According to the Voice of China News Evening Summit, Ma Yun, the company's leader, also suffered three disasters in 2011, the year of Alibaba's birth. Twelve years is a cycle. For Ma Yun, who has always been the focus of attention on the Internet stage in China, after experiencing a cycle, it seems that he has returned to a new starting point.
The first gate: fraud
The "fraud gate" that started at the beginning of the year pushed Ma Yun to the top of the storm for the first time. On February 21, 2011, Alibaba B2B Company announced that in the past two years, 2326 Chinese supplier members of Alibaba website were suspected of cheating international buyers, and nearly 100 Alibaba employees were involved in it; In order to maintain the company's value of customer first and the principle of integrity, Alibaba cleared more than 1000 Chinese supplier customers suspected of fraud in 2010, and the company's CEO Wei Zhe and COO Li Xuhui also resigned.
However, people don't seem to buy Ma Yun's selflessness. Some people say that Ma Yun cleans up Chinese suppliers to cover up the company's weak growth; "Forcing" Zou Weizhe is to warn Yahoo that it has absolute control over Alibaba; Others said that Wei Zhe left only because of the internal interests of the company.
In the face of rumors, Ma Yun responded that Wei Zhe's resignation had nothing to do with interest distribution and internal struggle, but only assumed the responsibility that should be borne after violating integrity.
Once this matter is confirmed to be true, if there are 99 employees involved in this matter, there is only one solution, and someone must pay for it. If 99 employees are involved, the biggest cost must be the CEO.
As for Wei Zhe's departure, Ma Yun described the pain as like breaking an arm:
Ma Yun: I believe that all people who have ever been in love and loved ones understand the sadness. I also said this morning that when I was fighting with someone, I took off an arm and it hurt, but it would not hurt more than if you cut off a good arm. That would be more painful. I don't know whether you have experienced that kind of sadness. Anyway, I feel that this month, I haven't felt so uncomfortable in 11 years, because what I lost is family. There are few resource entrepreneurs, but they can be cultivated.
Second gate: Alipay equity transfer
Ma Yun described Wei Zhe's departure as his biggest pain in Alibaba. But now it seems that Ma Yun's conclusion at that time was a bit premature, and he also spent a lot of time thinking about the subsequent turmoil of Alipay's equity transfer.
On May 12, 2011, Yahoo submitted a report to the Securities Regulatory Commission of the United States that Ma Yun transferred Alipay to Alibaba's management without the authorization of the Board of Directors, which caused a storm of Alipay transfer. Later, Yahoo revealed that the total transfer price of Alipay was only 330 million yuan. Yahoo's move successfully attracted the unanimous condemnation of Ma Yun's breach of contract spirit from foreign media and even domestic media. At the same time, Yahoo and Softbank have always been bitter about Ma Yun's unilateral termination of the control of the tripartite agreement.
Later, according to Ma Yun, the tripartite differences can be simply summarized as follows: after the central bank made the relevant provisions that third-party payment enterprises must apply for licenses, Yahoo and Softbank hoped to bypass the supervision and obtain licenses by means of tripartite agreement control; Ma Yun believes that it is illegal to obtain a license through this mode, and said that his practice is "imperfect, but only correct".
Ma Yun: It's not perfect, but the only right decision at the moment.
Ma Yun means that the unilateral cancellation of the control of the tripartite agreement, despite the suspicion of breach, has 100% complied with national laws.
Ma Yun: First, it must be 100% legal; Second, we must be 100% transparent, and these things will be announced one day; Third, we must ensure that Alipay can operate healthily and continuously.
The final Alipay event ended with the signing of the agreement that "Alipay's holding company promised to give Alibaba Group a one-time cash return when listing". This seemingly pure equity transfer storm made the contradiction between Yahoo and Alibaba that had been involved for many years completely open, which made it difficult to doubt whether Jack Ma wanted to use Alipay to obtain a license to strip core assets from Alibaba to redeem Yahoo's shares.
The third door: besiege Taobao
If the previous two disasters only caused skin injuries to Ma Yun, the "siege of Taobao" incident at the end of that year severely hurt Ma Yun's heart - the small and medium-sized sellers who together with him built themselves into the shrine fought back, which once made Ma Yun physically and mentally exhausted. He said in his microblog that he was "distressed" and wanted to give up.
For the development of Alibaba and the listing of Taobao, Jack Ma finally made a "hard choice" in October 2011 to eliminate the negative factors that he thought would affect the development of the enterprise. On October 10, 2011, Taobao Mall announced that in 2012, the original annual technical service fee of 6000 yuan was raised to 30000 yuan and 60000 yuan; The system of "margin of liability for breach of contract of merchants" was established, and the margin of 10000~150000 yuan was collected. According to the original plan of Taobao Mall, this new rule will be implemented from December 20, 2011. But this directly led to the week-long "besieging Taobao" incident, and even by the end of the year, the "anti Taobao action" has not stopped.
Ma Yun felt aggrieved. Taobao was criticized by all walks of life because of the concentration of fake goods. The implementation of the new rules has attracted the unanimous dissatisfaction of small and medium-sized businesses. While Taobao has bred numerous online merchants of all sizes in a free and cheap mode, it is hard to avoid the phenomenon of mixed good and bad, fake goods and fraud. Ma Yun is very firm about this: the new rules are to avoid the mall from repeating the previous fraud scandal, improve the platform credit, and win more impetus and competitive chips for the mall's sustainable development:
Ma Yun said: We will not take a step back for the principle, what is our principle, maintain the integrity of e-commerce, and fight against fake goods. Please remember that if your service on Taobao is among the bottom 10% of the group, we will not give any policy support! The final event ended with Taobao making partial concessions. On October 17, Taobao announced five "compromise measures", including a one-year extension of the new annual fee payment standard for old merchants. But in fact, there is no winner in this "battle". Small and medium-sized sellers are physically and mentally exhausted, and Taobao's business ethics are again being questioned.
Some critics believe that, on the one hand, the "Taobao Mall incident" reflects Ma Yun's adjustment in his development strategy, but on the other hand, the role of capital has begun to highlight: Taobao is about to go public, Alipay has completely escaped the control of Yahoo, and it is imminent to buy back Alibaba's equity. Is the substantial increase in margins in Taobao's new regulations to prepare for the acquisition of Yahoo? The obvious move of Taobao Mall to withdraw funds is to prepare for Taobao's listing or Taobao Mall's independent listing? All of this can only be answered by Ma Yun himself
Over the past 12 years, Ma Yun, a self-made man, has used his wisdom and foresight to make hundreds of millions of netizens feel the vitality of grassroots, the imagination and creativity of civilians, and the importance of openness and inclusiveness. At the end of last year, among the 12 most noteworthy business leaders in the world in 2012 selected by the Wall Street Journal of the United States, Ma Yun, together with the new head of Apple, Cook, President of Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan, Akio Toyoda, and other famous business executives, was selected. He gave the global Internet industry a new understanding and understanding of China. In 2012, whether Ma Yun will let us have more expectations.
