[3/3] Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built (Category Management)
[3/3] Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built (Russian edition: Alibaba — A Firsthand Account of Its Global Rise) (Category #Management)
To finish the discussion of the Jack Ma book that I began in the first and second posts, here are its final, very interesting chapters :)
9) Born again: Taobao and the struggle with eBay. eBay entered China by acquiring a popular local company. A couple of years later, Jack launched Taobao. eBay gradually lost the market through its lack of agility, while Taobao allowed Alibaba to diversify into the domestic market and B2C.
10) Yahoo: a billion-dollar bet. Yahoo’s billion-dollar investment in Alibaba finally made eBay give up. The chapter briefly touches on Tencent and Baidu, but its central story is that Yahoo handed over Yahoo China and $1 billion in exchange for 40% of Alibaba. eBay then dropped out of the spending race, and Taobao won in B2C.
11) Growing pains. The 2007 IPO 1.0 covered only Alibaba’s B2B business, excluding Taobao and Alipay :) Then came the 2008 financial crisis, which the company survived thanks to Taobao and its shift toward the domestic market. Disputes followed over Yahoo’s 40% stake. Yahoo was rapidly losing ground and almost got bought by Microsoft, which would surely have intervened in Alibaba Group’s management more seriously and effectively than Yahoo did. By 2014, however, the disagreements had been resolved and the company was ready for a second IPO.
12) Icon or Icarus. The IPO succeeded, but the ownership structure proved tenuous. That became apparent in the Alipay dispute. Before the IPO, Jack had moved the payments business outside the company and registered it in his own name. Investors challenged the decision in lengthy disputes: Alibaba Group’s financial business was one of its main pillars. Jack offered reasons, referring to requirements from China’s central bank, but the justification remained questionable.
That ends the main body of the book. As an epilogue, the author describes Jack’s purchase of the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s leading English-language daily. It sets up a Chekhov’s gun around Jack’s arguments with the Chinese government. The gun would fire in 2020: that October, Jack Ma sharply criticized China’s financial system and called for reform. The authorities disliked the billionaire’s conduct, leading to a conflict with Alibaba Group.
#Management #Leadership #Bigtech #BusinessStory #Processes