Jack Ma, Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group | Interview | VivaTech

for sure we have a legend a legend with us Jack Ma thank you [Applause] the first thing that I have to say that you will have the possibility of putting some questions to Jack by using sliders calm and I think that you will get on the screen the address so you can you can send your messages it is a formidable honor for me to welcome Jack he is as I said a true legend it probably doesn't remember but the first time we met was some 15 years ago in Beijing and we were sitting on the same panel what became later the new champion forum organized by the World Economic Forum in those days there were very few people believing in Alibaba and the first question I have to do to Jack is how come this little boy born in Hangzhou grown up in Hangzhou who is not an engineer who's not a geek who had this formidable intuition of what technology will become has moved from this origin to building what is today one of the most powerful companies the world well if everybody agrees then there is no opportunity when people criticize you now you have to think and I spend most of my time thinking about the future I spend most of time listen to the complaints because people like me we don't have money would have technology we don't have a strong relationship the only thing we competed with the others is that how we see the future if I believe the future like this way and those people believe that way of course we are different and when we believe that is the future we start to do it we stead of spend time we start to gather people we said do little by little and I think everybody can be successful if you really try try hard I started Alibaba 1999 in my apartment I talked to the 18 founders that one thing we want one of the things we want to prove if Jack - team can be successful 80% of the people in the world they can be successful because we don't have money would have technology will have almost nothing the only thing is that we believe in the future instead to do little by little so people like us we are getting used to be criticized we're getting used to be said no people say no to you when people say yes to you we're really appreciate because it's not you know why people should say yes to you you have to prove so as the entry premier you have to get used to be challenged have to get used to be said no by the other people by the fact by the investors by your customers by the people but this this is the opportunity when everybody believe it you have no chance we're only a few people believe it you believe it you prove it that's your chance zillions - the fact that people are starting to say no the first one who said no to you and ten times I have understood all nine of ten times is the Harvard Business School KFC has refused to hire you so with all these know how at the end of the day what has been the driver which has made you who you are yeah I wish people can say yes to me but if they say yes I have no choice I have to accept it and of course you're not happy when people say no have a good sleep wake up try it again it's always my fault not the other people spot why you can convince people if you cannot prove it but the thing is that very important there are two group of people you have to convincing first group people your team they believe in you they trust in you and they believe the things we agree together and second is your customers they really love your products and investors it's okay investors it's okay yeah you cannot make every investors investing you don't believe investors there is the long-term investors they have to sell you know they when they want to invest in you they say I'm a law investors when you're in trouble they're all so fast that's that's the advice spending time on your customers spend time on your people on your own team don't spend time i investors don't spend time on your competitors when you look at the people you want to serve we look at the people you work together if they're happy you will win that's the very simple because I wish I wish it is that simple because we it looks simple very difficult to do but you have to do it I have been yesterday with you at the dinner which has been offered by president Mike home and you deliver one of the most inspiring speech I had the chance to listen to and with the vision regarding the future and also this idea that one of the things which is taking us back is the fact that most of the time we are too much attached to the past maybe you can share some of those views with the audience because it was so impressive and I think it is what is leading the world so can you can you maybe in a few sentences summarize your thoughts on this yeah I think my advice to the government's many current officers you know government official love to make policies and rules and regulations but nobody is an expert of the future we are all we human being only have the experts of yesterday when we make the future especially this technology revolution is so overwhelming so change everybody everything so the policy we make have to be smart policies at a smart time we should not because of one problem we make everybody in trouble and and I think that we should always think about the future think about how we think there is very little can do to change yesterday there's very little we can do to change today but there's a lot of things who can do to change tomorrow if we do a little bit today we can change the future so I think that government should rely everybody in the world should embrace the change embrace the technology you don't have the solutions or we don't have the solutions somebody have the solution we never I see so much worries today in Europe in the world the thing worries me is the worry itself why worry you started protective and I think I think people worry about jobs today we people worry about artificial intelligence well don't worry too much about that people are improving and people walking about a security a leap about God in the past five years every day we got a 300 million attacks per day but we think the opportunity let's learn it let's learn how to do it solve the problems and then in the future when we got experience share with the others that's the whole thing so I want to get encouraging everybody look at the future we cannot avoid it we have to embrace it we have to live it think about the future and there are a lot of things my grandfather will never be surprised we will be so surprised to today human being have so many jobs can be created president Mike home has mentioned the two very important powerhouses of power countries which are the United States of America and the China of the other world and when you look at China what we how would you describe the ecosystem of China at what is making it so successful won't the quality of obviously first China in the past 40 years we're very hot Chinese people very hardworking second we learn we keep on learning well one thing very interesting in China if you've walked on the street you pick up a 100 young Chinese young people you will find 990 of them can speak at least 30 or 40 English words but when you go to New York where you go to Washington DCU pick up 100 American young people how many of them can speak one Chinese we keep on learning you have to keep on learning ago the second thing is that my device because I hear a lot of entrepreneurs talk about well China's coming and America is coming Wow nothing to do with you my view is that I have the same problem early days say Microsoft is coming Oracle's coming IBM is coming you should think about your neighbor George is coming it's more important because the world the African desert every agree is that the eCos is not controlled by lions and elephants the ecosystem is controlled by the insects in the mud last century the company the big the better so everybody want to be a big company the powerful company this century from now a good company is more important a powerful company where you compete to is become I think in past 20 years with in competing with any company lots of companies in China but I learned one thing no matter how strong an elephant is if you're an int if you hide yourself well an elephant cannot kill you you can kill the elephant if you're in a better way it's about your thinking this is your opinion about the small European startups when they are looking at China yeah III think that I be so fascinated by so many great European small business you have such a high quality products greatest services hi great stylish tasty sell to China instead of waiting China selling to you and use the internet only day old days you cannot do that but today huge opportunity young people try to use the internet to sell to everywhere in the world yesterday you mentioned that Alibaba is helping roughly in a certain way 14 million people a year yeah we created close to directly own direct 40 million jobs in China which is an an impressive number how this is happening yeah I think in China cuz I'm not a technical guy I was trained to be a high school teacher and I worry about technology like anybody and our early days I talked to my engineer I'm the quality control and product tester of every software no matter how they feel how excited they are I would be the person to test it if I can I use it just throwing the ball in a garbage because 80% people don't like it so if I can use it last people can use it so I think technology is something we enable people early days when Alibaba started do it people say well this is terrible model because American you know they're your helping big companies they are helping big companies to save the cost my view is that China don't have a lot of big companies so we should not help become become please don't need us they always want to do something themselves we should help small companies by helping small companies is nothing about that saving a cost for them small companies are so good at exceeding the cost they want to make money so we enable small companies to make money online will help them to sell father will help them to find a reliable a little cheaper supplies so everything we do is try to make insure small business easy to do business that they're easy to access financing easy to have logistic easy to find the buyers and supplies so that is what we do and I have you know same price but what you are doing in Africa and how you are helping the farmers maybe you can say a few words on that yeah I visited Africa two years ago and I was amazed by the people but the passion the young people there and reminds me because you know just now when the president talking to the entrepreneurs I was sitting there I was so touched and moved it looks like you know I don't like talking to the big companies they talk about a KPI they talking about next to the quarter and they talk about a competition when those young people they're talking about the dreams they're talking about the future they never fear about something so we are the same animals but in Africa I found a lot of these kind of same animals like me they love they never fear they want to change so I I think we're talking about inclusiveness if every guy is not a development and inclusive is just a like a slogan so we have to do seek out something how we can help the Africa but I think today Internet can help Africa right in the early days a lot of people don't know how to use the computers but today a lot of people have a mobile phone and mobile phones much more powerful than a computer the next the thing I find that Africa there should be three es e government entrepreneurs and education where every government will make government online there will be transparent it will be efficiency we should make entrepreneurs because the entrepreneurs that the future entrepreneurs that tried the best to realize the dreams if we spend time if we spent resources on the education Africa will have a lot of people so what we see today in Africa was much better than 20 years ago and Alibaba started and because at that time nobody was believing internet nobody very few people using computer in China and there's no mobile phone today in Africa all this is already so the only thing is that let's start the Butte now I start to change Africa we are riveted we believe a lot in Africa that the reason why we have created a freak attack and by the way we will have tomorrow a conversation with President Kagame and President Sall President Kagame from Rhonda presents are from Senegal and we will discuss how they are transforming their countries you mentioned dreams and I do believe yes that we have we need to have big dreams big dreams and there is a book from Shimon Peres president of Israel the late President of Israel that you knew very well who said that there is no room for small dreams and in your wildest dreams have you ever thought that Ali Baba will agree come when you started in 1999 in your apartment would become what it is today no I never thought about that 1999 in my apartment 18 founders the only purpose that time we survived with 19 people were 18 people gather 50,000 US dollars we think we can last for about 10 miles and then raise money but only four months later no matter how we tighten the budget we still run off the money so everything would think about it to survive but we believe that internet it will change China internet will change the world we believe if we don't succeed somebody will but if we start now and speed smart enough funny right people do the right things we will win but later now that we get a bigger bigger will now think it's our responsibility it's something that it's the measuring somebody put in our heart that we should do more because we find we help create it 40 million jobs we helped over millions of companies small companies survive why we cannot help a hundred million jobs globally why we can help small business in Africa Middle East developing countries make them successful by the way the difference between artificial intelligence AI o and people is that machine never have dreams we have dreams if you don't have dreams you another wing were machines in the future [Applause] I know you that you care a lot about people when you look at what you have done do you believe that Alibaba is good for the people yeah we try our best because this is this is our culture and this is my way because I'm a founder I know nothing about technology I know nothing but marketing I know nothing about illegal all the stuff I do you know I don't know about people I know people I was trained to be a teacher as a teacher you want your students better than you are you want you've got your best product is your students you wanted this student to be a lawyer that's to become a banker that's to be the anxia premier that Israel mayor you don't want don't want this bankrupt that in the jail that is in trouble so you always wanted people better and then you have to listen to them do you want to see their name and then make the all the things to making sure that you can empower them you can make them cheap team work you can them collaborate so this is how we do and I find the more you care by a team the team will care about you and the team will care about their customers so I talk to all of my people early days don't make me happy don't love me make your customer happy make your customer love you and I will love you any minute that is very simple so everything we do as it sound or make your customer happy gather your team make it team happy and you will be happy great jack since I know you I have seen many facets of Jack Ma I have seen imagine somebody who is playing with magic I have seen a great entrepreneur the founder of one of the greatest company in the world and there is also a showman and you have built your own Black Friday the singles and when you have this day which is a day where you are doing I don't know how many billion dollar in one single day 30 30 yeah okay for the people who don't know we are fighting all the year long to do 1 million 30 billion in one day every day I wish every day not every day because you are not doing the show every day am i understanding that you are doing the show during 24 hours so explain a little bit this and how you came to this idea of the day of the singles oh yeah first I mean I people say I have a different effaces I don't call different phases I think in my heart I'm always curious I'm a curious a lot of things and I know when I study a lee baba I know this is not the thing I want to do in all my life I want to go back to teaching so I think life is a shot you should experience all kinds of things I don't want to die in my office I want to die on the beaches we work hard and we spend the money but you spend the money should have spend the money smart way to empower more people why we succeed because we're using technology empower lot of people who succeed if won't be most successful empower more people that's very simple so for November 11 the single Earth Day was was created by our my successor CEO death Daniel but the idea was this everybody was single when you're single you don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend if you bought so 11-11-11 that november 11th we think you should stop by things so we just to make single as happy and then we do not expect that it comes like this it's become the largest err shopping festival and last year we sold 30 billion dollars this year will go up because we only help in Chinese singulars we're a lot of single people here in France and great you know there are a lot of things that you have done which are extremely impressive at least for the people who are following you you since many years and before going back to the question that they have I would like to share with you a few question that we got from the audience it the first time by the way that we have decided to give the audience the possibility of potential question we mentioned a few minutes ago the fact that it has not been completely a fairy tale and that you went through some difficulties at the beginning and Raphael is putting the question which is what was your biggest failure in scaling Alibaba and what you did learn from yep well yeah we faced a lot of challenges but I'm sure Alibaba is gonna facing more challenges we worry every day when I was young when company was young we thought well what if when a Leibovich become that big my life will be easier then now the companies that the bigger the company the more problems I have so why us too small company in Jordan you will never experience the happiness of operating a small company any life we ain't gonna be too big you have so much headaches so many things happening and people say Jack you know there are a lot of books about you but there's none of the books I write myself if there's one book I want to write in a future it's called Alibaba 1001 mistakes we made so many mistakes we have so many troubles believing or not China view dub ecommerce company get a internet related company no internet connection at that time nope nope no credit cards no deliver system it's so we make big problems all the time it's not easy but we tell our self we will be successful until we make ten thousand mistakes we'll be successful if we survive in any crisis so when crisis came we know it's a challenge everybody start be united we solve the challenge that will complain each other before we solve the problem of the crisis we should not complain though I have a problem E in HR I have a problem in financing and a problem in technology I have a problem everywhere tell me so that's why I become a mentor in entrepreneurs a program in China the lot of entrepreneurs have questions when I listen to their questions oh my god I have this problem too so I would say we have gone through all month almost nine more than 90% of the problems that any entrepreneurs have met this is what we feel proud proud at the end of the day I'm gonna tell my kids my grandchildren it's not the thing we feel proud we are we made Alibaba its so many mistakes that we overcome so many challenges we experience that makes me feel proud life is about experience so when you become entrepreneur don't worry about it competitors don't worry about mistakes don't worry about the challenges go through them that's the great fun part of your business of your experience and then you got a courage you got a wisdom you got a team follow you Wow yeah because you know you don't have a choice you cannot sit there cry right if you cry can solve problems I can cry oceans of tears but we make competitor's crime we don't cry as very often unfortunately Europe with only ten mistakes you you are out of job but I consider that is a great lesson and this has been also a lesson of my life I'm always saying that I have made sufficiently mistakes in order to survive so the other question we have is well you see Alibaba in five years time well in five years time Alibaba is the vision should be given by Daniel our CEO everybody in our company our our first tier colleagues they look at next month next quarter manager looks at a six months vice president looks at three years CEO looks at five years in ten years I look at 20 years year 2036 Alibaba want achieve to build up a digital economy that empower can can help create a hundred million jobs can serve two billion consumers in the world and it can create it can support 10 million business be profitable on our platform that is the the thing that we did we decide to do per year 2036 so that's what we were 36 yeah so we want to you we want we want to empower everybody every young people every small business where you have a mobile phone you can global by global cell goal over deliver Global pay and global travel and if we can do that we don't know how big we will be but we are not interested in we're being like a five trillion dollars company or 10 trillion dollars company we are only interested in five things global by global cell global pay global deliver and grow will travel for everybody that's what we want to do great when I invited you it was at the time where you already had a heavy schedule and you were very much easy tent to come because you had to go meeting and you decided by at the end of the day to move the ball meeting which is quite impressive and they thank you very warmly for that and what has really prompt your decision it's when I told you that we need you to tell the young people some lessons and there is a question which is what advice would you give to the young generation that follows you well I followed young generations I come because there are so many young entrepreneurs I come because it's the opportunity for smoke's there are so many small business in Europe excellent and there are so many young people around the world and interpret but let me let me let me share with you my thought if you're an entrepreneur if you want to do some business think about you should never think about succeed next mouth should never think about succeed next year if you think about next month you will be successful easy come easy go you will go down very quick you should think about is this thing will be good in 10 years and have a patience and the second is that get the good team if somebody in your team did better than you are follow him if you think you are better share with their ideas your trouble your thinking and hard working there's no other choices and look your eyes this eye look at the customers this eye look at your team and talking share with the team all the thinking you have making sure we're on the same right I hate a lot of people this eyes US dollar this is euro they talk like I'm be you know nobody want to work with these people they only talk about money you have to tell what do you want what we agree how we can do together that's all the things and giving yourself some time yesterday you have been seeing a group of people who are working on tech4good and one of the key issues which has been addressed by Ginni Rometty and a group that she was leading with Renault Harbor nothing is about education and I have a question which is many recognize you as a great teacher how do you envision the future of Education partly when you know that everything will change in the coming years and a impact of technology will be huge on all the jobs how do we prepare the future for the future generations and what would you recommend yeah I feel more comfortable that I work as a teacher I I never thought that I could be a CEO I remember more than 10 years ago when company was in big trouble one of our investors kindly and very politely say Jack you think that somebody can do better job and he's thinking that you should you should resign and I I heard that and I said I cannot resign now because I ever resign the company will collapse I will resign when the company is good so since then I was preparing always finding people better than I am in the company giving them opportunities my position CEO is called a chief education of sir in the company so I build up the company more like a university we call our company they decry is called campers it's we learned together we trusted each other students and teachers have to trust each other so our always thinking about that now this year September 10th the two new year of the anniversary of Alibaba I kept my promise and I want to go back to teach the things I love to do better I'm not going to go just to teach in one class I think they're a very something that we should not worry but something we should change the education system now these are all the impact of 200 years these are the education system for industrial period now we are moving to the digital period past is hundreds of years we make people like a machines next 20-30 years we'll make a machine like the people the way we teach our kids the things we teach our kids machine can do better machine cap k calculator faster remember everything so I think what we should do change the education system we should not make our kids lose the future we should not make our kids have not jobs so this is why I want to go back to education and start to do something on education system the thing they teach the way they teach I think it's a huge opportunity it's I think in this world there's very few people like a mean we do it not because I want to make money we do it not because somebody forced me to do I do it because I love it I do it because the money I make in the Alibaba need to spend I don't want to give the money to the investors or banks to spend widely I want to spend myself on the education improve change the system and I think 55 years old today it's a bit old for Alibaba CEO but for a new stat about education I'm Corey young so I want to spend under 15 years on that doing something that can change a lot of young people yawn of kids make them ready for the future they don't have to worry like their parents worried Corrine has put a question which I consider is extremely interesting and I would like to hear you about this is should France and you had the possibility of speaking with president back home yesterday this morning again and you heard him regarding China and the USA so should France and maybe Europe gets inspired by the Chinese ecosystem on digital innovation and technology inspired by China yes yeah I think so imagine 20 years ago China you talk about internet you talk about IT how can i tea to the years ago come china compete with europe competed with america 20 years later China today people worry about China Europe I was sitting there from China as you as they trying to use it wow I do not know that we are that powerful what happened tell us we'd love to learn right people ask me why ecommerce so successful in China our company alone is much bigger than Amazon why ecommerce in China one of the reasons why ecommerce in China success successful because China had a terrible infrastructure of Commerce right we don't have to so many retail do we don't have to so many like Walmart Keima everywhere it's it's just a terrible backward retail system in China where Internet it comes come people love it so so efficient why China mu by phone and I'll grow much faster than America America and Europe have is such a great such a great system of telephone we don't have a ton of them amount of like 100 family can only have a 1/10 of one that days where mobile come we love that which is to go down so there is a leap flock we don't have that lose the loss most of the government offices they don't know how to make rules laws for internet because nobody realized what it's an Internet look like so that leave us chance to grow fast Europe they're interesting you have a such a perfectly rules laws they're everything to do let's fold the rules or laws and everything we think about this not to worry when they wanted to make a rules laws when we have a problems we start to solve the problems then think about rules laws you have a problems that make rules laws so I worry about a Europe I worry I worry about the worries of the Europe if every cut Africa does not worry Asia does not worry why Yoruba worry about right you don't have a solutions for artificial intelligence are you know they're gonna destroy a lot of things too came in life forget it let me tell you after fish intelligence I think we only buy using artificial intelligence to arrest and catch a lot of thieves my theory I told my engineers I said now when you love somebody you may not have reasons but when you hate somebody you have logic and reasons we have logical reasons machine can always do better than that so we have a trillions of dollars transaction Holly pay every day a lot of people want to steal the money how can you oversee when you have like a 1-bit of users using that there are so many cheating's human being cannot do it so we teaching machines to catch all the thieves much you never forget no matter how smart you are one person can create it ten ways of cheating you are the smartes of the personal world but we teach the machine every way everything we just discover from the other people the machine can remember over a hundred thousand ways of cheating when you start the cheating unless you find you so one way bad guys using artificial intelligence doing bad things other thing we're using artificial intelligence to catch bad guys so there is always in any imbalance how you see the world if you see technology revolution is a problem I'm sorry to say the problem just to study if you think is an opportunity the opportunity just to study the only things your mentality if the mentality is about a worry you're worried all the time by the way all the intrapreneurs if everything's ready everything is perfect why they need you because there is worries because there's a problems because of there's no this know that that is your opportunity there is our opportunity and keep on that you believing you can do something a little by little ten years later you'll be different that's that's that's who you're I you that by inviting you we will have one of the most inspiring conversation that we had at live attack and what happened in this 45 minutes it's something which is proven proving that I was right at least for that and I thank you very warmly but you are not done yet you are not done yet because you have decided to retire at age 56 which is normally the time where in the old continent we are the old continent people are starting to hope to become a CEO I would like to ask you what has led you to make the decision is it just because you are fed up with investors and you don't want to have to spend time explaining things is it because of your dreams is it also because you have not only a will to teach and to share but you have also so many other and top earners idea that you want to achieve yeah I've been thinking about that and preparing for retirement for almost 10 years so yeah sure now I I thought very clearly and when we were young we wanted for opportunities but all the continent they don't give us opportunity the new continent we should give an opportunity to the others to the people who can do better and I know I was not really trying to be a CEO I was not trying to be a high tech CEO I was lucky I have a great team I'm great time so 20 years within here so I was thinking about I have to figure out who can do better than I am in my company if our we want make this company last a hundred two years why a hundred two years we were born in 1999 last century we had a one year this century will one a 100 years plus another year will cross three centuries that's the goal and then if you want a loss a hundred two years I cannot be that ode to Buddha I have to leave the company so I said when I'm 55 20 anniversary I must have leave the company giving this opportunity this challenge for people who are better than I am younger than I am more passion than I am so I can do something that I'm good at and I believe I can do much better jobs on education I can do much better jobs on entrepreneurship I have founded a lot of companies six of them are very successful in China and I figure out because I'm seeing a different view I figured out being entrepreneur there are a lot of interesting principles no a lot of nose a lot of yeses so I want help entrepreneurs share intrapreneurs what we have gone through in past 20 years what the experience and third thing I want to do is I want fighting for the women leadership this word if we have a more one the leaders the water be better these are three things why women leadership Alibaba secret sauce is we have a lot of women leaders we have more than 34 percent of senior management I want women we have more than early before we acquire a lot of companies we have almost close to 49 percent of the employees a woman now we have served more than 35 percent of employees of women but because we just acquire some big companies they all deliver so we will figure out that but I think these are the things I want to do and always ask yourself and myself my advice to other young people what do you have what do you want and what will you give up if you do not think about these three questions every time you will get lost so I know what I should give up what I want and what I have and I think I should pick up things I love I'm good at and I can make people happy and I would be happy that's it simple Wow let's see

Channel: Viva Technology

Views: 60,071

Rating: 4.8383369 out of 5

Keywords: vivatech, viva technology, jack ma, alibaba, Maurice Lévy, Publicis Groupe, tech event, tech conference, entrepreneurship, tech, technology, innovation, interview vivatech, interview vivatechnonology, interview vivatech event, interview viva technology, tech conferences, tech panels, vivatechnology, vivatech france, vivatechnology france, vivatech event, vivatech startup, tech events, innovation in technology, digital transformation, vivatech fr, vivatech agenda, vivatech talents

Id: P-BLh4zT1XI

Length: 49min 50sec (2990 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019