The Internet changes the world, but it's not a money-making tool

On December 11 in 2013, Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group's board of directors, came to a speech at Seoul University in South Korea the previous day to talk about Alibaba's "competition with the Future", in which Mr Ma expressed confidence in the young and the future. Mr. Ma said he insists that the Internet is not a tool for making money, but a tool to improve society, and that the Internet will change the way people think.

"Our generation is growing up on the Internet, we are open and transparent, we learn how to enjoy freedom on the Internet, and we know what is happening around the world on the internet," he said. ”

When Mr Ma was asked how Ali handled the relationship with the government, Mr Ma said the principle of Alibaba was "to love the government, but not to marry the government". "We have an obligation to contribute to this country, whether people want to believe it or dislike it, the Chinese government is indeed playing the most important role in China's current development path." If the government does the right thing, then it is good for China, and China is good, we will be good, this is very simple truth. And I am full of confidence in this new government, they are very good. It's a very difficult thing for anyone to be a government or a country, so what we're going to do is not to complain but to help the government. ”

' In the last century, if you want to be a great company, you usually have to grab 1, 2, or 3 opportunities, and this century, if you want to be a great company, you have to solve social problems, ' Mr. Ma said in a speech. And Alibaba can contribute to three aspects: employment, expand domestic demand, let farmers rich, make the economy greener and better.

Mr Ma also mentioned that the secret to having confidence in the future is to believe in the future. "10 years ago I just wanted to survive, and I just wanted to be able to pay my employees." 14 years ago my monthly salary was only 92 yuan, that is 15 dollars one months, and I want to get 30 dollars. But I have expectations for the future. ”。

It is reported that Ma Yun also participated in the second China-ROK Internet Roundtable.

The following is the record of Ma Yun's Speech selected:

Ma Yun: It's an honor to be here. I never thought I'd have a chance to speak at the University of Seoul.

Why does Alibaba grow to this scale? Because we believe in the future. 10 years ago, I told people I believe the internet is the future. Even if the success is not us, there will be others to succeed, so we have to work hard. Until today, I still believe in the future.

In China, there are Taobao, Baidu and Tencent, we have no chance? I think in Korea the same situation, everyone will feel that there is already a company, how do we survive? 10 years ago, I had the same idea for Bill Gates, because Microsoft, I had no chance, because Google, I have no chance. No, opportunities are everywhere. Because the Internet, because of cloud computing, because of big data, everyone in this world has a chance.

Where are the opportunities? I told myself, and I told the young people, the opportunity was in the complaining place. When someone complains, opportunities exist at the same time. Especially in China, everyone is expressing dissatisfaction. When everyone complains, the opportunity arises. Deal with dissatisfaction, solve existing problems, and if you complain as much as anyone else, you have no hope. So when I hear people complaining, I get excited because I see the opportunity and think about what I can do about it.

We often ask ourselves a question, how to compete with the future? We have grown to the size of today, I think the best time is not today, today's Alibaba Group, Alipay and rookie are too big, today's scale, every day will appear many people headache problems.

When I was young, I told myself that I would be the CEO of a big company one day, and my life would be a lot easier. Absolutely not, when the company is growing bigger, life can never become easy, every day there are new problems.

Life is not easy, but we have to face it. So, when you don't have a lot of people, you know where you are, and when you get bigger, you need to make changes six months in advance if you notice anything wrong. Because when you realize that you're going to change, it's usually late, like the Titanic hitting an iceberg, and it's going to sink very quickly. My problem today is that I often ask myself how I can get this ship to sail safely because it is not easy, we have created 12 million direct and indirect jobs in China, and if our ship sinks, 12 million jobs will be on the line.

So we ask ourselves, where are we going? In the last century, if you want to be a great company, you usually need to grab 1, 2, or 3 opportunities, and this century, if you want to be a great company, you have to solve social problems. There are many social problems in China, and I believe that companies like ours can solve social problems, first of all, to create jobs, and then to expand domestic demand, to make rural and farmers richer, and third, to make China's economy better.

Job creation is very important, some people say, job creation is not your problem, it is the government's problem. I think that's my problem, the day we set up the company in 1999, we had our own mission, and I told our 18 founders that we were here because we wanted to help small businesses grow. Small business is the main job creation group, they have unlimited creativity, this is our mission. Although we have grown today, we cannot forget the mission that began on the first day, as love is usually the best.

The initial love is often the most beautiful love. I said to myself, we have been through these 14 years of hard times, we often remember who we serve? is small business. Even then we do Taobao, is still helping small businesses, because Taobao has 9 million small sellers. So, this is the first love we have to remember, and to continue, until today, we are still creating jobs.

The second is domestic demand. In China, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, these coastal cities are rich, easy to make money from the rich, everyone wants to make money from the rich, but how to make money from the poor? is to make the poor get rich first and then make money.

In Guangzhou, if there are 21 people on the bus, usually 20 of them are salespeople, everyone wants to sell you something. What would you do if you were one of the salespeople? My job is to help others get rich, if you see someone with 5 dollars in their pockets, a successful salesperson will think about how to get the 5 dollars into his pocket, but if a good entrepreneur, he will think how to turn that person's 5 yuan to 50 yuan, and then get 2 yuan, this is the best way.

I think the future in China, there are many people want to get rich, help others to become rich, and then you can share a piece of soup. Why Taobao, Alibaba growth so fast? One of our philosophies is to never try to change and convince a successful person to try to change and convince those who want to succeed in a much easier way.

When we started doing Taobao 10 years ago, we went to a lot of successful people and they said, "No, no, forget it, I'll never shop online, it's stupid." "Because they are successful people, it is impossible to change successful people, but it is interesting to change people who want to succeed."

Therefore, we believe that China's potential is not in Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, but in the Midwest, where people want to get rich, want to succeed, hundreds of millions of farmers want to succeed, if we can help them succeed, we have opportunities.

Third, how to make China's economy better? We see the environment today, the haze, the water, the food problem, we are very frustrated, how can we do better? I believe that the Internet is not a tool to make money, but a tool to improve society and change the way people think. I have a big wish and I believe it will come true that China will change because of the Internet. People say to me, "JACK, everyone wants to move away from China, nobody wants to stay in China, it's bad." Not! The future is always better than today, the human experience of many difficult days, war, disaster, famine, and we also face challenges today, these challenges are not the most difficult, we will survive, China will survive. Why can China survive? Because our generation is growing up on the Internet, we are open and transparent, we learn how to enjoy freedom, we know what is happening all over the world.

I believe that our younger generation is certainly smarter than we are. How can you not solve these problems if you are diligent and have better opportunities? 5 years ago in China, People said, "JACK, you're a businessman, why talk about water, air and trees?" I said: "Water, air and trees, if we do nothing, China will be in trouble." Today, everyone is complaining about water, air and the environment. Stop complaining, it's too late, it's a chance for you and our generation, and that's how I feel. People say there is a problem here in China. Those who only complain will never succeed, and those who take the opportunity to complain will have a chance in the next 20 years.

My brother, he often complains, I don't complain. He hasn't changed much in 30 years and I've been changing. So I want to say to the young people present, always keep high expectations for the future, try to change yourself a little every day, just a little. People ask me, "Jack, did you have this vision 10 years ago?" Do you know you're going to have today? Taobao, Alipay? "No. I tell you the truth, I never thought I would be so successful. 10 years ago I just wanted to be able to survive, I just want to be able to pay wages to employees, have enough money to pay for my own wages. 14 years ago my monthly salary was only 92 yuan, that is 15 dollars one months, and I want to get 30 dollars.

But I have expectations for the future, and I know someday that if I don't work hard, I won't have a chance. The past 14 years have given me a deep feeling, I hope to share with all the young people I know, today is difficult, tomorrow will be more difficult, but the day after tomorrow will be very good, but most people will die in the evening. So you have to work hard today to survive tomorrow. Tomorrow will always be more difficult than today, but the day after tomorrow must be beautiful, no matter how many people complain, whether you like it or not, I tell you, 20 years later, in this world there will be more than today, more rich people, more successful people, bigger companies, this is certain. Whether you like it or not, this is reality. But whether it is you, or others, depends on how diligent you are, how smart you are, and how you don't care to help others.

Today, when you are "small", the idea of "big", do things to "subtle." When you become "big", Think of "small" and do something more. Our size, Alibaba is so big, want to create jobs, help poor areas rich, change China's environment. This is three complaints and three opportunities, and it is here that anyone can solve these problems and live long enough to be simple and easy. But these problems cannot be solved one day, and the problems are as long as opportunities. That's what I want to say.