to the Hangzhou train station on a petticab, a job Jack managed to land thanks only to his father's connections. Jack was rejected from numerous other jobs, including as a waiter in a hotel. He was told he was not tall enough.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “So in between, more stories on how the Morleys are going to help Jack. I found an example of Jack's perseverance. So I want to talk about that real quick. So since these skills were of little use against one of Jack's earliest foes, they talk about how he really got into martial arts in Tai Chi when he was a young man. In China, all high school students hoping to go on to higher education have to pass a merit-based National Higher Education Entrance exam, commonly known as the high test. I'm just going to call it the high test. The high test takes place over two or three days. Math along with Chinese and a foreign language is mandatory. The high test is wildly seen as one of the most challenging in the world, requiring a huge amount of preparation and memorization.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Jack never dismisses how much learning the language had helped him in life. English helps me a lot. It makes me understand the world better, helps me to meet the best CEOs and leaders in the world, and makes me understand the distance between China and the world. So the next page, the note I left myself, is a random meeting changes the trajectory of Jack's life, and this is one of the lucky breaks. Among the many tourists who came to Hangzhou in 1980 was an Australian family, the known as the Morleys. For Jack, their visit would change his life.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Decent amount of time talking about his early life because I think this is very inspiring that no one starts out as a multi-billionaire. And in Jack's case, you couldn't have started out. It'd be very hard to find somebody that started out lower. So this is a little about his early life, about his discipline, and about his curiosity. A future icon of Chinese entrepreneurship, Jack came into the world at a time when private enterprise had almost been completely extinguished. 90% of industrial production had been taken into the hands of the state. As a boy, Jack fell in love with the English language and literature, particularly reading Mark Twain's The Adventure of Tom Sawyer.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “The path forward, especially if there's limited economic growth like there has been in the United States the last 20 years. All right, so off my soapbox and back to the book. Jack doesn't sugarcoat the challenges to his employees. One of his favorite messages to them is today is brutal. Tomorrow is more brutal. But the day after tomorrow is beautiful. However, the majority of people will die tomorrow night. So I've heard him say that multiple times in different speeches too. So that's definitely jackism. So this is a little bit more on his personality. And I found this interesting. It talks about what is when you visit Alibaba, their headquarters, what's in their library. So it says Jack is a keen reader, particularly of titles by the Hong Kong martial arts writer known in China by his pen name, Jin Yang. His works are featured in the library along with classical works and the latest books on management theory are Silicon Valley.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “So the book asks the question, like, is this actual, is he a dumb guy? Is that impossible? Most likely it's just an act. So it says his achievements have proved otherwise. This dumbing down is, of course, just a feint. Jack once explained that he loves, this is hilarious, that he loves the lead character of the movie Force Gump because people think he is dumb, but he knows what he is doing. On the first day of trading of Alibaba's shares, Jack was interviewed by CNBC live on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. When he was asked which person had most inspired him, Jack replied without hesitation Force Gump. His interviewer paused and then said, You know he's a fictional character, right?”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “At Stanford University in 2013, he confessed, even today I still don't understand what coding is all about. I still don't understand the technology behind the internet. Jack 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 have got very stupid brains.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Okay, so we're still in present day. So it says one of the most circulated images of Jack on the internet is a photo of him sporting a mohawk, nose ring, and makeup, including jet black lipstick. On that occasion, a celebration of Alibaba's 10th anniversary, Jack sang Elton Johns, can you feel the love tonight to a stadium full of 17,000 cheering employees and 10,000 other spectators? Jack combines a love of showmanship with a relish for defying stereotypes, where other business moguls like to talk up their own connections or academic credentials, Jack enjoys talking down his own. I don't have a rich or powerful father, not even a powerful uncle. Having never studied abroad, he likes to describe himself as one hundred percent made in China. He stands out as a tech company founder with no background in technology.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “That's why shopping online in China is even more popular than in the West. Jack summed it up. In other countries, e-commerce is a way to shop. In China, it's a lifestyle. Groceries are another popular category because, as Jack explained, quote, supermarket in China were terrible. That's why we've come out on top. Already more than 40% of Chinese consumers buy their groceries online as compared to just 10% in the United States. And so I went to Whole Foods to get some groceries and I noticed that now Amazon Prime members can get free grocery delivery. Within two hours. And it kind of reminded me of the story that's in the book, The Everything Store, where Jeff Bezos wants to buy at the time diapers.com and the founders of diapers diapers.com, they have no interest in selling. So they meet with them, but they don't work out a deal.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “So they did $14 billion with the purchases in 24 hours. Let's find out a little bit about all the products and the websites that Alibaba owns. So the note I left myself was $1,001 mistakes. And what this author is calling the Iron Triangle. And we're going to see some of Jack's personality right away. Jack likes to say that his company's success was an accident. Quote, Alibaba might as well have been known as the 1001 mistakes. In its early years, he gave three explanations as to why the company survived. We didn't have any money, we didn't have any technology, and we didn't have a plan. But let's look at the three real factors that underpin Alibaba's success today. The company's competitive edge in e-commerce, logistics, and finance.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “From the very beginning, he vowed to take on and topple the giants of Silicon Valley. Within the confines of that modest apartment this should have seemed delusional. Yet there was something about his passion for the venture that made it sound entirely credible. Jack is different from most of his internet billionaire peers. He struggled in math as a student and wears his ignorance of technology as a badge of honor. His outsized ambitions and unconventional strategies won him the nickname Crazy Jack. In this book we will explore his past and quirky personality to learn the method to his madness. Okay, so that's from the introduction of the book that I want to talk to you about today and what we're going to be using as our guide to learn more about Jack Ma. And that book is called Alibaba, the house that Jack Ma built by Duncan Clark. So I've heard of Jack Ma.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “I first met Jack in the summer of 1999. A few months after he founded Alibaba in a small apartment in Hangzhou, some hundred miles southwest of Shanghai. On my first visit I could count the number of co founders by the toothbrushes jammed into mugs on a shelf in the bathroom. In addition to Jack, there included his wife, Kathy, and sixteen others. Jack and Kathy had wagered everything they owned on the company, including their home. Jack's ambition then, as it remained today, was breathtaking. He talked of building an internet company that would last eighty years. The typical span of a human life. A few years later, he extended Alibaba's life expectancy to a hundred and two years, so that the company would span three centuries from nineteen ninety nine.”

    2018-08-09 · Founders · #32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source