I have made it because I know people. I know what people want and I know what people do not want.
Think about how the Internet can solve Kenya’s or Africa’s problems
The world is changing but this is the opportunity for young people.
Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, visited Kenya last week, in the company of more than 30 billionaires in search for business deals.
His two-day visit peaked with a public appearance at the University of Nairobi where he offered Kenyan youth tips on how to build successful businesses.
Here are excerpts from this speech:
“I consider myself a very lucky person. People wonder how, without training in finance, marketing or an MBA in business, I am able to run such a big e-commerce company.
I have made it because I know people. I know what people want and I know what people do not want. I learned this by experience in dealing with people when I was a student at the university.
I was not a good student, that’s why I do not talk about good students. I failed three times before eventually getting admission at the university.
So I told myself that I will not try to be number one but I should try to be the number one person who can help and work with people. I was once elected the chairman of the (university) students union and later became the leader of the student union of our entire city.
As a students’ union, we were operating without money. That is where I got to enhance my people skills. The only way you can win respect is by supporting other people.
Upon graduation, I was assigned to be a high school teacher for six years. I learned the secret of being a good teacher is to finish class five minutes to time. I also to share with students’ knowledge on how to learn as opposed to pumping knowledge into their heads.
A good teacher always expects his students to do better than him. This is what I learnt when I became an entrepreneur — I always hire people who show potential to be better than me.
If you want them better, train them, discipline them, and support them.
I am 53 and in my whole life, I have learnt to keep on learning. Always endeavour to know who is better than you and work with him.
And be a good teacher while at it by sharing the knowledge and expecting the other person to be better persons. These are some of the qualities I learned about being a CEO.
So I remember 1994 when I decided to leave the college to go do a business, my professor asked why I wanted to venture into the Internet. At the time there was no Internet in China.
And I responded: ‘President, I have been elected the best teacher student in the university for three years. Everything I taught my students are the things I learnt from books so if I go and build up something and then I come back, then I can be a better teacher.’
So this was my original thinking. I never thought that I would be rich.
I asked my wife before I started my business, do you want your husband to be a rich person or a person that you respect. She said ‘you will never be rich!’
Even my parents never thought that I would be rich because I don’t have a gene of being rich.
A lot of people in China do not like me because they say have destroyed their business. I never destroyed anybody’s business. Normally people destroy themselves.
If you want to be successful you should have high emotional intelligence (EQ), intelligence quotient (IQ) and LQ (the Q of Love). A person with high EQ knows how to work with people, how to understand people.
IQ is high knowledge so keep pursuing knowledge to protect your business. But even with high IQ and high EQ but lack the LQ, you will not be respected. Respect the future, respect the young people.
I come from a humble background. Growing up, my mother’s and father’s pay totalled $6 a month. It was used to feed four people. It was tough.
When I fall, failure has never stopped me, instead, it has trained me. Lots of people complain about their shortcomings. They have the stupidest complaints.
In life there is always a chance, there is an opportunity, there is always a failure. You have to get used to failure. It’s like boxing if you are not hit how will you win?
Internet speed in Kenya is electric train; it’s faster than the US. But I bet a lot of people still complain about the speed. Note those people who love to complain, they complain all their lives.
Most of the time when the government doesn’t know what is going on, then it’s your opportunity! If people around you keep complaining, that’s your opportunity!
If everybody loves it and everybody wants to do it there is no opportunity for you!
I thought the Internet will be big but never thought it would be that big. It was big compared to yesterday but compared to the future it is tiny.
I believe 80 to 90 per cent of the businesses in the future will be online.
Today, we call people entrepreneurs, but in future, we will call them netpreneurs because everybody has to be online.
The world is changing too fast and I worry about the new technology. It also the best opportunity for the world. Change is the best opportunity. People complaining is the best opportunity.
A company’s success is not measured by their worth but how many problems they solved in the world.
Think about the future. Think about the impact of your actions on the future. Opportunities always exist in the places where people complain.
Think about how the Internet can solve Kenya’s or Africa’s problems
People hate globalisation. I like globalisation; I am a strong believer of globalization. But unfortunately, in the past 20 years, it was controlled by up to 60,000 big companies.
Most small businesses, women and developing countries did not have a chance to be part of globalisation. But with the Internet, this will change.
If customers and employees are happy, then your shareholders will be happy. Spend more time talking your customers and your employees as opposed to shareholders.
Also, another secret is to hire enough women. At Alibaba, 47 to 48 per cent of employees are women, 33 per cent of the senior employees are women.
We found out that women can do much more on e-commerce. Women take care of the others better than men; women understand and they have much higher EQ than men.
My advice to Kenya and Africa is, speed up! I have a feeling you have a vision but you need to get things done and with speed.
