Original subtitles

when i started my business 1995

it was very difficult i had an idea

i invited the 24 of my friends my

apartment

because that year i went to seattle

first time my first trip to the usa

i never touched computer in my life

before because computer was so expensive

to me

and so complicated after two hours

of explaining what i'm gonna do internet

and 23 of them say forget it

he said this thing never worked because

there's no such thing called

internet in the world you know nothing

about a computer

so why you want to do this and um

only one people he said jack

if you want to try it just to try it but

if it's something wrong just come back

and after whole night thinking i say i

still want to do it

because most of the people they have a

fancy ideas in the evening but in the

day

when they wake up in the evening or in

the morning they go back to do the same

job

we have to do something different so

from there

i started my business borrowing 2 000 us

dollars from my relatives and friends

but that was my trip i called myself

like a blind man riding on the back of

blind tigers

and those people who are expert of

riding horses they all fall down

and i'm still surviving since 1995 i

started business

i i almost fulfilled every project never

survived

none of us has money but if if somebody

say i give you 1 million u.s dollars

and i give you trust which one i would

choose

i choose those people who give me the

trust

because it's the trust that make make

us be united when i go to the china

red company registration office

i said i want to register company called

hanzo

hope internet company

the guy looked at me say this is the

english dictionary tell me there's no

there's no word called the internet

why you want a registered company called

the internet so i cannot register name a

company name

in order to prove i was not a lie

i invited my friend who is a tv man

take the tv camera they all stay in my

home

and we they just try to take the picture

i

i die from hangzhou to shanghai shanghai

to america to connect the internet

it took us three hours and a half to

download the first

from the page so ever i have to make

like a hundred stars to keep my

journalists friends to stay

and wait because to prove that i'm not

telling a lie

for the first three years of alibaba

we had no revenue no business model

from 1999 we have 18 founders

to now we have a close to 60 000 people

our sales called gmv last year is over

550

billion us dollars and it's just the

beginning we will probably go across

one trillion us dollars in three years

we do not think we are a company

we think we are economy and we hope

in 20 years by year 2036

we will be the fifth largest economy of

the world

i've been saying this to my team since

when we were in the apartment

when we're in an apartment i say guys in

next 10 years or in

in the future alibaba will be the top 10

websites

of the world and my founders looking at

me say

what does 10 number 10 mean today we are

ranking like a 500 million something at

the back

but you have to believe it i think

as an entrepreneur if everything is

ready that does not need

you because nothing is ready that needs

entrepreneurship when netscape was so

good

we never thought it would disappear

yahoo was good we never thought like

today

so don't believe you'll be good all the

time

be paranoid just to finish

the first 100 meters yet do another

thing the people

beside you is a competitor running for

another 3000 meters

then you know who is the competitor so i

thought

when i'm 40 i can go back to teach but

when i'm 40

oh my god life was so tough so tough

my company almost in big trouble

so i say i should not leave and then i

say when i'm 45

i should retire when i'm 45 i cannot

stop it

and then i start to prepare say

people say jack you are the next bill

gates i said i cannot compete with

bill gates but i can compete with the

bill gates who can retire earlier

the thing is i don't want to die in my

office i want to die

on the beaches i was trained to be a

teacher

and i benefit because i do not know

anything about technology

computing i still puzzle about what is

soft how soft they could work

and i i do not know about con you know

accounting

marketing i know very little about that

but the thing i learned from

being a teacher that you a teacher

always want his students to be more

successful

and better than you are so this is i

learned to be a good ceo

look at the young man if you think he

will be your boss he will be my boss in

five years

hi him as an entrepreneur

is very difficult and tomorrow is even

more difficult

but the day of tomorrow is very

beautiful

most people die tomorrow evening

you have to work hard you have to learn

you have to rely on your team