Ferguson said that Ma Yun's global inclusiveness provides a better rebuttal to "American priority". "Ma Yun has his own answer: e-commerce is not aimed at large companies and developed countries, but at developing countries, young people and small businesses. We shouldn't let 60,000 large enterprises around the world control global trade. We should empower 6 million,16 million and 60 million companies through technology and policies. Alibaba hopes to achieve this. "
Ferguson also said in the article, what makes Alibaba surpass Amazon, a technology giant in the East rather than the United States, and become the king-elect of the world? One is that Ma Yun has diversified his business faster than his American rival Bezos, and the other is the scale and growth rate of China's e-commerce market.
Ferguson is a senior researcher at Oxford University and Stanford University. He is a world-renowned historian and political critic in the fields of financial history, economic history, business history and world history. He was once rated as "the most influential person in the world 100" by Time magazine.
Screenshot of Sunday Times article
Attached is the full text of the Sunday Times:
Jack Ma's influence exceeds Trump's.
Sunday Times, 2065438+0865438+1October 28th, by niall ferguson.
The most interesting person in Davos is not "the one who can't even mention his name" (from Harry Potter, I have hidden the real name of the Dark Lord here, but he is also called the President of the United States. To be honest, I'm tired of him. The most interesting person in this year's World Economic Forum is a 53-year-old man from Hangzhou, China. He used to be an English teacher and was a little thin. His company is steadily promoting the world economy.
Ma Yun is the founder and chairman of Alibaba. Your understanding of Alibaba, an e-commerce company, is the Amazon of China. Then you are wrong. I will explain it to you later. Let's talk about Ma Yun first.
Although many people in Silicon Valley can fully show themselves, no one can compare with Ma Yun. If you don't understand why, you can watch his extremely capricious but good-looking kung fu movie. This film has also become a highlight of pop culture last year. In this 22-minute movie, Tai Chi enthusiast Ma Yun confronts a series of martial arts masters, including martial arts champions Jet Li and Donnie Yen, and retired sumo champion Zhao Qinglong.
The film invited the best action directors in the industry, such as Yuan Heping, who directed the action scenes of The Matrix and Kill Bill. Can you imagine that even elon musk dares to show himself like this?
I went to Hangzhou two weeks ago and visited the expanding headquarters of Alibaba. The center of the headquarters is a Chinese building with a black roof, surrounded by a bunch of brand-new office buildings. I was told that it was Ma Yun's office.
As a boy who grew up in poverty in China, in order to learn English, Ma often rode a few miles from home to a foreign-related hotel near the West Lake in Hangzhou to meet English speakers and improve his English by providing free tour guides. But this did not make it easier for him to find a job in the 1980s. He was rejected by the police and KFC when he applied for a job. He applied to Harvard University ten times and was rejected. He can only teach English in a local university.
Ma Yun/KLOC-0 traveled to the United States in early 1995 and came into contact with the Internet for the first time. Unlike Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon, Bezos wants to sell books online. Ma Yun's vision is a market where everything is sold online. Regarding the name "Alibaba", he asked a waitress in San Francisco: How much do you know about Alibaba? The other party replied: open sesame. Suppose the other person answers "Forty Thieves", maybe the name will be reconsidered. )
What makes Alibaba surpass Amazon? Two points: First, Ma Yun diversified his business faster than his American rival Bezos. It is worth pointing out that Alibaba pioneered third-party payment and Alipay, which made online transactions convenient and smooth.
Nowadays, when western tourists travel to China, the most impressive thing is the ubiquitous mobile payment. Everyone is buying everything with their smartphones. Although Tencent's WeChat also provides the same service, Alipay is the forerunner, which not only refers to mobile payment, but also includes the balance treasure provided by Ant Financial and more and more online financial services. Alipay is everywhere in China, thanks to Jack Ma, and PayPal is unparalleled in the United States.
From the perspective of investment, Alibaba is a beautiful dream. If you bought stocks when new york listed on 20 14, your investment tripled. Yes, Amazon's share price also performed well last year, rising by 67%, but Alibaba's share price doubled.
The second thing that makes Alibaba surpass Amazon is the scale and growth rate of China's e-commerce market. Especially after the acquisition of Washington post, the relationship between Bezos and "the man who can't even mention his name" became very tense, but because Ma Yun and Alibaba have been trying their best to promote the economic development of China, they have been valued and favored by the government in China.
Last year, Ma Yun said in a lecture on the political and legal system that the future political and legal system cannot be separated from the Internet and big data. Science and technology will soon make it possible to prevent crime, and bad people can't enter this square at all.
All these are important, because one of the "American priority" policies of "You know who I'm talking about" is that the world outside the United States can sell it. In the boring (by his own standards) speech of "darkseid" Davos, he repeatedly promoted his investment in the United States to the world. Many enterprises may do so because of his government's practice of reducing corporate tax and supervision. However, if a multinational company like Apple moves its production back to the United States, what does it mean for the rest of the world?
Ma Yun has his own answer: e-commerce is not aimed at large companies and developed countries, but at developing countries, young people and small businesses. We shouldn't let 60,000 large enterprises around the world control global trade. We should empower 6 million,16 million and 60 million companies through technology and policies. Alibaba hopes to achieve this.
This is very clever. Every emerging market lags behind China in e-commerce, whether it's parcel delivery logistics or consumer credit with artificial intelligence. Ma Yun's new mission is to promote the China model, not in the United States or Europe, but anywhere in the world.
He said in Davos: "Five years ago, Alibaba delivered 80,000 packages to Russia, and the Russian postal system collapsed. Today, one million packages are shipped from China to Russia every day. " The same expansion also brought Alibaba to India and Southeast Asia.
Until recently, I was one of those people who thought the world would be so divided: Silicon Valley giants including Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google would flood into all markets except China, while China would be dominated by Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. However, will BAT win all markets outside the United States?
Davos's "person who can't even mention his name" was ridiculed by billionaire Soros. For me, Ma Yun provided a better choice and rebuttal for "American priority". In Verdi's opera Attila, Roman general Ezio said to Attila: You can have the whole world, but leave Italy to me! Perhaps, "You Know Who I'm Talking about" gives the horse a similar scene. He can say: You can make America great again, but leave the world to me.
People who have made great contributions to society.