Jack Ma: The future has come

Chapter 29 Dialogue with the World (6)
There are 3 million middle-income people in China, and their income is already middle-income, but our consumption power is still at the level of farmers.We don't encourage ordinary people to spend money, and we don't encourage young people to spend money, that means we have no confidence in the future.In fact, confidence in the future is not the so-called establishment of a complete medical security system, which is again the thinking of scholars.True confidence in the future is confidence in young people.A large number of young people in China have joined the high-tech industry, the consumer industry, and the service industry. This is where our opportunities lie.

I myself have always been full of confidence in the long-term development of the Chinese economy.We have to forget about the short term. If you start a business for next year, for the next quarter, then you are just a professional manager, and a professional manager is thinking about the next quarter.What you need to consider when doing business is 5 years, 10 years, 20 years.From the perspective of 20 years, the economy has several cycles.May I ask which big company has not experienced bad times?A company that has not experienced bad times can never become a company.How can a woman who has not been injured be a woman, and a man who has not been injured is a man?That's girls, boys.The same goes for businesses.Therefore, in the future, China will only have this way to drive the economy through consumption.Consumption pull means creativity pull, creation pull, innovation pull, encourage creation, innovation, and encourage a market economy. This is a huge opportunity for us.Now is the era when the brave wins, the wise wins, and the capable wins.

I am full of confidence in the future, but for today and tomorrow, I am timid and cautious, walking on thin ice.Today is cruel, tomorrow is even crueler, and the day after tomorrow is beautiful, but most people will die tomorrow night without seeing the sun of the day after tomorrow.Believe it and you will walk out.

Customers first, employees second, shareholders third
Henry Giscard Destin[25]: Sometimes the needs of customers and the needs of shareholders are inconsistent. For example, everyone wants to buy a bottle of water at a very cheap price and have it delivered to their home within an hour.In this case, the customer is satisfied, but from the perspective of the company, the cost may not be worthwhile.

Ma Yun: This is about the interests of customers and shareholders.From its establishment to today, Alibaba has always insisted on putting customers first, employees second, and shareholders third in the past 16 years.Only when the needs of customers are met and employees are happy can innovation be possible; when customers are satisfied and employees are satisfied, shareholders will be satisfied.Don't believe what shareholders tell you, I'm looking at long-term benefits, because he can sell your stock today and buy a new one.Wall Street believes in putting shareholders first.Shareholders are the biggest problem, because most shareholders will not understand your strategy, most shareholders will not understand your pain, most shareholders only analyze you from the data, and you know yourself best.So, let me tell you first, don't think that shareholders are always right, respect their opinions, but the final decision is still yours.

A few years ago, there was a company doing e-commerce. They said they could send anything to Beijing within an hour.The customer said, I just buy a bottle of Coke.It turned out that the company went bankrupt very quickly, and it did the right thing at the wrong time.Today, you can sell all your water online, and you can sell lobsters.Last year we helped Canada sell 9.8 lobsters, and selling one lobster must be a loss.

In 2015, Alibaba paid 178 billion yuan in taxes in Zhejiang, with an average tax of 8000 million yuan per working day.You can go and investigate, in each province, how many of the top 20 profitable households come from Taobao Tmall stores.A new entity is being born in China. The virtual economy and the real economy are not opposed. It is not that the virtual will win, or the real will win, but the combination of virtual and real will win.All the shopkeepers who have closed are complaining that the Internet has screwed me over.No, you yourself missed the opportunity.In the next 10 years, the enterprises that pay the most taxes in China will be the enterprises that make good use of the Internet, big data and high technology today, and fully exploit consumption and real services.

Young people, supported by consumption, services, and technology, sold more than 2015 billion yuan on "Double 11" in 900.Sixty to seventy percent of the sales here are from companies whose names you've never heard of and didn't even exist five years ago.

This is the hope of the country and the times.These young people born in the 80s and 70s use high-tech means to create, innovate, and discover needs.Why is retail suffering today?Department stores defeated all small businessmen and hawkers back then. They discovered and created demand back then, but today they stay in the real estate industry.Today, Internet companies discover, create, and lead demand.This is the progress of the times.

Li Xiaojia[26]: You just said that customers are the first, employees are the second, and shareholders are the third. Do you think this is a universally applicable value, or is it only applicable to companies like Alibaba and Tencent?After all, when your company has grown to such a large size, you didn’t actually spend too much capital, and you didn’t spend too much money on financing from the capital market or other shareholders.For a traditional relatively capital-intensive enterprise, they need capital at any time, and the price of the capital market directly determines whether they can obtain further capital development.At that time, if they also said that the interests of shareholders are the third, what kind of reasoning should they say?
Ma Yun: I think that customers first, employees second, and shareholders third are values ​​generally applicable to enterprises in the 21st century.If you want to think about creativity, innovation and creation, put people at the center.The last century was centered on machines, means of production, and energy, so there is no doubt that if you have money, you can buy machines, as long as you buy them, you just need to produce them.In this century, the human element will become the core element.Taking people as the first element means customers first, employees second, and shareholders third.I will not invest in a company that can produce by buying some machines, raw materials, and energy only with some capital.There will always be someone who has more money than you and buys a machine faster than yours.So, I won't do such a thing.Regardless of whether the shareholders are willing or not, anyway, I insist on this.

Will BAT[27] kill Internet innovation?

Yan Yan[28]: Under the environment of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", we found that in the entire Internet field, the BAT three major players have basically formed a monopoly.Many young people also said: In the entrepreneurial environment, do we still have a chance?In the long run, will BAT stifle Internet innovation?

Ma Yun: I want to tell everyone that BAT is not a monopoly, but a temporary leader.The problems faced by young people today, I encountered 20 years ago. 20 years ago, I heard that Bill Gates and IBM became popular.I always hoped to be Bill Gates, always hoped that my company could become IBM, and finally I found that even the old man next door was better than me.But as long as you persist, as long as you keep learning, there is still a chance.Young people engage in "double innovation", don't just want to become the next BAT.We have come to today by seizing historical opportunities, encountering a good era, entering a good industry, having good employees, and sticking to our mission.There are landlords in the village, but you can’t get rich just by eliminating the landlords.

Wu Ying[29]: Do you think it is necessary for the three major Internet companies to provide more convenient services to customers?Are you personally willing to do something like this?From Ali's point of view, are you willing to tie everyone together to better serve the market?

Ma Yun: If the three companies really work together to do one thing, it will really become a monopoly.The three of us must compete. The purpose of competition is to make the market healthier, make ourselves healthier, and be fairer to users.I would like to call on everyone to unite and make efforts to improve customer service and serve the market. I believe that every company is making such efforts.For this reason, Ma Huateng and I started to join hands in public welfare and reached a consensus step by step.However, to be clear, we must not be naive, don’t look at the size of the three companies now, don’t look at their cash income, don’t look at their profits... How powerful Microsoft was back then, and Motorola was so powerful that it was almost daunting , However, in the past 10 years, how quickly the situation has changed. Whether there will be BAT in 10 years, whether Alibaba can still exist, whether it can still lead the future and create the future, I think we should think about these issues more.

Today, people say that BAT is too big, and Alibaba is too big to fail.No business is invincible.How many companies of the scale of BAT are there in the United States, the largest economy, and how many companies of the scale of Ali are there in Japan, the third largest economy?There are only a few in China.With such a large economy like ours, dozens and hundreds of BATs are needed to make our country's economy prosperous.

Chen Qiwei[30]: I would like to ask Ma Yun, what is the source of your vigorous thinking?Where does your common sense come from?

Ma Yun: Many years ago, when I first started my business, I also learned from Japan, then from the United States, and then from Korea.We are always learning from others, we are always learning from history, and we never face the future to learn.I have never studied in the United States, nor have I studied abroad, but I have been interested in English and Western culture since I was a child.In fact, the traditional Chinese Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism have inspired me a lot.Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, plus the ideological system of European and American Christianity, and then apply the competition theory of Tai Chi, I find it very enjoyable.If I were to learn the Western management system today, no matter how hard Alibaba goes, it would never be able to get out of the Western model.Therefore, I firmly believe that the innovation and creativity of enterprises come from our belief system and our understanding of culture.

what do you do with your wealth
Li Yifei[31]: We all think about death. When you leave this world, do you want Alibaba to survive?What will you do with your wealth?

Ma Yun: We can't control which family and where we were born, but we can control how we die.If you don't want to be killed by a tiger, don't go up the mountain, if you don't want to be drowned, don't go into the river.Alibaba has to live for at least 102 years. I will guarantee it from the whole system such as genes and missions, but I have no way of controlling what will happen to it in the future.As to whether I have thought about my own death, I have thought very clearly.We all have to leave one day, especially at my age, after a lot of things, to understand that death is not terrible.The thing I spend the most time thinking about is how to make this company grow up with a group of people who are stronger than us when we are not around.Therefore, it becomes more important to discover talents, establish culture, and establish mechanisms.If you want to find a successor, look for it when you are in the prime of life. Don't wait until you are 80 or 80 years old. It is too late to have a child at [-] or [-] years old.

Wang Chaoyong[32]: If the Ali Group grows at a rate of 10% per year, then by the time it is established 100 years ago, Ali's market value may be greater than the sum of the top [-] companies in the world. There is no doubt that Jack Ma will become the richest man in the world.I want to ask a question: Where is the boundary of the enterprise?In many cases, doing is just the beginning, just like your favorite Forrest Gump, everyone is running, I am tired, I will not run, is this a boundary?
Ma Yun: I never thought of being the "richest man". I think the "Fu" of "the richest man" is the "negative" of "responsibility", or it should be said to be "shoufu". Friends, this is the greatest blessing.We may not be able to become the richest man, but we can be blessed.Today I am not happy because I didn't expect that I can do so many things.This is not ideal, you do it, it may be even less ideal.The society has given me so many resources, such a large market value, so much profit, so many young people, so much data, and so many technologies. I think it is wrong not to make some contributions to this society.To be honest, more than 2000 billion US dollars has caused such a big chaos. If it is trillions of dollars, I, Jack Ma, can't bear it with my small body.What are boundaries?Borderless.As long as you have enough ability to do things that are beneficial to society, yourself, employees and shareholders, you can do them.Cross borders to win.

Competition between Alibaba and Tencent
Zhang Shuxin[33]: Alibaba and Tencent have two face-to-face competitions: one is social media; the other is payment.Regarding social media, Ali now owns Sina Weibo, do you still insist on doing social media yourself?The second question is that everyone is complaining about the complexity of Alipay red envelopes. Is this for customers?
Ma Yun: The first question is about the competition with WeChat.If you ask Ma Huateng, will you compete with Ma Yun, he will say no, that is a lie.If you ask whether Alibaba will compete with Tencent, let me tell you, I didn't think about it before, but now I start to think about it.In the past, I was hard on my mouth, but not hard enough on my hands.Shopping malls are like battlefields. In shopping malls, you can’t survive by eliminating your opponents. I have given up on "you die and I live", but we must prevent problems before they happen, and we must put the competition on one platform.We must compete today worldwide, not just domestically.There is a huge difference between social networking sites and communities. What social networking does is sharing, what communities do is sharing, what Tencent is doing is social networking, and what we want to develop in the future is communities.How to build a community with wider participation is what we hope to do.The Internet will soon become a society. In this society, we are interested in how to build and create together, and how to innovate sustainably.No matter whether it is business or DingTalk, we will never give up.I don’t think WeChat is already a big player today. To surpass WeChat is not to imitate WeChat, but to continue to explore the concept and philosophy of WeChat. This is what Ali must do.Today's Tmall and Taobao are not copied by us, but after exploring the future.

Regarding payment, everyone talked about the red envelope "dedication and happiness". The public is justified, and the mother-in-law is justified. Ali's starting point is purely to hope that everyone will have a good year.I don't care what people say about us, we're not as bad as anyone says we are, but we're certainly not as good as anyone says we are.

What is your biggest suggestion to Tsinghua University and Peking University?

Hu Zuliu[34]: In the 21st century, China really wants to lead the future. What is your biggest suggestion to Tsinghua University and Peking University?
Ma Yun: I want to tell the students of Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Fudan University, please look at the students of Hangzhou Normal University with appreciation; I also want to say to the students of Hangzhou Normal University, please look at yourself with appreciation.Supporting China's economy does not depend on words, but on practical actions, and on doing things bit by bit.Alibaba didn’t come out in words, I’m good at talking, but the company didn’t come out by me, it was built bit by bit by countless young people.

Shi Jingshu[35]: The first question, you mentioned that as a qualified entrepreneur, you should look at the long-term development of the enterprise, and you proposed a 20-year timeline.So in the short term, do you think the quarterly reporting system should be improved?The second question is about philosophy. If you had the opportunity to drink tea with anyone in the world, living or not, who would you want to drink tea with?
Ma Yun: A board of directors must have 30 or 50 years of thinking, a CEO must have 5-10 years of thinking, a vice president must have 3 years of thinking, a manager must think about the next week, and an employee must have tomorrow. Think, it's a system.

KPIs cannot be canceled just because employees hate KPIs. Everyone’s KPI index is different. This is not the decomposition of numbers.There is a huge difference between designing KPIs is an art and managing a company is a science.

(End of this chapter)