JACK MA'S MOST INFLUENTIAL MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH: Motivation for Success

I think if you succeed every mistakes become a legendary if you feel that's just a garbage you know what I'm saying I think everybody has great stories everybody had a lot of mistakes everybody have lot of problems but very few people listen to you one day when you become successful people listen to you say wow you're are great I'm not that great I was born in a normal family and I'm not a good at schooling of course I tried to study hard but as a boy you know my school was not that good at that

time so I failed looking for jobs looking for joining University Jo leing good schools but I never give up and I think there's one thing I learned is that um why why you should have a chance to be successful everybody should get used to be get used to fil but not get used to be accepted by other people why other people should help you you should earn the right to be helped so the thing I learned is that don't give up my opportunity has not come yet when everybody complain that is the opportunity I always

thought when I was young when I was gradu in in the high school or university I thought Bill Gates took off my job you know Bill Gates did all the successful things Larry erison from Oracle they they took all the wonderful opportunities IBM benefit we people have no opportunity and I think I aim too high I should aim to support and help the people around me do tiny things I never thought I could be today after 18 years Alibaba become today's size not because I'm smart I don't think I'm a smart person but I have

I work with a lot of smart people and most the smart people they always want to do successful things quick easy things and I think it's not easy to be successful quickly every time everything we do we prepare for 10 years I know I'm not smart if if we want to be successful we have to win 10 years later if we want to be successful we have to work with smart people if we want to be successful we should make a lot of mistakes and never give up a lot of people they make mistake they

have problem they give up we never give up we learn from mistakes and I think when we fa the message the experience that I want to give you advice I want to give you you will judge when this person will be successful or Not by when he fail he thinks it's his fault or the other fault if he thinks my fail because of the others this guy has no chance those people who fail always think hm it is my fault I did not do the properly I should change here I change there these guys have

opportunities so I learn a a lot from those people who fail I learn a lot from those people who made mistakes I learn a lot from my mistakes so this is what I when I this is my life attitude when I fail I say see I will fail when I succeed say well I never know I could be successful this make me very positive and optimistic and because of so many mistakes too much failure that make me never complain God I get used to that we are making mistake every day even to today we made

stupid decisions almost every day nobody knows we thought it's smart but finally Prov stupid but we learn we do again we learn we do again that's the way that's the live attitude Alibaba start from no money no technology no people in my apartment 18 people decide that we want to use internet technology to help small business that was the idea after 18 years we grow from 18 people to today close to 60,000 people it is really not easy but we survived today we are one of the biggest internet companies in the world I think we

are lucky we made so many mistakes but we still survive how how can you be continue to be lucky that is the question keep on asking me I think if you want to continue to be lucky you have to give your luck to the others you give luck to the others you help others the others in the future will help you that was my our thinking in the past 10 years Alibaba was born in China but Alibaba should to be a Chinese company the name the day when I choose the name Alibaba Alibaba is not

a Chinese name it's a Arabic name and Iran said it's iranic name turkey said it's turkey name I don't I don't know we name but it's the name from Alibaba 10001 mistakes or Alibaba 1001 Nights the story we want to make this company a company that Bor in China enable the world helping the global young company young people as I said that every Century there is a company for the century Microsoft was the company of last century of a great Century IBM was a company of the century what is the company of this century 21st

century and I think we should not think about ah Alibaba we should always we make money serve Chinese we should make the money serve the world serve this centry this only think in that way we can do more our company today is big but compared to yesterday it was big but compared to tomorrow it is still a tiny company the world change so fast so this is our thinking we want to make Alibaba be the company of the century we want make Alibaba the company supporting Global small medium-size companies we want to make this company

supporting Global young people and we want to make this company to making sure women can have more jobs online because people don't care your woman or men online this is what we want to do and we are doing a lot outside China southeast Asia we are also doing lot in Indian we just start to do more in America and the and also Canada in Russia we have a small business that's called AliExpress maybe AliExpress here is very big but in ch in our company probably less than 1% of our business AliExpress but AliExpress is not

our main purpose of doing business in Russia we do not want to be a Russian e-commerce company we are not e-commerce company we help other company become e-commerce we hope what we want to do in Russia we want to help in Russia to build bu up the logistic system Russia is so big deliver things so difficult oh I cannot imagine I met some Russian girls two years ago I say do you use AliExpress yes I say how long how what about the speed of delivery they say it's great I said what do you mean by

great she said only 45 days I mean grade is 45 minutes not 45 days now we reduce from 45 days to 15 days but that is not enough Russia should have a modern logistic system that'll be able to deliver within 48 hours or 72 hours anywhere any place in Russia when you place order online we should get it within 72 hours and this should using technology this is your opportunity young people because Russia Logistics terrible and you have the chance if Logistics good we have no chance we should build up the the payment online payment

today in China the mobile phone payment so popular I went to see few weeks ago I saw some Baggers on the street when you back money they use zial mobile phone because people don't have pocket money so we in the Russia we should have build up a good payment system a modern payment system that every young people can receive money pay money at the lowest cost every young people should be able to reach financial assistance don't worry about the future all right don't worry about technology let me tell you one thing when you worry about

the future that is because you are lack of confidence you lack of imagination we don't have I may not have the solution for future but there is a solution for future we don't have the solution for future but our young people have the solution for future I find in this world young people don't worry about the future older people worry for the future I found those S today's successful people they worry about the future let me tell you future is the opportunity for everybody especially the opportunity for young people because we have nothing to lose

right this is what I tell myself 18 years ago 18 years ago we did not have money so we can we have no money to lose we don't have technology we have no technology to lose and then we say we believe 10 20 years later e-commerce internet will be powerful if we start to do now when lot of success people successful people don't like technology don't like internet we started do it 10 20 years later we will be the expert 10 20 years later we'll be successful so I think don't worry about the future prepare

for the future make your own future cloud computing Big Data artificial intelligence they are new to anybody you are successful new to you you are not successful new to you so what do you worry about second thing is don't worry about the things the other people worry about especially don't worry about the things president and prime minister worry about worry about things you worry about we everybody have too many things to worry about if you do not worry about yourself you worry too much about the world now today Alibaba shouldn't worry about the world you

should not worry about the world President Putin is worry about the world you should not worry about the world you should worry about when you graduate how can you make a living how can you do something that is different how can you do something that is fun interesting and helping others by the way don't believe the tech tech knowledge is going to take away human beings jobs technolog is going to replace lot of stupid jobs when the first technology Revolution come the steam machine come people worry oh my God steam machine is going to take

away a lot of jobs after 50 years the steam machine created more jobs when electricity comes lot of companies worry about losing jobs but electricity created so many jobs artificial intelligence they will create more jobs the problem is next 20 30 years may lose create lose a lot of job but this is short period so we people have to learn how we can survive in the artificial intelligence period by the way why human being can win machines machines they might be stronger than human being they might be smarter than human being they might be run

faster than human being but they can never be as wise as human beings because human being we have belief we have religion we have a heart which machine does not have so if you want to be ready for future please do not follow yesterday's way of learning and teaching do not try to memory things hard and more because computer can remember things hard and more than you do not try to calculate faster because computer can calculate much faster than you do so try to be creative try to be Innovative try to be constructive these are

the things everything you learn you think about is this thing can make me more creative if this thing can be make me more Innovative if this thing can be make me more constructive let's do it and also I think when other people worry opportunity comes make them worry you should know nobody will and nobody can stop this technology Revolution you worry it comes you don't worry it comes so what's the point of worry so I said people said J have you ever cried in the past 18 years doing e business internet in China I don't

cry because I know cry does not make any sense does not help me if cry can help me I will cry every day we should not cry we should have make competitors cry so think about be positive get ready for that if you people from Moscow University cannot solve the problem if you worry the whole world 99% of people have no future so don't worry about it be positive start to do it and when people worry open the door see what are they worry about and solve the problem that's what I think I love to

be with young people first I'm still young and uh second is that when you are among young people you know you are young all the time and young people are the solutions for tomorrow young people are the solutions for all the worries and young people if you stay with them you will be full of energetic but the advice I give to the young people is that also the advice I give to myself that nothing is easy nothing is free if you want to be successful you have to pay the price Ali by 18 years to

today's size yeah we are lucky but we work much harder than most of the people we never sleep well and sound in the evening I traveled last year 867 hours a year in the flp plane in the plane I'm working hard my team working very hard 18 years we work like a normal company 70 years day and night nothing is free nothing is easy easy means you have to think different you have to do different if you everybody if John said this is right you fought John why you so you have to think for example

early days in my company when some ideas come to my desk Jack this is a great idea and I look at everybody everybody say it is a good idea I normally throw into the rubbish because everybody say is good then all the other people think good if everybody say this is going to be very tough I'm very interested in that tough question and I pick up and say how can we do in a different way this is to be unique to be different and third this is my advice and this is also I'm telling myself

every day today is very tough tomorrow is more tougher the day of tomorrow is beautiful but most people die tomorrow evening you have to work very hard every tough Days Every tough situations problems in meet that is the training of yourself when you graduate your school graduate from the school you just start your career of learning when you got a PhD diploma or Bachelor diploma this is just a certificate your parents PID the tuation for four years your real challenge is when you leave the college the real life starts the real exam starts the real

test stats that's life so one thing you are lucky as I said if students from Moscow University cannot survive 99.9% of people in the world cannot survive only you have this confidence you will be able to face the challenge our future the question is that in the time the market is going to be more competitive how can you keep the confidence for the future right Market is never easy in the early day just like doing business is never easy people say ah doing business more difficult no never easy continue to be more difficult the confidence

is not the best way to do it is that find a good team find the people that share the same vision same dreams work with them the only thing you listen is you listen two group of people if you doing a company listen to your customers if they are happy if they your customers are happy don't worry too much you still have competit if your companies if your customers happy listen to your colleagues your team are they confidence if they are confidence don't worry about it don't listen to advisor lawyers I'm sorry don't listen to

those people ah you have no chance whether the market has a chance or not custom tell you your colleagues tell you so nobody is the expert of future most of the experts are yesterday so for the future the best way you learn it is that you know the early days Alibaba had no money no Revenue nobody pay us the revenue we got are the all the email of thanks from customers the customer send us email oh Alibaba you're so great you're helping me a lot but I don't have money to pay you fine we know

one day they will pay if we really help them so the confidence is from the customers confidence is from your team and your competitors always try to destroy your confidence if your competitors spend a lot of time destroy your competence or confidence that means you are good let me tell you that uh language is very important but you speak good good English does not mean you will do Global business right ma don't use he made a speech here right o does not speak uh English Nixon did not speak Chinese but these old two guy made

a global deal China us are working together it's the vision it's the belief that you have that changed the world but let me tell you other thing language is so important it helped me a lot because of artificial intelligence in the future you don't people say I don't need learn English or Russian or Japanese uh something a trip here can translate quickly no it's not about language it's about the culture when you learn the other language you start to understand the other culture you start to appreciate respect the other culture when you appreciate respect the

other culture you will be respected and appreciated by the others then you can work out together I learned my English by myself when I was a child I never got one day English training class outside China but I think I understand Western culture much more better than those Chinese students study outside because I'm not learning language I'm learning culture when you respect the other culture when you appreciate the other culture it's easy to make friends if you don't like the other culture you will never make friends if you don't have friends how can you do

business so I would say language helped me a lot but most thing helped me is my respect for the different culture I wish I could speak Russian the more I come here the more I learn a lot I asked one of the Russian guy why you know Russian too tough and Chinese too gentle how can they mix together and he asked very good he said Jack this country is so cold we have to be tough my city H is so good weather so we don't have to be tough yeah so if you if you have

do everything with a translator no good of course sometimes you have to right but if you can't understand a language that can communic it's easy for you to communicate easy to understand and be understood if you're good at marketing normally you're not a good at invention so people need to work it together if you have a great invention and you are extremely fun and good at inven and creative technology must find good business people to partner and finding good so like me I know little about technology today I'm so happy we don't use PC the

only thing I can use my PC and send receive email and the browse I don't know how to use today I'm happy we all use a mobile phone I'm not a technology guy but I know if we if I want to if we want to realize our dream we must have the technology but if I don't know the technology we should invite the best engineers and scientist I work with them I listen to them nobody can do anything what you should do is always form a team I think it is very difficult to make a

exact company like Alibaba again you can make a company better than Alibaba but it will be difficult to make exact business model our model I will not say be great but it's very workable our model because of 18 years especially for the first 10 years nobody believe it everybody say Jack my is stupid crazy doing something that will never make money so the smart people rich people never be our competitors that give us chance so finding good partner find good team and always focus on the things that you are good at focus on the things

that you love and that is what we call partnership by answering that I give you advice for those young people if you are 20 to 30 years old please find a good boss not not necessarily good company learn from the boss learn how to do it when you're are 30 to 40 years old try to do something yourself if you really want to try when you're 40 to 50 years old do things that you are good at after 20 years of learning you should do something you're good at when you are 50 to 60 years

old spend a Time supporting young people when you are six over 60 years old spend time with your grandchildren right that is normally a lot of people like that so when you a graduate when you just in the University don't think about I want resign from the school and be another Bill Gates because Bill Gates left Harvard there's only one Bill Gates in the world when you graduate find a company most important find a good boss that can train you discipline you and tell you what is good and right is more important than a good

company right of course a good company a good boss even better and then continue your life it's all about a partner thank you oh [Music]