【中文标题】谁相信中国？— 马云的真心话大冒险
【原文标题】Who Trusts China? Jack Ma’s Moment of Truth
【登载媒体】福布斯
【原文作者】Gady Epstein
【原文链接】http://www.forbes.com/global/2011/0411/features-jack-ma-alibaba-e-commerce-scandal-face-of-china.html
阿里巴巴的一件丑闻对马云来说，是抓住这个国家商业行为弱点的机会。
马云愤怒了。自从这位中国最大的电子商务公司——阿里巴巴集团的创始人向全世界发布自身的丑闻以来，已经过去了两个星期。现在，当他第一次接受此事的采访时，还是会从椅子上跳起来。他依然为那些因欺骗数千家外商而被他解雇的100名销售人员激动不已，并且试图避而不谈关键问题。这些人的罪名是：故意在网站上添加骗子卖家，还把他们认证为所谓的金牌供应商，这些人收取了货款，可是从未向买家发货——包括流行的电子消费品，比如笔记本电脑和平板显示器。马快速、果断地说：“我生气的是（销售人员）如此不可靠——他们或许知道——这些（经销商）是有问题的，但他们依然安排签署合同。这是诚信问题。”
而且这是阻碍阿里巴巴正常运作的最大因素。在公司12年的历史中，阿里巴巴已经进化成一个网络商业大家庭，包括B2B销售、消费者采购平台、电子支付和数据服务。马身材矮小（5英尺3英寸）、体格消瘦（体重大约100磅多一点），但浑身充满能量。他说他是在联合创始人蒋芳1月22日的电子邮件中，第一次听说有关欺诈的事件。蒋芳在去年年底接管了集团B2B电子平台——Alibaba.com的信任和安全部门。她的邮件让马云和管理层大为震惊。他在邮件中写道：“他妈的！”（粗译为“F---！”），然后他立即给她打电话：“到底出了什么事？”
当天晚间，马云在杭州公司总部旁边的一家酒吧中召集了所有的高层管理人士。“我们讨论了很长时间，我说：‘我们必须要关注这个问题。’”接下来的内部调查是马云职业生涯中最痛苦的一个月，“我不停地想，如果这是真的，我该怎么办？”
2月18日，部分阿里巴巴董事会成员召开了一个视频会议，内部调查揭露出“一系列”的问题。问题造成的损失并不大，总共只有大约200万美元，但是其中牵涉到2300多家虚假的网络店铺。调查工作负责人Savio Kwan说，而且，“公司在面临一个风险，它似乎在发展出一种不惜代价追求短期利益的文化”。高层管理团队必须要承担责任。马云在那个周末召见了Alibaba.com的CEO卫哲和COO李旭晖。尽管这两个人都没有被认为做错任何事情，但是，46岁的马认为他应当让周围的人了解，他必须保护公司的名誉。
马坐在7楼的VIP会客室，看着7座办公楼相互交织而成的巨大的Alibaba.com工作园区（150万平方英尺）说：“我们或许是中国第一家让高层管理人员承担责任的公司。人们会说‘马云，你做得太过了。’我是说太严厉了，但是我认为中国需要这样的方式。”
这是因为从现实意义上讲，阿里巴巴的问题就是中国的问题。马说，这个国家需要的是一家值得世界信任的公司，相比于短期获利，它更尊重人的价值。他在下一个十年里的目标是帮助1000万家小公司在线经营；创造1亿个就业岗位；为全球10亿消费者提供服务。所有打算改变世界的人或许都需要在矽谷的公告板上排队，但是马的这种态度足够让他在中国成为稀有品种了。媒体上的丑闻标题让他在深陷腐败泥潭的国家中成为一个愤世嫉俗的人。
中国作为一个商标，已经深陷危机，即使其金钱和产品充斥了世界每一个角落，中国的玩具、宠物食品、医药品和石膏板都已经遭到质疑。或许这么说并不公平，但是“中国制造”的确意味着廉价，或许还有不安全。2010年皮尤处方项目的调查结果显示，70％的美国人不相信来自中国的处方药。
中国老百姓也对中国有限公司深感忧虑。2月21日早晨，马革除其下属职位的当天，他看到电视新闻中报道香港的婴儿奶粉售罄，因为中国大陆居民不相信国产奶粉的安全性而把巨大的购买力转投香港。马在想：“我的天啊，我们究竟生活在一个什么样的商业世界里？”
这个商业世界其实就有他贡献的一份力量，几乎所有中国生产的商品都可以在马的在线商业帝国中进行采购、出售和付款。他们承载的业务量与Alibaba.com这个集团中唯一公开上市的公司规模不成比例，该公司目前市值88亿美元，去年在8.53亿美元的销售额中净赚2.25亿美元。根据高盛提供的数据，私人控股公司淘宝——阿里巴巴的在线零售交易平台——2010年在6.4亿美元的销售额中净赚3600万美元。淘宝在中国击败了eBay，独占将近80％的市场份额，去年其平台交易额将近600亿美元。根据政府统计，在中国国内流动的包裹中，大约一半来自淘宝的交易，阿里巴巴集团因此在物流方面投资了数十亿美元。Alibaba.com是全球贸易最大的电子商务票据交换所，其英文网站有1800万注册用户，中国的B2B注册用户比这个数字还要多出4400万。这些中小型企业在平台上出售、采购的商品绝大多数都是中国制造的。
马的电子商务帝国总市值为200亿美元，他个人身家达到16亿美元。但是，就像他懊恼地所指出的，这并未让他成为一个英雄。在丑闻爆发之前，Alibaba.com有骗子卖家的事实就人所共知，甚至有一些网站专门揭露其欺骗事件。淘宝的货架上充满了假货。随便搜索一下就会发现，“顶级仿制LV皮包”售价不到60美元，盗版奥斯卡得奖DVD《国王的演讲》售价75美分，还有价格为220美元的假劳力士。
淘宝的确让一些可疑的商品下架，去年为了应对公众的抱怨所采取的措施过滤掉了1400万件商品，还组建了一支400人的反假货团队。最新的行动包括与89家品牌所有人联手查获疑似仿冒品。但是，美国商务代表办公室对公司的相关政策明显表示不满，最近他们将淘宝定义为“臭名昭著”的假货交易平台。随着淘宝总经理陆兆禧接管Alibaba.com，评论人士对卫的解职这种装点门面的行为不再关注，而是把马给全体员工的电子邮件（已经在网上传播）称为作秀（卫在邮件中拒绝接受采访）。反对者表示，马放手让两个交易平台自由发展，疏于管理，导致犯罪横行。马对这些批评极为愤怒，他高声说：“我不是恶疾的制造者，我是治疗者。”
像马云这样自学成才的励志故事并不多。他生于1964年，在文化大革命期间长大。当学校纷纷关闭闹革命的时候，他自学了英语。少年时代，他曾经骑着自行车到杭州的一家酒店，为那里的外国人当导游，以便练习英文。高考两次落榜之后，他进入了一家普通的学校——杭州师范学院。1995年，他接到一份翻译的工作前往美国，在那里他发现了个人电脑和互联网。回到中国之后，他借款2000美元在国内开办了第一家商业网站，然而这个中国网页索引网站以失败告终。几年后，马在外贸部经济合作中心与一名台湾企业家建立了关键性的友谊——杨致远。
1999年，马在自己的家里同其他17个人开办了阿里巴巴网站，6万美元创建资金是通过含糊的计划——帮助中国公司与世界连接——募集来的。后来在集团内部发展出的公司——淘宝、支付宝（电子支付）、阿里云（云计算数据服务）——把互联网的用途延伸到降低小企业在线销售的门槛方面。
即使在创业初期，诚信也是一个问题。阿里巴巴的名字是希望让人们想起“芝麻开门”（寓意打开世界市场的大门），而不是“四十大盗”。公司期望以此来让买家和卖家相信，网络是一个安全的交易场所。
马的公司在刚开始的时候为小型中国生产商提供免费的网络产品展示服务，以寻找海外客户。有的人在嘲笑他无法迅速盈利。网站的收入的确少得可怜，大部分来自向国内公司销售软件建立网店的业务。然而随着Alibaba.com注册用户数量的攀升，运营费用也越来越高。
马很喜欢讲述早期投资者的故事，比如高盛在1999年投入400万美元，获得23％的股份，“我并不关心公司的赢收。”当然并不能仅从表面上理解这句话，但是这样的逻辑让他的得力助手和挚友——阿里巴巴集团CFO蔡崇信（员工编号19）——大惑不解。蔡在鲜有的一次采访中对我说：“一开始我不大理解马云的想法，我对他说：‘别人都说，我们的网站就是一个公告牌。’”马的回应就是蒋芳经常使用的一串口头禅，“他一心一意地关注在建设市场核心基础上，也就是很多的信息、很多的供应商，最后是很多的买家。”
马说，最后，钱在2002年彻底花光了，他不得不屈从于投资方的压力。这些人总共帮助他的网站募集了2500万美元，其中包括高盛、富达投资和软银。马回忆道：“我同意了，‘好吧，我们来赚点钱吧。’”即使到今天，他依然认为在那时向卖家收费限制了阿里巴巴的成长：“这对我来说是一个遗憾。”
马坚持淘宝要走一条不同的道路。淘宝在2003年上线，当初的目的是为了对抗通过购买易趣而进军中国市场的eBay，马拒绝对陈列商品和交易模式做任何改动。当eBay嘲笑“免费根本不是商业模式”的时候，马把“免费”作为吸引客户的口号，这的确凑效了。但是毕业于耶鲁大学法学院和曾经的私人股票管理人士蔡，在2004年对马又重提几年前的旧事：我了解你的意图，但是别再亏钱了。“马云说：‘你看，淘宝即将成长为庞然大物，我们今天根本无法预见到淘宝在三、五年之后会变成什么样，所以我们不应当通过向别人收费来限制其成长。’”
蔡说，他去年在纽约和太太看电影《社交网络》的时候，又想起了上面的对话。扮演马克.扎克博格的演员让他的搭档爱德华多.萨弗林忘掉挣钱的事，因为他还不知道他们创造出来的是什么东西，将来会变成什么样子。蔡说：“当演到这个情节的时候，我真的从椅子上跳了起来：‘天啊，马云在2004年就是这样和我说的。’这就是网络生意人与传统生意人之间的区别。普通人认为，你只有盈利才算创造价值。网络人物则认为，只要有数量庞大的人来访问、使用、忠于你的网站，你就创造了巨大的价值。”
事实是：今天的淘宝每月有1.1亿浏览量。易趣呢？每月浏览量为610万，其市场份额骤然下跌（见下图）。淘宝的注册用户数量已经将近4亿，去年其交易额是前年的一倍，他们期望在2012年能再把这个数字翻一倍，达到1200亿美元。淘宝实际上已经占据了C2C的90％市场份额，其品牌商店淘宝商城在拥挤的在线零售领域与广受欢迎的电子产品在线销售平台京东商城、亚马逊和刚刚上市的当当进行激烈的竞争。
商家比较
阿里巴巴的在线销售平台淘宝，彻底击败了eBay在中国的代理易趣，后者的销售额几乎没有任何增长。
淘宝依然没有对在线商家的800万种商品收取任何陈列和交易的费用，马坚持认为这是“非常有利可图的。”那么它如何盈利呢？主要是靠收取搜索结果中的广告费和主页、商品页面无处不在的广告费用。高盛预计，公司在2013年，29亿美元的收入中，税前利润将达到7.16亿美元，公司市值将达到143亿美元。似乎免费也可以算得上是一种经营模式了。
高盛似乎希望自己也能有马云那样的远见和毅力，这家公司用2004年给阿里巴巴集团的400万美元投资套现为2500万美元，绝对是超值的5年回报率。其手中现在持有的股份大约为10％，合20亿美元。（另一位早期投资者日本软银，现持有31％的股份，市值大约60亿美元。）
马之所以能够让等待收益的投资者有所收获，并且击败eBay，主要是因为雅虎在2005年的10亿美元注资。这项交易是在杨致远掌权时进行的，它让雅虎获取了被冲淡的40％股份，还把雅虎中国的管理权交到马云手中。它同时还促成了双方深厚的友谊，尽管今天双方之间的关系大不如前了。马的办公室里挂着一张照片，微笑和杨、马和马的太太在长城上的留影。杨目前还是阿里巴巴集团董事会的4名成员之一，其余3个人是马、蔡和软银主席孙正义。
雅虎的这一针强心剂还把马送入了中国企业家的殿堂，这在一个有史以来就推崇英雄的国家是至关重要的。今天，资本主义的榜样似乎取代了战斗英雄和宇航员在人们心目中的地位。2007年，Alibaba.com完成了互联网公司中规模第二大的首次公开发售（稍逊于谷歌），它在香港证券交易所募集了17亿美元，在金融危机之前的市值估算为260亿美元。
马的崛起成为了数十本传记和商业书籍的主题，他的面孔立即被大多数中国人所熟知。
他的面孔也同样被世界领导人所熟知。在他的年度杭州AliFest网商交易会中，比尔.克林顿、科比.布莱恩特、阿诺德.施瓦辛格都发表过讲话。马四、五年前在达沃斯上遇到的朋友扎克博格在到中国访问时，专门在杭州停留一天。马与胡锦涛主席见过很多次面，他说主要是因为他参加了亚洲商界领袖组织，每年都会与各国领导人会面。当习近平在2002年到2007年任浙江省党委书记时，他就与这位即将继位的国家主席结为朋友。习在2007年暂时兼任上海市党委书记，他曾经率领一个代表团来访问阿里巴巴，把它作为是商业发展的榜样。
有策略地应付这些关系对阿里巴巴是至关重要的。两年前，出现了一些针对支付宝这个占据50％市场份额产品的问题——它或许与政府控制的银行体系政策发生了冲突，政府明显对他们控制范围之外的交易面露不悦之色。中国消费者因此降低了网上购物的热情，因为大部分人都没有信用卡，而支付宝第三方保管系统在网络上请买家一定要放心。马云并没有试图挑战政府的权威，而是做出了一个谦卑，甚至虚情假意的表态：如果北京真的想要支付宝，他会无条件交出。实际上，他不会失去一项在今年承担了1000亿美元交易额而又（依马云的典型风格）不赚钱的服务。而且，他貌似鲁莽的举措仅仅是与欲加之罪何患无辞的政府小心翼翼周旋策略中的一部分。马经常说，他愿意“与政府官员约会”，但不打算结婚。（他已婚，有两个孩子，老大在念高中。）
雅虎的投资也是件麻烦事。尽管大多数中国互联网公司都有外国公司参股，但是政府不喜欢这么大比例的股份，马也一样不喜欢。去年双方关于购回一半股份的谈判以破裂告终。
有关股份的问题既涉及商业策略，也涉及私人感情。2009年3月，马与雅虎杨的继任者Carol Bartz第一次在雅虎总部的会面就很不愉快。杨向马介绍了CEO之后就离开了房间，根据现场人员的描述，Bartz当着全体高层管理人员的面斥责马管理雅虎中国不力。据说她这样对马说：“我之所以直言不讳因为这关系到我的名声，我要你把雅虎的名字从网站上拿掉。”就当时的情形来看，雅虎中国的确名存实亡了。雅虎拒绝对此事件发表评论。
当我向马云问到此事时，他并不觉得在会议中丢脸。但是他说，Bartz未能挽回雅虎颓势的事实让她没有资格批评其他人。他笑着说：“如果你搞不定这件事，就没有权力对我发怒。”双方的关系一直没有缓解。
阿里巴巴集团毫不掩饰购回雅虎股份的企图，这些投资已经翻了八倍，它或许是雅虎在过去十年里最精明的一项投资。据可靠消息，雅虎正在计划把日方股份出售给软银，因为Bartz希望提高雅虎的股价来平息股民不满的情绪。有些人认为她下一步就会抛出阿里巴巴的投资，但是雅虎或许对阿里巴巴股票的升值感到相当满意。沮丧的马说他认为短时期内不会与雅虎再次进行实质性的谈判，“我已经不相信他们了，”他停了一下，“我与他们共事多年，这样的结果我很失望。”
马不认为与雅虎之间的摩擦会影响淘宝的上市，也不认为这会让阿里巴巴付出更昂贵的代价来购回股份。他说短期内没有上市的计划，谁会仅凭外人施加的压力就会不理智地扩张或者急于盈利呢？
现实中，阿里巴巴集团现在就坐拥一座商业和消费者数据的金山，马似乎并不急于以此盈利。依附淘宝交易而存在的支付宝，虽然初涉第三方交易业务，但必将成为大功率印钞机。截止到12月份，支付宝有5.5亿注册用户。数据发掘服务阿里云在不停地收集国际商务和淘宝交易的数据，当然主要还是本土交易的数据，它在未来会通过“长尾”消费者数据帮助卖家经营。所有这些都在等待一个时机，以实现那些挡不住的财源。
马认为，他面临最大的问题就是他亲手创建的公司价值观的败落，员工把经济利益和自身利益凌驾于客户之上。马把部分原因归咎于，他在金融危机的高峰期决定雇用5000名其实并不需要的员工，而且没有提供足够的培训。评论人士说，阿里巴巴在当时决定降低价格，吸引更多的金牌供应商，这会逼迫公司花费大笔费用来确保严格的认证过程。
马说，他告诉前CEO卫哲，他应当更早着手处理滥用权力的问题。“我说：‘卫哲，如果你们在6个月前就开始处理这个问题，我现在就不需要这么做了。但是如果我现在不这么做，6个月之后，23000人（阿里巴巴员工数量）就会把我开除。’”他皱起眉头说，“因为这就是我们的生存之道。”
原文：
Jack Ma is furious. It's been two weeks since the lead founder of Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce enterprise, told the world about the scandal at his company. Now, in his first interview since, he's leaping out of his chair, still worked up about the 100 salespeople he fired for cheating thousands of foreign merchants-- or looking the other way. Their crime: knowingly setting up fraudulent sellers and certifying them as so-called Gold Suppliers, who accepted payments for but never delivered popular consumer electronics like laptops and flatscreen monitors. "What I'm angry about is [the salespeople] suspect--they know, probably--the [dealer] is probably not right, but they just assign the contract," says Ma, speaking rapidly and emphatically. "This is the trust issue."
And by far the biggest setback to rock Alibaba, a family of Web operations--including business-to-business sales, a consumer marketplace, e-payments and data services--in its 12-year history. Ma is tiny (5 foot 3), slight (he weighs just over 100 pounds) and full of coiled energy. He says he first learned of the skulduggery from a Jan. 22 e-mail from Jane Jiang, a cofounder who late last year took over the trust and safety unit of Alibaba.com, the group's business-to-business platform. Her missive shocked him and a small group of executives. "Ta ma de," she wrote (rough translation: "F---!"). Ma called her immediately and asked, "What happened?"
Late that night Ma called together senior colleagues at a bar near the company's headquarters in Hangzhou, his hometown. "Then we had a long talk, and I said, 'Wow, we've got to pay attention to this.'" So began an internal investigation and the most painful month of Ma's career. "I'm thinking, 'What am I going to do if that is true?'"
On Feb. 18 some Alibaba board members held a videoconference. The internal task force had uncovered a "systemic" problem. The damage was small, with a total take of maybe $2 million. But it involved more than 2,300 fake storefronts. Moreover, "the company was at risk of developing a culture of pursuing short-term financial gain at all cost," said Savio Kwan, the lead investigator. Senior management had to take the rap. That weekend Ma called for the heads of Alibaba.com's CEO, David Wei, and Elvis Lee, its COO, even though neither was charged with any wrongdoing. Ma, who is 46, felt he had to send a message to protect his company's reputation.
"We are probably the only company in China that senior management takes responsibility," Ma says, sitting in the seventh-floor VIP reception area overlooking the vast (1.5 million square feet) Alibaba.com campus of seven interlocked buildings. "People think, 'Jack, you do too much.' I mean, too drastic. But I believe China needs this."
That's because Alibaba's problems are, in a very real sense, China's problems. What his country needs, Ma says, is a company the world can believe in--that values people over quick profits. His goal this next decade is to help 10 million small companies get a boost online, create 100 million new jobs and serve a billion consumers worldwide. Hoping to change the world might register on the cliché meters of Silicon Valley. But it's sincere enough in China to make Ma something of a rare species. The scandal headlines played to the cynics in a nation steeped in corruption.
China as a business brand is in crisis, even as its money and products are flooding markets around the globe. Chinese toys, pet food, pharmaceuticals and drywall have all come under suspicion. Fair or not, "Made in China" suggests made cheaply; perhaps unsafely, too. A 2010 survey for the Pew Prescription Project suggests that 70% of Americans do not trust prescription drugs from China.
Chinese people also have become deeply wary of China Inc. On the morning of Feb. 21, the day Ma cashiered his lieutenants, he saw the news on television that Hong Kong was sold out of milk powder for infants because of overwhelming demand from mainland Chinese who refused to believe domestic milk was safe. "Oh, my God," Ma wondered. "What kind of business world are we living in?"
One that he has helped create. Almost anything produced in China can be bought and sold and paid for via one of Ma's online emporiums. They carry throw-weight all out of proportion to the size of Alibaba.com, the group's only publicly listed company, which has an $8.8 billion market cap and last year netted $225 million on revenue of $853 million. Privately held Taobao, Alibaba's online consumer retail exchange, earned an estimated $36 million on $640 million in sales in 2010, says Goldman Sachs. Taobao has vanquished eBay in China, capturing nearly 80% market share with nearly $60 billion worth of transactions on its platform last year; close to half of all parcels shipped within China are from Taobao transactions, say government statistics, and, as a result, Alibaba Group and partners are investing billions of dollars in logistics. Alibaba.com is the largest e-commerce clearinghouse for global trade, with 18 million registered users on its international English site and 44 million more B2B users in China--small and medium-size businesses, buying and selling goods, most of them made in China.
All told, Ma's e-commerce empire is worth $20 billion. He himself is worth $1.6 billion. But, as he ruefully notes, that does not make him a hero. Before the scandal broke Alibaba.com was known to have fraudulent sellers; websites exist to expose scams on the site. And Taobao listings are rife with knockoffs. A recent casual search unearths a "top grade Louis Vuitton look-alike bag" selling for less than $60, a pirated DVD of Oscar winner The King's Speech for 75 cents and a fake Rolex watch for $220.
Taobao does take down dubious listings-- 14 million last year in response to complaints and via filtering, with an anti counterfeiting team of 400 employees. There is a new effort with 89 brand owners to track down suspected fakes. But, dissatisfied with the company's policing so far, the U.S. Trade Representative's office recently cited Taobao as a "notorious" marketplace for counterfeits. With Taobao's chief, Jonathan Lu, taking over at Alibaba.com, critics dismissed the ouster of Wei as window dressing and called Ma's e-mail to the staff, which circulated on the Web, a publicity stunt. (Wei declined comment via e-mail.) Ma had let both online marketplaces grow faster than efforts to police them, detractors contend, allowing criminals to flourish. Ma bristles at the criticism. "I'm not the guy who created the cancer," he says, his voice rising. "I'm the guy curing it!"
Few success stories are as inspiring as the self-made ascent of Jack Ma, born Ma Yun in 1964. Growing up during the Cultural Revolution, when many schools were closed, Ma taught himself English. As a kid he biked to the one hotel in Hangzhou where foreigners were allowed to stay, offering tours to practice his English. After failing his college entrance exam twice he got into a poor school, Hangzhou Teachers College. A stint as an interpreter on a trade mission sent him to the U.S. in 1995, where he discovered personal computers and the Internet. Once back in China he borrowed $2,000 to start one of the first commercial websites in the People's Republic. The Web directory China Pages failed. A few years later Ma, while at the Ministry of Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation, made a critical friendship with a Taiwan-born entrepreneur: Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang.
Ma launched Alibaba in his apartment in 1999 with 17 other people, raising $60,000 on the vague notion of helping Chinese companies connect with the world. Later companies within the group--Taobao, Alipay (e-payments) and AliCloud (cloud-computing data ser vices)--extended the idea of using the Internet to lower the barrier for the little guy to sell online.
Trust was an issue even in the earliest days. The name Alibaba was meant to evoke "open sesame" (as in opening global markets)--not "40 thieves"--and the company sought to reassure buyers and sellers that the Web was a safe venue for business.
Ma's company started out as a free Internet listings service for small Chinese manufacturers looking for overseas customers. Sometimes it was pilloried for not chasing a quick buck. Revenue was negligible, mostly from selling software to help these companies set up online, but the number of Alibaba.com users was growing. So were expenses.
Ma was fond of telling early-stage investors like Goldman Sachs, which kicked in $4 million for a 23% stake in 1999, "I don't care about revenues." It wasn't an act; the same reasoning puzzled his own right-hand man and alter ego, Alibaba Group CFO Joe Tsai (employee number 19). "Early on I didn't quite understand Jack's thinking," Tsai tells me in a rare interview. "I said to Jack, 'People say that our website is nothing but a bulletin-board service.'" Ma's response: a variation of Jane Jiang's expletive, says Tsai. "He was singlemindedly focused on building the core foundation of the market, which was a lot of listings, a lot of sellers and, in the end, a lot of buyers."
Finally, with money running out in 2002, Ma says, he caved to pressure from venture capitalists who had helped him raise a total of $25 million to monetize the site. Among them were Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments and Softbank. "I agreed, 'Okay, let's make some money,'" Ma recalls. Still, to this day he believes charging sellers at that stage to list on the site limited Alibaba's growth: "To me it's a big pity."
Taobao, Ma insisted, would follow a different path. Created in 2003 to counter eBay's entry into the Chinese market with a company it acquired called EachNet, Ma refused to charge anything for listings or transactions. While eBay sneered that "free is not a business model," Ma made "free" his rallying cry to draw customers. And draw it did. But Tsai, a Yale-educated lawyer and onetime private equity executive, approached Ma again in 2004, repeating his line from years before: I get your drift, but let's stop losing money. "Jack's response was, 'Look, Taobao is going to become a monster, and we have no idea today what Taobao will look like three or five years from now, so there's no way we should think about restricting the growth by charging anybody.'"
Tsai says that conversation came back to him when he watched The Social Network in New York with his wife last year. The actor who plays Mark Zuckerberg tells his partner, Eduardo Saverin, to forget about making money, that he doesn't even know what he's created yet or what it will become. "When that line came up, I literally jumped out of my seat: 'Oh my God, it's exactly what Jack told me in 2004!'" Tsai says. "This is the difference between people in the Internet business and normal businesspeople. Normal people think you are not creating value unless you are creating revenue. Internet people think you are creating huge value if huge numbers of people are coming to your site to use it and they are very loyal to your site."
Vindication: Today Taobao has 110 million unique visitors per month. And EachNet? It has 6.1 million monthly uniques; its market share has plummeted (see chart, below). Approaching 400 million registered users, Taobao saw its transactions double in value last year, and they are expected to double again to $120 billion by 2012. Taobao virtually owns the consumer-to-consumer business with a 90% share; its Taobao Mall for branded stores competes strongly in a crowded online retail market with 360buy, a popular electronics e-seller; Amazon.cn; and E-Commerce China Dangdang, which recently went public.
Taobao still doesn't charge for listings or transactions for almost all of its 8 million online merchants. Ma insists it is "very profitable." How? By collecting fees for ads that come with search results, as well as ubiquitous display advertising on the home page and product category pages. Goldman Sachs projects that by 2013 the company will earn $716 million pretax on revenue of $2.9 billion and be worth $14.3 billion. Turns out that free is a business model of sorts.
Goldman Sachs may wish it had Ma's fortitude and foresight. In 2004 the firm cashed out its $4 million investment in Alibaba Group for $25 million, a healthy return over five years. That stake would likely amount to 10% of the group today, or $2 billion. (Japan's Softbank, another early investor, has held on to its 31% share, now worth $6 billion or so.)
Ma was able to cash out some revenue- chasing investors and still take on eBay, thanks to a $1 billion infusion from Yahoo in 2005. The deal was cut when Jerry Yang was still in charge. It gave Yahoo a 40% stake on a diluted basis and handed control of Yahoo China to Ma. It also sealed a friendship that continues, though it may not be what it once was. A picture of a smiling Yang with Ma and his wife at the Great Wall hangs in Ma's office, and Yang remains one of the four members of Alibaba Group's board, along with Ma, Tsai and Softbank Chairman Masayoshi Son.
Yahoo's shot in the arm also catapulted Ma into the pantheon of Chinese entrepreneurs. That stamp of legitimacy matters in a proud nation that has long revered heroes; now models of capitalism seem to be supplanting even cherished soldiers and astronauts. In 2007 Alibaba.com pulled off the secondlargest initial public offering for any Internet company (the largest, by a sliver, was Google). It raised $1.7 billion on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and achieved a pre-financial-crisis valuation of $26 billion.
Ma's rise has been the subject of dozens of biographies and business books. His visage is instantly recognizable to most Chinese people.
And to world leaders as well. Bill Clinton, Kobe Bryant and Arnold Schwarzenegger have spoken at his annual AliFest, a business forum and trade show in Hangzhou. Zuckerberg, a friend whom Ma met four or five years ago in Davos, stopped over for a day in December during his China trip. Ma has met President Hu Jintao many times, he says, mostly because of his involvement in an Asian business leadership group that meets annually with heads of state. He considers the presumed next president of China, current Vice President Xi Jinping, a friend from Xi's 2002–07 tenure as party secretary of Zhejiang Province, where Alibaba is situated. When Xi served briefly as Shanghai party secretary in 2007, he took a delegation to visit Alibaba, holding it up as a model for business development.
Deft management of these connections is critical for Alibaba. Just two years ago there were questions about whether Alipay--in essence, the PayPal of China, with a 50% market share--might run afoul of the state-controlled banking system, which frowns on transactions outside its control. Chinese consumers were at first slow to warm to buying stuff online, especially since most didn't yet have credit cards, and Alipay's escrow system reassured buyers on the Web. Instead of challenging the government, Ma made a deeply humble if disingenuous offer: If Beijing ever asked for Alipay, he would hand it to them. He is in no real danger of losing a service that is expected to process more than $100 billion in transactions this year, though, in classic Ma fashion, does not make money. Still, his seemingly impetuous offer was just another move in his careful dance with authorities who can seize a business with impunity. Ma is fond of saying that he "dates government officials" but is not looking for wedlock. (He is married and has two children, the older a high school senior.)
Trickier still is that Yahoo investment. While most Chinese Internet companies have substantial foreign ownership, the government does not look happily on so large a stake. Neither does Ma. Negotiations last year to buy back half the shares fell apart.
The issue of those shares is strategic-- and personal. Ma's relationship with Yang's successor at Yahoo, Carol Bartz, began badly at their first meeting at Yahoo headquarters in March 2009. Yang introduced the two CEOs, then left the room. Bartz proceeded to dress down Ma in front of his entire senior management team over Alibaba's handling of Yahoo China, according to people in the room. "I'm going to be blunt because that's my reputation," she supposedly told Ma. "I want you to take our name off that site," she said, referring to Yahoo China, which by that time had withered into irrelevance. Yahoo declines to comment on the episode.
When I ask him about it, Ma doesn't sound like a guy who lost face in that meeting. But he does say that Bartz's failure so far to turn around Yahoo gives her little standing to criticize others. "If you cannot make the business cool, you have no right to be angry with me," he says, laughing. The relationship has never recovered.
Alibaba Group has made no secret of its willingness to buy back the Yahoo stake, which has increased eightfold in value and probably stands as the company's shrewdest business move in the last decade. Yahoo is believed to be in talks to sell its Japan holdings to Softbank, as Bartz seeks to boost Yahoo's stock for disgruntled shareholders; some are betting she will try to disgorge the Alibaba investment next. But Yahoo may be content to let its Alibaba stake appreciate in value. Ma, visibly frustrated, says he does not foresee real negotiations with Yahoo anytime soon. "I just don't trust them," he says, pausing. "I've been working with them for years, and I'm disappointed."
Ma dismisses the idea that friction with Yahoo is getting in the way of taking Taobao public--or that a prospective IPO would make the buyback of Alibaba Group shares that much more expensive. He insists there are no near-term plans to float an offering. Who needs pressure from outsiders to expand at an unreasonable rate or rush to profitability?
Fact is, Alibaba Group is sitting on a swelling trove of data about businesses and consumers. Ma seems in no big hurry to monetize it. Alipay, which takes a small slice of thirdparty transactions but no cut of Taobao-related business, could be a huge moneymaker at some point. As of December it had 550 million registered users. AliCloud, the data mining unit, is scraping information about international commerce, as well as from Taobao, still mostly domestic transactions, and will someday help sellers with long-tail consumer data. All in good time: The money will follow.
His biggest hurdle, Ma believes, is the near breakdown in the values of the company he created, whereby employees put financial considerations, and themselves, above their customers. Ma partly blames his decision at the height of the financial crisis, showing faith, to hire 5,000 employees that he says the company didn't need and probably didn't adequately train. Critics say Alibaba's decision at the same time to lower prices and bring in many more Gold Suppliers came at the expense of a rigorous process of verification.
Ma says he told David Wei, his former chief, he should have done more sooner to stop the abuses. "I said, 'David, if you guys [had addressed] this thing six months ago, I don't have to do this thing now. But if I don't do this thing now, like, this way, six months later, then 23,000 people'"--Alibaba Group's employee base--"'should fire me.'" He grimaces. "Because these are the things we are fighting for." |
狗仔卡
发表于 2011-4-7 12:22
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发表于 2011-4-7 12:56
