马云的长篇英语演讲稿(2)

　　This world is not fair, I know, so that’s why I want to encourage everyone all the SMES here, I’m the SME, I have 8 kids, I am still SME, I still believe I’m small. Because when I am small, I know l can be big and I hate to be big, unfortunately. When I was a small company, only have 20 people, I felt so excited. Well, I can call every employee’s names and I know every time, everything I want to change, I can change within half a minute. Now, oh, terrible. When I was 20 years old, my friends said:” you company is not big enough. If you are big, you are like a big boss. You are easy, right, you can control your time.” No, my time is not controlled by myself; my time is controlled by all the meetings, sectary, KPI, shareholders, all the things. It’s much tougher than when you are small. So I always believe the first day love is every beautiful. Believe the first day love, when you are small, at least you can have time to go out go to cinema with your wife and kids and enjoy wonderful view. But when you are big, you always go to the board meetings.

　　And also I want to say that, I give you some, today I come here, people say Jack, you do not prepare, why don’t you have PPT.I never prepare PPT, you know, I’m not good at technology. I was trained to be a high school teacher and the only thing I can know about computer, funny thing, I’m running one of the biggest e-commerce companies in China, maybe in the world, but I know nothing about computer, the only thing I can know about computer is to send and receive email and browse. That’s it. Because I always think technology is for the people, people are not working for the technology. But today I come here, as an entrepreneur. I am prepared every day. I’m not prepared for the PPT, because every time when I use the PPT, something wrong, I cannot use it.

　　So I come here to tell my old experiences, I want to share with you as 8 kids’ father what I did when I have trouble. When I have trouble, I always remind me 3 things: focus on your customer, serve your employees, and learn from your competitors. These are the key issues that I learned.

　　Focus on your customer, everybody toady talking about shareholder NO.1, I hate that. I think it’s always customer NO.1. It’s the customer give you the money. It’s the customer give you the innovations. It’s the customer that makes you happy. Year 1999 and year 2000, when Internet bubble burst, we cannot get any money, we did not have revenue, we have nothing, but everyday what encouraged me go on was letters of thanks and emails from my customers, said Jack, Alibaba, keep on. Because you helped us, someday we will help you. That’s the dream I had.

　　So today, we believe shareholder NO.1 .you only think about making numbers. You only think about revenues, you only think about how can make you stock market go up. And I let you know, no shareholders can be trusted. I tell you the truth. Well, our share stock price, 2 years ago, we listed, 13.50 Hong Kong dollars. Before that list, a lot of shareholders came to say Jack: “we are long-term shareholders, please give us more shares, we will keep it.” When the financial crisis time came, the day when IPO, 13.50 Hong Kong dollars, we went up 40 dollars without doing anything good in 24 hours. And then financial crisis came, 40 dollars to 3 dollars without doing anything bad, they all gone. Most the shareholders, they are share traders. How can you trust on them? So rely on your customers because the customers stay with you, customer grow up with you, customer give you the money, give you the hope, give you the support. So focus on customer.

　　And secondly, rely and serve your employees, it’s you employee, your team that make the difference. It’s the employees that make all the dreams realize. If we say we have so many problems in our big companies have a problem in getting the innovation, how to make thing happen, well, because they do not listen to the employees, they focus too much on the shareholders. And the shareholders, they give you this idea, that idea, when you really do their idea, they are gone. They change all the time, but the employees stay with you.

　　I remember the tough days, was so difficult year 2001 and 2002. There was only one group of people that stay with me, that’s my colleagues. And people say Jack:” you don’t have to pay me for 2 years, I will stay with the company because you respect us, because the customers love us. “I tell you one funny thing, the only way you believe your employees are talents, they are talented people. If you don’t believe them, they will never be. My mistake I made when I was, in the year 2000, we raised 500 thousand US$ and that 5 million dollars. When we have money, we started to make mistakes. I tried to hair as many talents as possible. Those talents are MBAs; those talents are vice presidents of multinational companies, because I believe if you have MBA, you must be good, right. But when I hired these guys, oh, my god, it’s terrible. These guys came to tell you strategy. I only had 5 million dollars, I remember one of the vice president marketing said: “Jack this is the budget for next year marketing.” I said: “what that, 12 million dollars is. I only have 5 million.” He said:” I never done any plan below 10 million.” When something wrong, is always your fault, because you never know. So try to find the right people, not the best people or your employees. So if you try to hire great people in your own company which your company is not good enough at that time, just like put a Boone 747’s engine into a poor tractor, when that goes, your tractor never fly, into pieces. So my suggestion is that look at your employees, develop them, only when they are developed, your company will be developed.

　　The day when we IPO, we created more than a thousand millionaires at least in the company. All the guys in the sitting room, we had a chat. Said:” ask me. Now tell me one thing, why you are so successful. Why we are so successful when we are 20s, become millionaires. What happened, are we very hard working people. I think there are much more hard working people outside. Do you think we are smart enough? Oh At least, I’m not smart, I took 3 years 3 times to go to the university. I failed all the times. I don’t think I’m smart, I don’t think you are smart. “

　　And that time in the year 2000, it’s so difficult for Alibaba to hire people. If they are not very that much disabled, we hired them, if they can walk, we hired them. Because nobody believed the Internet, nobody believed e-commerce would work in China, nobody believed that. You know, Internet can happen. But these guys, because they have no jobs, so let’s come here. They joined the company. Those MBAs, Those people with great backgrounds, a lot of hunting company, they moved out, they started their own business, now, today they all failed. Those guys, nobody hunting them, those guys, never thought of having the dream to build their own company and stayed with the company. After 5 years, we all succeed. Why? We keep our dreams, we believed it, no matter how big your dream is, make small tiny steps .I had and grow with them, grow up with the company.