On the afternoon of May 2, local time in Argentina, Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma participated in a forum organized by the Argentine government called "Jack Ma in Argentina" after visiting the Presidential Palace.
In his speech, Jack Ma said that the government should take action to empower small and medium-sized enterprises, encourage entrepreneurship and support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Alibaba's cooperation with Argentina is to cultivate and develop Argentine enterprises. Alibaba will find excellent local entrepreneurs and partners to promote their development through joint cooperation.
On the morning of the same day, Argentine President Macri held talks with Jack Ma. Macri excitedly said on Twitter: Meeting with Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Argentine small and medium-sized enterprises can now start trading on a world-renowned e-commerce platform.
The Argentine government is eager to bring Argentina specialty Malbec wine, red shrimp, king crab and trout to Chinese consumers through Tmall. On the same day, the Argentine government and Alibaba signed a strategic cooperation agreement. Alibaba will assist Argentine wine and fresh agricultural products to reach Chinese consumers and help Argentine small and medium-sized enterprises develop. According to the agreement, the Argentine government will designate Alibaba platforms such as Tmall to become the official marketing channels for wine and other agricultural products in China.
President Macri said that Argentina should seize the general trend of e-commerce and use the Alibaba platform to promote the development of e-commerce.
In his speech, Jack Ma said that in addition to e-commerce, double H (happiness and health) is also the future development direction. Argentina has a beautiful environment and world-famous football, and the future of this country is full of opportunities.
According to the Argentine Ministry of Science and Technology, the Argentine Science and Culture Center where Jack Ma gave a speech, could only sit 500 people. After sending the invitation, thousands of people soon signed up, so they had to add two rooms outside the venue so that more applicants could watch live TV. Many local Argentina entrepreneurs even called the Argentina Ministry of Science and Technology to attend the meeting. There was still one hour left, and there was a long queue outside the venue.
Attachment: Record of Jack Ma’s speech
good afternoon. It is a great honor to be invited, this is my first time to Argentina. Every time I travel around the world, I almost spend three days visiting this city and this country. You guys are so lucky, it is so beautiful here. You live in heaven and have a wonderful culture and history. Of course, I'm not here to talk about culture and history. I am very happy to share my views on the future with you.
18 years ago, I started Alibaba in my apartment. We had 18 founders, and then we believed that the Internet would become very powerful one day, but no one believed me. I told my team this story and one day I will build a large e-commerce company. They said, let's do it, because not many people believe it. We believe e-commerce will change the world and e-commerce can help small businesses. People say that there is no hope for the Chinese Internet because the government does not support it. China has no payment system and no logistics. No one really cares about e-commerce, people love face-to-face transactions. Experts of that era say, forget about e-commerce and focus on traditional businesses, but we believe in it. 18 years later, we are focused on supporting small businesses and supporting young people.
Today, compared with yesterday, we are quite large because last year our platform's sales exceeded US$500 billion and ranked 21st in the world in terms of GDP. But compared to the future, we are still a small company. We are 18 years old and there are still many things to do and should do. Another thing I want to say is, why is China's e-commerce more successful than the United States? Because the United States has strong IT and business infrastructure, the United States should have better e-commerce than China. But I don't think so. I think China had greater potential 18 years ago. China's commercial infrastructure is very bad. When we use the internet, everyone starts to embrace it. In the United States, payment, logistics and infrastructure are all very good. Therefore, it is difficult for e-commerce companies to survive in the United States. So in the United States, e-commerce is a dessert, and in China, it becomes the main dish.
600 million people use mobile phones in China, and more than 200 million people use mobile phones to shop on Alibaba’s various platforms every day. These things are likely to not be realized 18 years ago, because we did not stop trying in 18 years and made many mistakes. Today, there are many books about Alibaba. But most books don't understand what Alibaba is. I have never written a book about Alibaba. If I want to write one day, I will definitely write 1,001 mistakes about Alibaba. We made many mistakes but never gave up. We have had many obstacles, difficulties, and everything. So I like to talk to entrepreneurs because most entrepreneurs ask me questions and we have relevant experiences. This is what I want to share with you today. As entrepreneurs, you should consider three things. These three things are what I tell myself every day. Today is difficult, tomorrow will be even more difficult, but the day after tomorrow will be beautiful, but most people will die tomorrow night.
If you are an entrepreneur, you should believe that the day after tomorrow is beautiful, not the future. You must know that there will only be many competitors in the future. You will not have this or that. In my first year of starting a business, I tried to raise funds from venture capital and communicated with more than 30 venture capital firms one by one, but no one believed that I would succeed. Raising funds is difficult, and finding the right person is also difficult. Everyone said that I found 18 excellent people to become founders, but I would say that not all of us are excellent, and most of them actually just couldn't find other jobs at that time. In 2003, in order to hire more people, we hired anyone who could move around, because no one believed that the Internet was really feasible, and no one believed that Alibaba would succeed. In 2004, a large article in the newspaper said that if Alibaba succeeded, it would be possible to step on the Himalayas. That is impossible. But we have already had those tough times. No matter who praises us, we always believe in our dreams. We believe that even if we don’t succeed, others will succeed. It's not because we hire the best people, but because we have no other choice.
In the first 10 years, all the outstanding talents we hired were poached by other companies, and the people who were still kept were just because no one came to poach them. This is true. We started working on teams. We insist that we make mistakes, improve and learn to ensure that customers are first, employees are second and shareholders are third. What we do is the opposite of Wall Street. On Wall Street, they think shareholders are number one, but we think customers are number one. Shareholders won’t give you money, it’s the customer who pays you. So as long as you treat your customers well and take care of your employees, shareholders will be happy. So for the past 18 years, we have insisted on doing this.
When we went public, I gave a speech on Wall Street, and one of the bankers said, "We don't know if you are a customer or a first, and we want shareholders to be the first." I said, if you don't like us, you can sell our stocks. Only when customers buy us can we do it for a long time. Shareholders will not follow you forever, they will buy and sell, but if you serve them well, customers may always follow you.
1: Pay special attention to technological revolution in the next 30 years
So what I worry about today is that every technological revolution is usually carried out for 50 years. The first 20 years are about technology, and the next 30 years are about the use of technology. The next 30 years will be particularly critical. The Internet is still in its first 20 years of development, and the next 30 years of development are particularly important. The first industrial revolution took 30 years, during which it liberated human physical strength and physical strength. The second revolution took 50 years to solve the problem of distance. The third technological revolution will liberate the brain, the human brain.
Don't expect technology to bring you good things. Technology will bring many social problems. The first technological revolution triggered the First World War. The second technological revolution triggered the Second World War. If humans don’t find a solution and work together for it, we will fight each other. So for the third revolution, we should be united, fight poverty, cancer, AIDS, and fight environmental pollution.
This is what I believe, and we will pay special attention to technological revolution in the next 30 years. I now find that many people believe this. Whenever I visit any country, I hope that governments of all countries can pay attention to it. Please pay attention to those under 30 because they were born in the Internet age. Today, about 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide were born in the 1980s. Think about it, in 10 and 20 years, 4 billion to 5 billion portraits around the world will use electricity and use the Internet. The lack of access to the Internet in the next 20 years will be worse than the lack of electricity 20 years ago.
The Internet will become the infrastructure of every business and every government agency. We call ourselves entrepreneurs, and in the future we call ourselves netrepreneurs, because 90% of business will go online, which is both a challenge and an opportunity. I regret Argentina today because the internet is so slow and so expensive, it is not a good thing. I had a very good discussion with the President and His Excellency the Minister and we all agreed that the investment should be increased, otherwise it would be a loss for a generation. I firmly believe that we need to take the Internet seriously.
Small businesses will create most jobs
Also what I want to say is, please pay attention to companies with less than 30 employees. The Internet will be a huge challenge for large businesses, but it will bring support to small businesses. Small businesses will have extraordinary opportunities because they can change quickly and act quickly, and small businesses will create most jobs.
Over the past 20 years, IT technology has been designed for large enterprises. Only big businesses have the money to buy services like IBM, Microsoft, or Oracle, while small businesses have no funds. But today, the cost of promoting goods around the world is very low. Another point is my experience, I feel very good: Today I passed by the capital city government and found that there are many women involved in the work. One of the secrets to Alibaba’s success is that we have more than 47% of our employees being women and more than 33% of our senior management being women. We find that women will become more important, and they know how to care for others better than men.
The first and second technological revolutions are about competition between muscles and speed, but this third revolution is about competition between wisdom, knowledge and user experience. Women perform better than men when considering user experience. Women care about their husbands, children, and family, as well as work. Men are more concerned about their work than anything else. So in the next 30 years, please pay attention to those under 30 years old and less than 30 employees. 30% of the company's managers should be women. That way you can do better.
Like it or not, most of the business will be online in the next 20 or 30 years. Just like 100 years ago, if you don't use electricity, you'll be in trouble.
2: Five "new" will affect the world
Another thing I want to say is about these five areas, whether in China, the United States, or Europe, these will be affected by the Internet. First of all, new retail, we have online sales and offline sales. A physical store like a supermarket or shopping mall will be in big trouble, whether you like it or not. In the city center, the most expensive places currently have inventory and warehouses, but the cost is too high to afford. E-commerce is replacing them. In the next 10 years, new retail, coupled with online, offline and big data, plus warehousing, will become new retail. In the future, it is not how you sell things to others, but about how you better serve others. Retailers should now ask themselves how to better serve customers, rather than how to sell products faster and faster.
Second, new manufacturing, due to the Internet of Things, every appliance will have chips inside, and there will be smart brains inside, and the world will be connected to each other through data and the Internet. The current situation is that there is an operating system in a mobile phone. 20% of the mobile phones are used for communication and making calls, and 80% of the use has nothing to do with communication. Imagine all cars with operating systems, 30% of the use of cars will be about driving, and the rest has nothing to do with traffic.
Next is new finance. Many developing countries have difficulties in obtaining financial support. Financial services have been designed for 20% of companies over the past few centuries. They ignore 80% of small businesses and consumers. The new system we call "fintech" or "tech finance" will support 80% of consumers and 80% of small businesses, who will raise funds through the Internet. I believe that most banks will face huge challenges in the future.
Next is about new manufacturing. The last century was about standardization. It's all about mass. Everything will be tailor-made for the next 10 years. These big events are changing. Over the past 20 years, we have turned people into machines, and for the next 20 years, we will turn machines into people. The machine will be very smart. The machine can play chess. I always say that when humans create machines, they know machines will be stronger than us. When humans make cars and trains, they know they run faster. When humans design computers, they know that computers are smarter than us. They will never be forgotten and will not be angry. The computer will never be tired. Computers will replace a lot of work.
Another thing is about new technology. The world is changing from IT to DT. Information technology empowers itself. Data technology empowers others. Data knowledge is not just an upgrade to IT. It is another way of thinking.
Data technology is another way of thinking, so be prepared for the era of data technology. Not only about data technology, but also cloud, mobile devices and artificial intelligence.
Finally, a very big change is about new technologies. In the first technological revolution, it was energy. The second technological revolution was electricity and oil. In this technological revolution, the new energy developed will be data. So how to collect data, process data, and use data. This is what we all want to talk about. Based on this point, I want to tell you that many job opportunities will disappear, especially many white-collar workers who do you think are good jobs. Many young people came to see me and said, Jack, we will have data, does it mean that data analysis will be a good job in the future. Should I apply for a related major when I was in college? I would say there will be no data analysis in the next decade.
We will have too much data that only computers can process. Humans cannot. Humans can only analyze information, but never analyze data. Another thing is that in my city, Hangzhou, I hosted the G20 last year. There was a robbery a month ago. Two thieves planned to steal cash in the supermarket at night, but the three supermarkets they entered only found less than 200 US dollars in cash. Why? Because people nowadays don’t need cash, they pay with their mobile phones. So even the thief is thinking of changing jobs. Another thing is that there is a beggar in China who puts the QR code in front of it. Because we have no change now, we can only use our mobile phone to give alms.
Things changed quickly, and in the 1870s America, half of the job was agricultural work, but the current rate was only two percent. You may hate the tech revolution because it takes away a lot of jobs. But I tell you that every technological revolution will create more jobs. But at the start of the next 30 years, it will abolish many jobs, even CEOs. I told the team that I imagine that in the next 30 years, the CEO of the Year on Time magazine's cover would be a robot, because the CEO then would be different from the current CEO and would have to analyze a large amount of data. A large number of jobs will disappear, and a large number of jobs will emerge, especially those involving data and the Internet. If you don’t understand these two aspects, you will have no chance to compete. If you can only sell things in one small town, you are a small company, but if you want to sell across provinces and across borders, you will become a big company.
Some people say, what will the human face become if we lose a lot of work? Life will be full of challenges. In the next 20 years, people are likely to only need to work four hours a day. You would say, how is this possible? Your grandfather works 16 hours a day and he feels very busy. Now we only work five days a week, eight hours a day, and we still feel very busy. I tell you that even if you only work four hours a day, you will still feel very busy. When you are in the age of data technology, you may travel to more than 300 cities. If you want to do business through the Internet today and sell products to the whole world, you need to look around the world. Young people, if you don’t look at the world, you will face huge challenges.
Three: Globalization and Trade
The next thing we are going to talk about is globalization and trade. Today there are too many people who hate globalization and too many people who hate global trade. But I am a global believer. People will never stop globalization because people will move around the world. People are also globalized. Young people are also global. Over the past 20 years, globalization has been designed for large companies and for those developed countries, and I don't like that. So I said we have B20 or G20, but we should have G200, B200 more. Over the past 20 years, globalization has been controlled by 60,000 large companies, creating many jobs and supporting many rich countries. But what if we can support 6 million companies or 60 million companies with globalization? All small businesses. When you have a mobile phone, you can buy globally. This can greatly change the world. If small businesses can sell goods all over the world, it will also change the world and create more jobs. I was walking down the street a few days ago and saw many interesting arts and crafts. It can be seen every day for you. But for Chinese people, they are very beautiful. When you take it for granted, people on the other side of the world love them. So this is just a little bit that you can do with the Internet. So I think e-commerce and the internet are inclusive. Globalization should support young people. Globalization should support small businesses. If you are a small business, you will have a better chance to sell products abroad. I went to Peru a few years ago, when there was a big demonstration there because Peru was trying to reach a free trade deal with China. I happened to be there when this massive demonstration was held, because people believed that China would take their jobs and so on. I was shocked because there were 80 policemen protecting me at the time. A young man about 20 came over with a microphone and said he used the Internet to sell his products to New Zealand, Australia and China, and he never thought we could do this in the Internet age. So think about it, any idea, great idea, or even stupid idea, there are more than seven billion people in the whole world, and there must be people as stupid as you agree with you. If you only think of your own city, you don't have a chance.
I remember discussing it with some friends seven years ago. A friend said I wanted to know what mosquitoes think. I said it was stupid. He said we put this question online. So he made some comments on the Internet and said he was studying the idea of mosquitoes and invited interested people to meet at a restaurant at a designated time. Finally, 30 people appeared. So through the Internet, you can always find people who like your ideas and who can join you. So these are things I really want to share with you.
Four: Opportunities in Argentina
So in Argentina, I'm really excited about what I've seen in the past few days. My idea is that after the internet, it will be the next wave. The next wave I call it double H, happiness and health. No matter how rich you are, no matter how powerful you are, you are always looking for happiness and health. Unfortunately, no one was happy today. The rich are unhappy, and the poor are unhappy. But your country has such a beautiful environment, such a safe and abundant food and cultural products. Another thing is sports, football. On our website, last year we sold 170,000 T-shirts for Messi. For this country, you should have more tourists and services in such a beautiful place. Yesterday I visited a company and studied soil moisturizing I never thought about, and I found it interesting. So it's a great culture, a great environment and a country full of opportunities.
Five: Problem is opportunity
People say it's wrong, all the great opportunities are taken over by Jack Ma, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. Well, I used to have the same idea. I hated Bill Gates 20 years ago. Where is the opportunity? Entrepreneurs always find opportunities from other people’s complaints. Opportunities always come in places where there are complaints. I was lucky enough to see many great people in this world. Great entrepreneur, business leader, politician, scientist. I found that they have a quality that they never complain. They are always optimistic about the future. When people complain, they start thinking if I can fix this, then this is my chance. So I think opportunities are everywhere. So don’t believe that there are big data experts and Internet experts today. In fact, there are no Internet experts, no big data experts. Because this is just the beginning. The Internet and big data will affect the world for at least 150 years. Yesterday we had experts, but we didn’t have experts tomorrow. So I remember when we launched Taobao in 2003, the leading figure in the market was eBay, with a market value of over $80 billion. At that time, Alibaba was worth less than $2 million. People say you're committing suicide. eBay said we have 99% market share in China. At that time, the total number of Internet users in China was only 10 million.
I just mentioned that we have a population of 1.4 billion. 10 years ago, I publicly stated in Silicon Valley that China's number of Internet users will surpass the United States in 10 years, and many people say it is impossible. I said you have a population of 300 million, and we have a population of 1.4 billion. When we were competing with eBay, someone gave me a book and said Jack, if you are going to compete with eBay, you have to read this book. It is a book about how eBay successfully conducts e-commerce in the United States and around the world. If you don't read it, you won't know your competitors, you won't know this great spirit. So, I threw the book away. My theory is that one day we should let eBay learn from us, and that's just the beginning. Who are the experts? If we start from now on, we will be experts in 30 years. So that's what I believe. Entrepreneurs should break out of their mindset, do what you believe, find a good team, start making mistakes, start learning from them, and better serve customers. This is the only way. I heard many people say that we don’t have this or that. If everything is ready, you will have no chance, and the people with power and wealth will take everything away.
Nothing is prepared in advance, it's about the uniqueness of entrepreneurship. So whether you like it or not, everyone sitting here pays special attention to the Internet and young people under the age of 30, don’t worry. Due to work, we will face some social instability. We are lucky to be born in this generation and we can see this revolution. And we are also unfortunate because of the challenges we may encounter. I travel around the world, talking to small businesses and entrepreneurs. I talked about this, this is our time. When you use the internet, you have no barriers. What I know is that it is difficult to convince a successful person. It is almost impossible to convince successful people. They would say, I've been doing this for 30 years, why do you think you're better than me. So try to convince those (unsuccessful) to work with those who want to succeed tomorrow. One of Alibaba’s secrets is that when we were doing e-commerce 18 years ago, we never tried to work with big companies, we never tried to work with successful people. We spend most of our time talking to people aged 15 and 18, and then 10 years later, the people we serve will become 28 and 30 years old. So you need to be patient. If you have a wonderful dream, you should be patient. So now I will answer any questions you have.
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