Alibaba - The Story (April 2014)

[enterprise2]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Interesting to see how Jack Ma will fare from this point onwards. It's different..getting to the top of the mountain and staying there! Time will tell if he succeeds or become another Wong Hoo or Jerry Yang for that matter. Btw isn't Jerry with Alibaba? Not sure if he's on the board?

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Interesting to see how Jack Ma will fare from this point onwards. It's different..getting to the top of the mountain and staying there! Time will tell if he succeeds or become another Wong Hoo or Jerry Yang for that matter.

Jack is one helluva ambitious guy. He knows with 80% of the Chinese online market and a slowing economy plus rivals like Tencent snapping at his heels, he has to go abroad to grow bigger. The $25 bil IPO will go into his American and European expansion plans, though for the time being Alibaba will be a niche player in foreign markets.

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China’s Alibaba aims to overtake Walmart in 2016 as world’s biggest retail firm

KAYLENE HONG
14 October '13, 06:42am
Follow

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Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba, whose transactions on its e-commerce platforms have topped that of Amazon and eBay combined, is now expecting to overtake Walmart in 2016 as the world’s biggest retail firm.

Alibaba CEO Jonathan Lu told Reuters that the company is aiming to nearly triple the volume of transactions on its marketplace platforms to about CNY3 trillion ($490 billion) by 2016, surpassing US giant Walmart. It seems that to reach this aim, Alibaba has also been beefing up its expansion roadmap by diving into the US market recently with a substantial investment in two-day shipping service Shoprunner.

To solidify its leadership position at home, Alibaba is planning to invest $16 billion in logistics and support in China’s retail industry by 2020, Reuters reports.

Alibaba is also putting in more effort to process data about its consumers as competition heats up, with brick-and-mortar companies setting up their own e-commerce branches and other online retailers jumping into the fray.

The data will help Alibaba gauge supply and demand for its products, as well as zoom in on areas in which it needs to invest more resources. This includes setting up new warehouses and fine-tuning the movement of goods traded on Alibaba’s e-commerce sites Taobao and Tmall — which Reuters notes accounted for 3 billion of the 5.69 billion parcels moved around China last year.

Other than global investments, Alibaba has also made moves to bring its marketplace model overseas. Last month, it launched its Taobao marketplace in Singapore, seeking to make its mark in Southeast Asia after using Hong Kong and Taiwan as a stepping stone a year ago to make the jump overseas.

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Btw isn't Jerry with Alibaba? Not sure if he's on the board?

Yang is on Yahoo's board and was the architect behind Yahoo's $1 bil investment in Alibaba way back in 2005. Some say it was his best decision at Yahoo. Today Yahoo owns 17% of Alibaba's shares worth about $38 bil, a huge chunk of its market cap of $42 bil.

 

[ChinaSucks]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

True. Empires come and go. So too for corporations. Who would have thought 8 years ago that Nokia would totally left out of the mobile phone industry? That said, Jack Ma is having his day in the sun, being the newly minted #1 on China's rich list at US$25 bil (he was worth only $4 bil a year ago).

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emerging markets".

Talk cock lah. With China banning just about everything and everything Western, he has no competition but monopoly and cronyism.

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Talk cock lah. With China banning just about everything and everything Western, he has no competition but monopoly and cronyism.

Actually Jack Ma is a true capitalist at heart. One of the (unsaid) reasons why he didn't want to list on the mainland was the fear of govt interference in his company. He tried listing in HK but the bourse would not change rules to accommodate him. Listing in the US gives him more corporate freedom, in addition to a toehold in the US market.

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

<header class="post-header cf" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 14px; font-family: inherit; display: block; ">Billionaire Jack Ma teaches you how to be successful in life and business</header>BY PRIS ON <time class="value-datetime" datetime="2014-02-25T10:00:18+00:00" itemprop="datePublished" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 11px; font-family: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; ">FEBRUARY 25, 2014

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Billionaire Jack Ma, the founder and ex-CEO of Alibaba Group, as well as one of the most successful Chinese Internet entrepreneurs, shares his wealth of experiences.

Jack Ma: The mistake I regretted the most

In 2001, I made a mistake. I told 18 of my fellow comrades whom embarked on the entrepreneurship journey with me that the highest positions they could go was a managerial role. To fill all our Vice President and Senior Executive positions, we would have to hire from external parties.

Years later, those I hired were gone, but those whom I doubted their abilities became Vice Presidents or Directors.

I believe in two principles: Your attitude is more important than your capabilities. Similarly, your decision is more important than your capabilities!

Jack Ma: You cannot unify everyone’s thoughts, but you can unify everyone through a common goal.

• Don’t even trust that you are able to unify what everyone is thinking; it is impossible.
• 30% of all people will never believe you. Do not allow your colleagues and employees to work for you. Instead, let them work for a common goal.
• It is a lot easier to unite the company under a common goal rather than uniting the company around a particular person.

Jack Ma: What does a leader have that an employee doesn’t?

A leader should never compare his technical skills with his employee’s. Your employee should have superior technical skills than you. If he doesn’t, it means you have hired the wrong person.

What, then, makes the leader stands out?

• A leader should be a visionary and have more foresight than an employee.
• A leader should have higher grit and tenacity, and be able to endure what the employees can’t.
• A leader should have higher endurance and ability to accept and embrace failure.

The quality of a good leader therefore is his vision, tenacity, and his capability.

Jack Ma: Don’t be involved in politics

• One should always understand that money and political power can never go hand in hand. Once you are in politics, don’t ever think about money anymore. Once you are running a business, don’t ever think of being involved in politics.
• When money meets political power, it is similar to a match meeting an explosive- waiting to go off.

Jack Ma: The 4 main questions the young generation must ponder on

• What is failure: Giving up is the greatest failure.
• What is resilience: Once you have been through hardships, grievances and disappointments, only then will you understand what is resilience.
• What your duties are: To be more diligent, hardworking, and ambitious than others.
• Only fools use their mouth to speak. A smart man uses his brain, and a wise man uses his heart.

Jack Ma: We are born to live and experience life.

I always tell myself that we are born here not to work, but to enjoy life. We are here to make things better for one another, and not to work. If you are spending your whole life working, you will certainly regret it.
No matter how successful you are in your career, you must always remember that we are here to live. If you keep yourself busy working, you will surely regret it.

Jack Ma on competing and competition

• Those that compete aggressively with one another are the foolish ones.
• If you view everyone as your enemies, everyone around you will be your enemies.
• When you are competing with one another, don’t bring hatred along. Hatred will take you down.
• Competition is similar to playing a board of chess. If you lose, we can always have another round. Both players should never fight.
• A real businessman or entrepreneur has no enemies. Once he understand this, the sky’s the limit.

Jack Ma: Don’t make complaining and whining a habit

If you complain or whine once in a while, it is not a big deal.
However, if it becomes habitual, it will be similar to drinking: the more you drink, the stronger the thirst. On the path to success, you will notice that the successful ones are not whiners, nor do they complain often.
The world will not remember what you say, but it will certainly not forget what you have done.

Jack Ma’s advice to entrepreneurs

• The opportunities that everyone cannot see are the real opportunities.
• Always let your employees come to work with a smile.
• Customers should be number 1, Employees number 2, and then only your Shareholders come at number 3.
• Adopt and change before any major trends or changes.
• Forget the money; Forget about earning money.
• Rather than having small smart tricks to get by, focus on holding on and persevering.
• Your attitude determines your altitude.

Jack Ma on entrepreneurship

• A great opportunity is often hard to be explained clearly; things that can be explained clearly are often not the best opportunities.
• You should find someone who has complementary skills to start a company with. You shouldn’t necessarily look for someone successful. Find the right people, not the best people.
• The most unreliable thing in this world is human relationships.
• “Free” is the most expensive word.
• Today is cruel, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be beautiful.

Jack Ma: The 4 don’ts of entrepreneurship

• The scariest things about starting up is the inability to see, to be snobbish, to be unable to understand what is going on, as well as to be unable to keep up with pace.
• If you do not know where your competitor is, or overconfident and snobbish about your competitor, or are unable to comprehend how your competitor became a real threat, you will surely fall behind him. Don’t be the “they” in this idiom: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
• Even if your competitor is still small in size or weak, you should take him seriously and treat him as a giant. Likewise, even if your competitor is massive in size, you shouldn’t regard yourself as a weakling.

Jack Ma on starting your own company

What starting your company means: you will lose your stable income, your right to apply for a leave of absence, and your right to get a bonus.

However, it also means your income will no longer be limited, you will use your time more effectively, and you will no longer need to beg for favours from people anymore.

If you have a different mindset, you will have a different outcome: if you make different choices from your peers, your life will then be different from your peers.

Jack Ma on opportunities

If there are over 90% of the crowd saying “Yes” to approving a proposal, I will surely dispose the proposal into the bin. The reason is simple: if there are so many people who thinks that the proposal is good, surely there will be many people who would have been working on it, and the opportunity no longer belongs to us.

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[enterprise2]

Wow! A modern day Confucius !!

 

[frenchbriefs]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Actually Jack Ma is a true capitalist at heart. One of the (unsaid) reasons why he didn't want to list on the mainland was the fear of govt interference in his company. He tried listing in HK but the bourse would not change rules to accommodate him. Listing in the US gives him more corporate freedom, in addition to a toehold in the US market.

nothing but bullshit...alibaba is majority owned by foreigners....but the company is still 100% controlled and run by the government.....the shareholders have no say in how the company's run.

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

nothing but bullshit...alibaba is majority owned by foreigners....but the company is still 100% controlled and run by the government.....the shareholders have no say in how the company's run.

Not true actually. Foreigners own the shares, but don't get to make the key decisions because power is concentrated in the hands of a 28-person partnership which reserves the right to nominate the majority of directors. Jack is the ultimate maverick and rebel, a thorn in the sides of the CPC, and he'd be the last to allow the govt to run interference.

Still, it's a more transparent structure than the dual/multi-class share structure practised by the likes of Google and Facebook: one class of shares (one vote per share) for the bread-eating plebeians, and another (10 votes per share) for patrician insiders. E.g. Rupert Murdoch's family owns only 12% of News Corps shares, but control 40% by votes.


http://blogs.wsj.com/<wbr>moneybeat/2013/10/23/<wbr>dealpolitik-alibabas-<wbr>structure-v-dual-class-the-<wbr>bottom-line/

 

[frenchbriefs]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

the fact that the company is essentially in the control of 28 chinese officials means they can do whatever they like with the company to benefit the controllers....plus the fact that these 28 controllers have a minority interest in alibaba and a major interest in other chinese companies means they are likely to direct any benefit from alibaba to their outside interests.

Jack ma has already received his 25 billion paycheck and is stepping down as CEO....i doubt he gives a shit anymore.

Not true actually. Foreigners own the shares, but don't get to make the key decisions because power is concentrated in the hands of a 28-person partnership which reserves the right to nominate the majority of directors. Jack is the ultimate maverick and rebel, a thorn in the sides of the CPC, and he'd be the last to allow the govt to run interference.

Still, it's a more transparent structure than the dual/multi-class share structure practised by the likes of Google and Facebook: one class of shares (one vote per share) for the bread-eating plebeians, and another (10 votes per share) for patrician insiders. E.g. Rupert Murdoch's family owns only 12% of News Corps shares, but control 40% by votes.


http://blogs.wsj.com/<wbr>moneybeat/2013/10/23/<wbr>dealpolitik-alibabas-<wbr>structure-v-dual-class-the-<wbr>bottom-line/

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

the fact that the company is essentially in the control of 28 chinese officials means they can do whatever they like with the company to benefit the controllers....

28 Chinese officials? You gotta be kiddin'. You think the NYSE would allow a listing of a corp backed by apparatchiks?

Anyway, Alibaba revealed the names of the partners in June 2014:

The group comprises 22 members of Alibaba management team; four executives from Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co. Ltd., which owns the online payment company Alipay; and one executive from China Smart Logistics, a subsidiary also known as Cainiao Logistics.

Only seven out of Alibaba's 18 founders made the list, namely Ma; executive vice chairman, Joseph Tsai.; senior vice president Wu Yongming; CEO of Zhejiang Alibaba, Peng Lei; chief customer officer Dai Shan; senior vice president Jin Jianhang; and vice president Jiang Fang.

Nine of the partners have more than 10 years of experience on Alibaba's management team.​

Jack ma has already received his 25 billion paycheck and is stepping down as CEO....i doubt he gives a shit anymore.

Jack Ma had already stepped down as CEO in June 2013 and handed over the mantle to Jonathan Lu, so as to spend more time on environmental (he's the first Chinese to sit on the Global Board of Nature Conservancy) and philathropic pursuits. But he remains executive chairman of Alibaba to shape strategy:

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Alibaba eyeing Europe and US for growth after IPO, says Jack Ma

Alibaba chief talks of growth plans while visiting Hong Kong to launch roadshow

Mainland e-commerce giant Alibaba plans to speed up its business expansion in the US and Europe after its mammoth initial public offering in New York this week, chairman Jack Ma Yun said in Hong Kong yesterday.

Ma also said Alibaba respected Hong Kong's decision to turn down its proposed partnership structure, which led to it seeking to list in New York instead, describing the decision to list elsewhere as "a regrettable move" due to Alibaba's lack of preparedness and limited communication with relevant parties.

"I speak from my heart, I love Hong Kong," Ma, 50, said at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Kowloon, where hundreds of institutional investors and reporters had gathered for the start of Alibaba's pre-IPO roadshow in Asia.
"We hope to become a truly global company."

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Alibaba Is Already Bigger Than Facebook, Amazon, and IBM

• BY MARCUS WOHLSEN
• <time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2014-09-19T14:33:56+00:00" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; ">09.19.14</time>

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma outside the New York Stock Exchange prior to his company’s initial public offering Friday.

Jason DeCrow / AP


Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Intel. As of midday on Friday, Alibaba is now worth more than all of them.On its first day as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, shares in the Chinese e-commerce giant shot up by nearly one-third above their initial asking price. The surge put the value of the company at around $228 billion. The only U.S. tech companies worth more by market cap are Apple ($609 billion), Google ($400 billion), and Microsoft ($387 billion).

And even those giants may see Alibaba closing in.

The reasons aren’t that complicated, but there’s a certain provincialism to how we Americans view our tech industry that might lead us to believe Alibaba’s ascendancy is coming out of nowhere. The simple fact is, unlike any of this country’s biggest tech companies, Alibaba has mastered the Chinese economy. And it’s more likely to achieve the same results elsewhere in the world before U.S. companies do the same in China.

Take Apple. Despite its best efforts (including selling its wares on Alibaba’s Tmall), the company has struggled mightily to penetrate the Chinese consumer market. Most recently, failure to get the necessary regulatory approval is keeping its new iPhone 6 models off the Chinese market. Google lags homegrown Chinese search engines in popularity (in large part because it voluntarily exited the country after apparently being infiltrated by Chinese hackers), and Microsoft in China is battling an anti-trust probe.

Alibaba’s inside track with a Chinese government eager to back its domestic tech industry over incursions by U.S. rivals is one obvious advantage. But more profound is simply how completely it has captured the Chinese consumer market. The company estimated in its SEC filings before going public that China at the moment has 302 million potential online shoppers—nearly equal to the entire population of the U.S., but just a fraction of China’s more than 1.3 billion, many more of whom become likely Alibaba customers once they go online.

Because of that mastery, Alibaba becomes the go-to destination for any U.S. company that wants to reach the Chinese consumer market quickly. And Alibaba’s shares become the most compelling proxy yet for U.S. investors who want to put their money into the Chinese consumer economy. In a way, Alibaba shares are like their own index fund for the Chinese economy. And as long as investors see the potential of that economy to grow, Alibaba shares will go up.

Alibaba may not have invented any dramatic new technologies. It didn’t invent the iPhone or search, a groundbreaking operating system or even online shopping. But in the business of technology, innovation isn’t just what happens in research and development. It’s what happens when you make that technology available to as many people as possible.

 

[tanwahtiu]

best to read in Chinese grammar which give you the punch.

Wow! A modern day Confucius !!

 

[tanwahtiu]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

this really bring up the status of the Chinese, overseas or mainland. Don't play play with the Chinese.

When they grow big, it means very very very big ..................... eat up all the world money.

 

[tanwahtiu]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

I see this as a reverse effect. Angmoh can now access to a bigger Chinese market.

Chinese are always the manufacturers and manufacturing is king.

Ah Tiongs are good at manufacturing and bring more Tiongs to screwed up your life: rivers dirty, water dirty and fake food coming.

But nevertheless fuck shitskin Ah Neh back to India. They are dripple economy type, good at scrap yard businesses, 2ndhand goods type.

Yang is on Yahoo's board and was the architect behind Yahoo's $1 bil investment in Alibaba way back in 2005. Some say it was his best decision at Yahoo. Today Yahoo owns 17% of Alibaba's shares worth about $38 bil, a huge chunk of its market cap of $42 bil.

 

[Narong Wongwan]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

......Most recently, failure to get the necessary regulatory approval is keeping its new iPhone 6 models off the Chinese market. Google lags homegrown Chinese search engines in popularity (in large part because it voluntarily exited the country after apparently being infiltrated by Chinese hackers), and Microsoft in China is battling an anti-trust probe.

Alibaba’s inside track with a Chinese government eager to back its domestic tech industry over incursions by U.S. rivals is one obvious advantage.

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Doesn't this just summed up his success?
He is just a very lucky copycat crony.....with lots of help from chink govt.
Nothing genius about him its an insult to compare to 'peers' like Steve jobs, bill gates etc.
He is more like those Russian billionaires who got rich by buying state enterprises for almost next to nothing.

 

[tanwahtiu]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Angmoh Bill Gates and Steve Job is not genius either.

Chinese PC and IC manufacturers are behind the cheaper PCBs and IC manufacturing parts for PCs.

Credit goes to Taiwan, the Hokkien, who are making PCBs and ICs for world market.

Without cheap and low manufacturing costs, angmohs software cannot take off. Ask anmgoh to make PCBs for you cheap? Fat hope.

Where you think cheap Seagates products are made in the 80s and 90s? Singapore? Malaysia? China?

Clever Chinese realized that make use of angmoh names make better profits. Suck the angmoh high high and say they are good make more money for the Chinese.

See how Chinese played the game well, use one of the Sun Tze 36 war strategies to beat the angmoh in wealth creation.

......Doesn't this just summed up his success?
He is just a very lucky copycat crony.....with lots of help from chink govt.
Nothing genius about him its an insult to compare to 'peers' like Steve jobs, bill gates etc.
He is more like those Russian billionaires who got rich by buying state enterprises for almost next to nothing.

 

[Narong Wongwan]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Angmoh Bill Gates and Steve Job is not genius either.

Chinese PC and IC manufacturers are behind the cheaper PCBs and IC manufacturing parts for PCs.

Credit goes to Taiwan, the Hokkien, who are making PCBs and ICs for world market.

Without cheap and low manufacturing costs, angmohs software cannot take off. Ask anmgoh to make PCBs for you cheap? Fat hope.

Where you think cheap Seagates products are made in the 80s and 90s? Singapore? Malaysia? China?

Clever Chinese realized that make use of angmoh names make better profits. Suck the angmoh high high and say they are good make more money for the Chinese.

See how Chinese played the game well, use one of the Sun Tze 36 war strategies to beat the angmoh in wealth creation.

Ok ok you win....can't argue with your warped logic. Chinks make use of angmo to make money? Haha that's a first.
Even i humour your logic....money the be and and end all?
You probably wont agree on jobs and gates revolutionizing the world.
Some truth on your logic la....lky is no genius also its is peasants and our forefathers who bulit this country.....then lky makaned most of the created wealth.

 

[yellowarse]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Alibaba IPO inspires Tata group to enter e-commerce sector in India

Wednesday, 24 September 2014 - 1:45pm IST | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA Webdesk

Inspired by the gigantic success of the initial public offering (IPO) of Alibaba, Tata Group might be entering the e-commerce market in India. Media reports suggested that the Tata Industries Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Tata Sons could lead this venture into the online shopping sphere.

Tata group already has an online shopping platform through Croma, but building a brand and a platform similar to Flipkart or Amazon will let any seller list on the site and sell their goods.

A leading daily reported that people close to the new venture said that Tata is modeling its business on Tmall.com which is the marketplace in the Alibaba Group.

But as Tata Group gears up for the plunge into the e-commerce space, the former chairman Ratan Tata has put in his weight behind Snapdeal by investing into it.

 

[enterprise2]

Re: Ali Baba: Biggest IPO in History at US$25 bil

Why is it always Ah Nehs follow Ah Tiong??