This article is from Chapter 6 of Thirty Years of the Wave 1999 Century Carnival Do not allow it to be reproduced
On September 10, 2019, at 18:00 p.m., the "Big Lotus" on the south bank of the Qiantang River, the main stadium of the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center, was full of joy, and Alibaba Group's 20th anniversary annual meeting began, where tens of thousands of Alibaba people from all over the world gathered to celebrate this commemorative day.
It is said that the Ali people present are only a small part of all the Ali people, and they have to decide whether they can witness this moment live through the lottery. Today, Alibaba employs more than 100,000 people, from all over the world.
At 20:00 p.m., Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, stood on the central stage of the 10,000-person gymnasium and calmed down, and before he began today's speech, a large screen played a VCR "Jack Ma Returns to His Home in Hangzhou in 1999", leading tens of thousands of Ali people back to the place where the dream began.
In the early spring of 1999, at Ma Yun's home in Hangzhou's lakeside garden, Ma Yun was standing behind an old desk, behind a whiteboard with several lines written on it, and he was giving a passionate speech to 14 friends and three telephone-connected listeners.
Ma Yun felt the influence of the Internet from going to the United States, to analyzing the domestic Internet situation, and finally talking about his future plans, he will lead the company to go public for three years... Ma Yun talked endlessly for 3 hours, and everyone present listened in the clouds, and did not understand what Ma Yun was saying.
The confusion of the crowd did not discourage Ma Yun's enthusiasm. He said passionately: From now on, we are going to do a great thing. Our B2B (business to business) will revolutionize the Internet service model!
When it comes to the rise, Ma Yun took out the money on his body and put it on the table and said: The starting capital must be idle money, and it is not allowed to borrow money from family and friends, because the possibility of failure is extremely high. We must be prepared to accept the 'worst of the bad'. But even if Tyson knocks me down, as long as I don't die, I'll jump up and keep fighting!
Everyone has successively raised 500,000 start-up funds to register a company called Hangzhou Alibaba E-commerce Co., Ltd. Ma Yun planned 3 goals for the company:
First, to create a company that has survived for 80 years (this number was temporarily conceived by Ma Yun at that time, and later changed the number to 102, which means to be a company spanning 3 centuries);
Second, to create an e-commerce company for small and medium-sized enterprises (although many businesses at the time did not know what e-commerce was);
Third, it built the world's largest e-commerce website and entered the top ten global websites (at that time, Alibaba's website ranked outside 2 million).
After listening to Ma Yun's company goals, the crowd looked at each other, each of them carrying luggage. Ma told them that this will be where they will work for the next year, and they will also eat, sleep, and work day and night, and that in a year's time they may achieve something, or they may find another way to find a new job together.
On the first day of the company's official establishment, the walls of Ma Yun's home suddenly seeped water, and he said to everyone: Wait for me for a while, I will go get some materials. After a while, he took out a large roll of old newspaper from his bedroom, and everyone put the old newspaper on the wall together. Alibaba's Eighteen Arhats began a "backwater battle" in this lakeside garden. Ma Yun, 20 years later, recalled: Taobao, Alimama, DingTalk and all other Ali strategic products were initially developed from here. No matter how large Alibaba is now, no matter how many industries Alibaba touches, we will always remember the lakeside culture that originated here and will never forget the original dream.
On April 15, 1999, Alibaba was officially launched, and the home page of the website wrote a line with the title "Let the world have no difficult business", and finally this sentence became the corporate mission of Alibaba. What Ma Yun did not expect was that on the first day of the website launch, dozens of customers came, a week later reached hundreds, and half a year later, Alibaba provided e-commerce services for more than 20,000 small and medium-sized enterprises.
Gradually, Alibaba brought together a large number of merchants and attracted the attention of people around the world. The site, which had only been around for half a year, turned out to be the most active commercial site in the world. In August, the American magazine "Business Week" "wading through the mountains" found Alibaba's headquarters in the lakeside garden, and when the door opened, the reporter couldn't believe his eyes, this famous website was born such a simple "office". Twenty people huddled together to work, their shoes strewn at the door, spread sheets all over the floor, and a strange smell drifting in the air.
In 2000, the cover character of Forbes appeared with a thin, smiling Ma Yun. For the first time, American magazine selected a Chinese businessman as the cover character. "Since its founding on March 10, 1999, Alibaba has brought together 250,000 businessmen around the world," Forbes said in the report. With 1,400 new members and more than 2,000 new supply and demand messages per day, it is the world's leading online trading market and merchant community. ”
Alibaba was also named Forbes' Business Site of the Year, and amazon competed with him.
Soon, Ma Yun and his eighteen arhats will also ride the waves of China's Internet to create one legend after another of China's e-commerce.