I’m so honored. I never expect there are so many people coming here to listen to my talk.

 

我站在这里的时候，感觉自己如此重要，如此责任重大。谢谢你们！

And when I sitting there I feel so important. Thank you, thank you very much.

 

正式开始演讲之前，我想请问一下在座有多少人在使用阿里巴巴的服务？好的，不是非常多。那么，你们当中有多少人从来没有去过中国？好的。

Before my talk I would like to ask how many people here have used Alibaba services. Good, not many. [Laughs]. And how many of you here have never been to China? Never been, never been to China. Good, thank you very much.

 

20 年前，我第一次踏上美国，美国之旅的第一站是西雅图。来到美国之前，我从课本、老师、学校和父母那里了解美国，我以为自己已经非常了解美国。但是，当我踏上这片土地的时候，我才发现我完全错了，美国这个社会和我从课本学到的根本不一样。在西雅图，我平生第一次认识了互联网。

Well, 20 years ago I came to America. My first trip to America, to Seattle. Before that I learned so much about America, from my books, from my teachers, from my school, and my parents. And I think I know enough about America. But when I came to America I thought totally wrong. America is not what I learned from the books. And in Seattle I found the Internet.

 

回到中国之后，我告诉朋友们，我打算开一家互联网公司。我邀请了24位好友，讨论了两个小时。到了最后，还是没有人理解我想要做的东西，我们进行了投票，23人选择反对。我的朋友们劝我说：“忘了它吧！根本就不存在这么一个叫做互联网的东西，千万不要去尝试。”只有一个人对我说：“马云，我相信你，虽然我不知道你想要做什么，如果你想做，就大胆去做吧，因为你还年轻。”那年，我30岁。

And then I came back and tell my friends that I’m going to open a company called Internet. I invited 24 of my friends, had a two-hour discussion. And finally we had a vote. 23 of them against me. “Forget about it. There’s no such kind of network called Internet. Don’t do it.” There’s only one person who said “Jack, I trust you. I don’t know what that is, but if you want to try it, go ahead, try it. Because you’re still young.” At that time I was 30 years old.

 

没有任何的计算机知识、商业知识，我开始了创业之路。我开办了第一家公司，和我的妻子，还有一位同学。我们东拼西凑了1000美元，创业之路非常艰难。当时，我觉得自己是骑在盲虎背上的盲人（成语：盲人摸象，又骑虎难下）。20年风雨过去，我存活了下来。但是创业前三年，生活真的非常糟糕。我清楚地记得，我想向银行贷款3000美元，这花去了我整整三个月时间，我动用了所有的关系，还是没拿到贷款。每个人都认为马云在撒谎，因为1996的时候他们不相信有互联网这个东西的存在。

So I started my business, without knowing anything about computer, without knowing anything about business. I started my first company, my wife and I and a school mate. We borrowed [start] from US $1,000 we start the business. It was so difficult. I called myself like a blind man riding on the back of blind tigers. Jumping around for the past 20 years I survive today. For the first three years life was really bad. I remember I tried to borrow US $3,000 from the banks. It took me three months asking any friends I know to borrow the money.Still failed, coz verybody said “Jack is telling a lie, because there’s no such network called Internet in 1996.”

 

有一天，1996下半年，中国正式接入了互联网。于是，我邀请了10位媒体朋友到我家里来，想告诉他们我没有撒谎，确实存在互联网这个东西。为了下载一张照片，我们当时花了三个半小时。大家说，“那东西真的能行得通吗？”我说，“是的，行得通的，不是现在，是在未来十年之内。”不管怎样，这至少证明了我没有撒谎。

So one day, later 1996, China was connected to the Internet. I invited ten media friends to my apartment. I want to tell them I’m not telling a lie. There is a network called Internet. We waited three hours and a half to see the first – to download the first picture. And people said “Is that thing going to work?” And I say “Yeah, it’ll work, but not today. In ten years it’ll work.” But at least it proved that I was not telling a lie.

 

我还记得，当我们尝试帮助小公司在网络上销售产品，但是没有人愿意来，因为还没有人在网络上买东西。所以在第一周，我们的7个员工自己去买，自己去卖。到了第二周，有人开始在我们的平台上卖东西，我们买光了他出售的所有商品。我们有两个房间，堆满了我们那两个星期买的东西，而且是没有什么用的东西。这只是为了告诉大家互联网是行得通的，但这并不容易。1995年到1999年这期间，我们的创业失败了，没有一样条件是成熟的。

I remember when we tried to help our small business to sell online. Nobody want to sell because nobody come to buy. So first week we have seven employees, we buy and sell ourselves. The second week somebody start to sell on a website. We buy everything they sell. We have two rooms full of things we bought for New Year’s, [all garbage] for the first two weeks. In order to tell people that it works. It was not easy. Since 1995 to 1999 we failed. We go nowhere, our business, because nothing was ready.

 

到了1999年，我邀请18个好友到家里，我们决定再一次尝试，并且把网站命名为alibaba.com。人们问为什么叫阿里巴巴？我们希望互联网就如同一个宝库，可以让小企业芝麻开门。另外，这个名字容易拼写，也朗朗上口。我们想做的事情，是帮助小企业。

In 1999 I invited 18 friends of mine who came to my apartment. We decided to do it again. We call the name alibaba.com. And people say why Alibaba? We believe Internet is a treasure island which opens sesame for small business. And we used Alibaba because it’s easy to spell, easy to remember. And we want to focus on helping small business.

 

当时我们注意到美国的电子商务致力于帮助大公司，帮助他们节约成本，而当时中国没有那么多的大公司，而是有很多的小企业，对于他们来说生存是如此艰难，假如我们能够用互联网技术来帮助这些小公司，这会非常有意思。

Because at that time we see commerce [with the] American e-commerce they focus on helping on big companies, they’re focusing on helping big companies to save the cost. We believed China we don’t have a lot of big companies, we have so many small business, and small business it’s so difficult for them to survive. If we can using Internet as a technology to help small business it’ll be fantastic.

 

美国习惯于帮助大型企业，这就好比美国人擅长于打篮球；而在中国，我们应该会去打乒乓球，去帮助那些小公司。我们需要做的不是帮助小公司去节约成本，因为他们知道如何节约成本，他们需要学习的是如何赚钱。因此，我们的业务一直专注于帮助小企业在网络上赚钱。

So we start to say if America is good at helping big companies, just like America is good at making basketball we should play pingpong in China, we should help the small guys. And we should not helping small guys to save cost, because small business know how to save the cost, but small business should learn how to make money. So our business is focusing helping small business to make money online.

 

我们希望阿里巴巴这个公司可以活102年。人们会好奇地问，为什么是102年？因为阿里巴巴诞生于1999年，上个世纪我们经历了1年，这个世纪将是完整的 100年，下一个世纪再经历1年，这样横跨三个世纪，102年。我们这是给了所有员工一个清晰的目标。无论我们有多少盈利，无论我们赚了多少钱，不论我们已经取得什么成绩，都不要认为我们已经成功。不要忘记我们希望活102年，现在才过了16年而已，前面还有86年。这86年中的任何一个时间，如果公司倒闭了，我们就谈不上成功。当我听到这个俱乐部（纽约经济俱乐部）已经有108年的历史，我十分惊讶，十分震惊。这其中一定有很多值得阿里巴巴学习的东西。

And we want to make the company last for 102 years. And people are curious – why 102 years? Because Alibaba was born in 1999, last year we had – last century we had one year, this century 100 years, next century one year. 102 across three centuries. We give a clear goal to any employees. Don’t say we are successful, no matter how much money we raised, no matter how much money we make, no matter how much we have achieved. Don’t forget we want to live 102 years. Now, 16 years passed, we have another 86 years to go. Because in next 86 years, if any time we die we’re never successful. When I heard this club is 108 years old I was surprised and shocked. There’s so much we can learn from that.

 

没有人相信阿里巴巴可以活下去。以前人们说：“你们的平台是免费的，你们的公司那么小。”尤其是我们在美国上市的时候，人们又说：“你们阿里巴巴是做电子商务的，就像亚马逊一样。”可能亚马逊是美国人眼中唯一的电子商务模式，但是我们不一样。

Well, today nobody believed that Alibaba could survive, because people say “You are [free], you’re tiny” and, you know, and especially when we talk about – when we IPO’d people say “Ah, you are Alibaba, you are e-commerce. You’re like Amazon.” Because in American point of view Amazon probably is the only business model for e-commerce. But no, we are different.

 

我们和亚马逊不一样的是，我们自己不做买卖，我们帮助中小企业做买卖。在阿里巴巴的平台上，有一千万家小企业每天做交易。我们自己不送快递，但每天有二百万人帮着我们配送三千万包裹。

The difference between us and Amazon is that we do not buy and sell, but we help small business to buy and sell. We have 10 million small business on our site buy and sell every day. And we do not deliver our packages, although – ourselves, though we have more than 2 million people help us to deliver over 30 million packages per day.

 

我们也没有自己的仓库，但是我们帮助那些中小物流快递公司管理成千上万个物流仓库。我们也没有任何商品库存，但是我们有3亿5千万的买家，每天有超过1亿2 千万的消费者光顾我们的网站。去年我们的销售额是3900亿美元。今年，我们预计销售成交会超过沃尔玛全球，你要知道沃尔玛用了230万员工，而我们只是从18人扩大到了3.4万人。

We do not own warehouses, but we manage tens and thousands of warehouses for other small, medium sized delivery companies. And we do not own inventories, but we do have more than 350 million buyers. We have more than 120 million buyers coming to shop every day on our site. And also, we sell – our revenue last – our sales last year were US$ 390 billion. And this year, possibly, we are going to be bigger than Walmart globally. And Walmart manage – that size of business have more than 2.3 million people; we grow from 18 people to today 34,000 people.

 

我们和亚马逊不一样的还有，亚马逊是一个购物中心，你去逛亚马逊，去买你想要买的东西，就和产品展示的一模一样。但是在阿里巴巴，你看到的产品图片展示和你拿到手的产品或许不一样，人们会觉得惊讶，“这怎么有点不一样！”但是他们喜欢这样的购物体验。在美国，电子商务是商务，而在中国，电子商务是人们的一种生活方式。年轻人交换他们的思想，互相沟通，建立信任，建立个人信用记录。就好像星巴克一样，你不是去星巴克品尝它的咖啡有多么美味。这是一种生活方式。这也正是互联网电商如何改变中国的地方。

And the difference between Amazon and us the other is Amazon is a shopping center. Because here e-commerce is commerce, in China e-commerce is a lifestyle. Young people, they using e-commerce to exchange ideas, they communicate, they build up the trust, they build up a record. It’s just like Starbucks – you never go to Starbucks to test how wonderful coffee is. It’s a lifestyle. And this is how Internet e-commerce is changing China.

 

我们感到自豪的，并不是我们卖了多少东西。我前面提到，今年我们的成交总额会超过沃尔玛——是的，我们对此很自豪。阿里巴巴会在未来五年，达到1万亿美元的成交额。这是我的目标，我认为我们会达到这个目标。更让我们自豪的是，我们为中国直接和间接地提供了1400万个就业机会。我们在中国乡村创造就业机会，我们为中国女性提供就业机会。中国互联网上成功的卖家中，超过51%是女性。

And what we felt proud of is not how much things we sell. I said this year we’ll be bigger than Walmart – yes, we are proud. We know in five years we will sell US$ 1 trillion. This is my goal, which we think possibly we will make it. We are proud of that but we are more proud because we create direct [and indirect] job, 14 million jobs for China. And we’ve created jobs in the countryside. We created a lot of jobs for women. Over 51 percent of the power sellers on the Internet are women.

 

我们为这些事情感到自豪。有人又会说，阿里巴巴现在做到了这些，你们的下一步是什么？阿里巴巴无处不在，你们的未来打算是什么？今天，超过80%的在线交易是由阿里巴巴所创造，我们未来的目标是将阿里巴巴的业务拓展到全球。这不只是要成为最会卖货的公司。我们希望电子商务的基础设施能够全球化。相比美国，为什么中国的电子商务成长速度如此惊人？因为在中国的商业基础建设太差。不像在美国，你们有汽车，线下有无处不在的沃尔玛和凯马特（Kmart，美国现代超市零售企业鼻祖）。但是在中国，我们并没有这么好的基础设施。

So we feel so proud of that. And people say okay, now Alibaba did that. What's your next? What's your future cause you are everywhere. We, 80 percent of the buy and the sell online are created by our company. Our future is that we have to focus on globalizing our business. It's not only sell more things. We want to make, to globalize the infrastructure of eCommerce. Why Internet eCommerce grow so fast in China than in the USA? Because the infrastructure of commerce in China was too bad. Not like here. You have [Click] Motors. You have all the shops offline, Walmart, Kmart, everything everywhere. But in China we have nothing nowhere.

 

电子商务在美国如同餐后甜点，它是对主流商业的补充。但是在中国，电子商务已经成为主菜。我们建设了电子商务的基础设施。所以，如果我们将我们的电子商务基础设施全球化，包括在全球范围内提供支付工具、物流中心和透明公开的交易平台，帮助全球的小公司将他们的产品卖到世界各个角落，帮助全球的消费顺利地买到世界各地的产品。我们的愿景是，未来十年内帮助全球20亿消费者在线购买全世界的产品，而且做到全球范围内72小时内收到商品，在中国范围内，无论你身在何处，24小时内收到商品。阿里巴巴的全球化战略，仍然是致力于帮助小企业，帮助他们以最有效的方式来做生意。我们会在自己的电商平台上，帮助到另外一千万家小企业。

So eCommerce in the US is a dessert. It's complementary to the main business. But in China it becomes the main course. We created the infrastructure. So we think if we globalize our infrastructure — the payment, the logistics center, the transparent platform all around the world. Helping the small business around the world to sell everywhere. Help the global consumers to buy everywhere. Our vision is in ten years we will help two billion consumers in the world to shop online anywhere in the world. You're shopping online with 72 hours you'll receive the product. And anywhere in China you shop online, you will receive the products within 24 hours. And we think our globalization is still focused on helping small business. And helping them to do business in the most efficient ways. And we think that we will help another ten million business on our eCommerce platform.

 

我们会给这些小企业赋能。我们会引导更多流量给他们，会给提供他们支付系统，提供物流配送系统，让他们更加快捷和便利地在全球任何角落开展业务。我们希望在中国以外的地方拥有40%的业务量。现在，我们的海外业务只占到2%。

We will empower them. We'll give them the traffic. We'll give them the payment system. We'll give them the logistics system so they can do business anywhere easily and quickly. And we will help. We will have 40 percent of our business outside China. Today we only have two percent of our business outside China.

 

可能人们继续会问，现在阿里巴巴的业务做大了，也募集到大量资金。你们会在美国做什么？你们会来美国吗？如果来美国，你们是打算入侵美国吗？马云你什么时候来和亚马逊竞争？什么时候来和eBay竞争？其实，我对eBay和亚马逊抱有敬仰之心。而我来这里的目的，也就是阿里巴巴的下一步战略，是帮助美国的小企业走进中国，帮助他们将产品卖到中国。

So people keep on asking, now you are big. You raised that much money. What's your play in America? People say well are you going to come? When are you going to come to invade America? When I going to compete with Amazon? When I going to compete with eBay? Well I would say we show great respect for eBay and Amazon. But I think the opportunity and the, the strategy for us is helping small business in America go to China, sell their products to China.

 

现在的中国，中产阶层的数量和美国人口大致相当。而我们认为，未来十年中国将有五亿人口成为中产阶层。他们对优质产品和优质服务的需求是非常强大，非常惊人的。我认为中国的现状没有办法满足他们对于优质产品和优质服务的需求。过去20年，中国一直致力于出口，而我认为接下来10年-20年，中国应该把注意力集中在进口方面。中国要学会进口，学会如何消费。中国应该去消费，去做全球买手。同时，我认为美国的小企业，美国的品牌产品，也应该利用互联网，进入中国市场。

Today in China, the middle class for China is almost the same as the American population. And we think in ten years it will be more than half a billion Chinese people will be middle class. The demanding for middle class, the demanding for good products, good service was so powerful, so strong. And I think China today cannot afford the good products, good service to them. And then next is that China has been focused on exporting in the past 20 years. And I think next ten, ten-twenty years China we should be focusing on importing. Chinese should learn to buy. Chinese should spend the money. Chinese should buy a lot of things from globally. And I think that American small business, American branded products you should use the Internet, go to China.

 

过去20年，美国的大公司已经遍布整个中国。对于美国的小公司来说，利用好电子商务，将是巨大的机会。阿里巴巴已经帮助很多美国的农民将产品卖到中国。西雅图的车厘子就是一个例子。你不能想象，美国驻华大使跑来问我：“马云，你们可以帮我们销售西雅图的车厘子吗？”那时车厘子还长在树上，我们就做了预售，8 万个中国家庭抢购了这些订单，我们摘下车厘子，在24小时内运到中国。24小时内，8万个中国家庭就将160吨车厘子一抢而空。去年，我们卖掉了300吨车厘子。我不知道今年又会是怎样一个惊喜的数字。

Past 20 years big companies of America is already all over China. But it's the great opportunity for using the eCommerce for small business to go to America. In the past years we have helped a lot of American farmers selling things to China. For example the Seattle cherries, you will never believe that the ambassador, the American ambassador to China, he came to us say, Jack can you help us to sell the cherries in Seattle. I say how can we sell cherries? The cherries still on the trees. And we started place order, 80,000 families booked the order. And when we got the order we ship, we pick up the cherries and ship to China within 24 hours 80,000 families, 160 tons of cherries were sold. And last year we sold over 300 tons of cherries. And I don't know what's this year about.

 

我们同样也帮助销售阿拉斯加的海鲜。我们还帮助销售加拿大的龙虾，所卖出的龙虾数量，是他们十年不可能达到的。许多美国的知名品牌也借助我们的平台销售。像 Costco超市入驻以后第一个月就卖出了600吨坚果，销售额达到650万美元。既然我们能够帮助卖龙虾，卖车厘子，为什么不可以利用我们的系统来帮助大量的美国中小企业？我还想借用一天的数据来举一个例子，11月11日，中国的光棍节，阿里巴巴把它变成了一个购物节。去年双十一，我们的交易额高达97 亿美元，第一分钟有240万消费者涌入。今年，我们认为这个数字会更加惊人，所以这也是我此次来美国的目的——中国消费者需要更多的美国产品。

We also helped Alaska seafood. We helped Canada to sell the lobsters. The lobster we sold probably ten years they cannot sell. And we also have a lot of American branded companies using our site to sell. Costco the company, they sold 600 tons of nuts on our site for the first month. And for the first month they're using Alibaba 6.5 million US dollars. So I think if we can help to sell lobsters, if we can help sell the cherries, why we cannot help these small, medium size companies to China using our system? So this is what I want, and also I want to take one day for example November, November 11th, the [Singles'] Day. We make that a shopping day. Last year for that day we sold 9.7 billion US dollars. And for the first minute shopping we have 24 million people rushed in for the first minute. And this year we guess the number was scary, so my purpose coming here that we need more American products to China.

 

每天，阿里巴巴平台都有上亿“饥渴”的消费者来购物。这就是我们来到这里的原因，我们不是来竞争的，我们来这里是希望将美国的中小企业带到中国。我们的愿景是“全球买、全球卖”，未来10年-20年，无论你身在何处都可以买到任何地方的产品，也把可以自己的产品卖到世界各地。菲律宾人可以买到挪威的鲑鱼，挪威人可以将产品卖到阿根廷，阿根廷人可以买中国的产品，也可以将产品卖到中国。这是互联网未来变革的方向。最后，阿里巴巴为已经改变中国而感到骄傲。变革的力量是强大的。

We have a hungry 100 million people coming to buy every day. So this is why we come here. We not come here to compete. We come here to bring the small business. My vision is that in ten, twenty years anywhere you buy anywhere, sell anywhere. Philippine people can buy salmon on Norway. Norway people can sell things to Argentina. Argentina can buy and sell to China. This is how the Internet is going to change. And lastly I want to say we have changed the China. We feel proud of that, and we think that the change, the power of change is so powerful.

 

第一次技术革命以后，世界有了新的商业组织形式——工厂，这些工厂带来了武器和力量，然后催生了第一次世界大战。第二次能源革命以后，世界又有了新的商业组织形式——公司，然后催生了二战。

The first revolution of technology we have the, the organization of business called a factory. And had our first World War because of the strength of the arms and muscles. The second revolution energy, we have the organization called companies, and have the second World War.

 

在这个互联网时代，DT时代（DataTechnology，数据时代），我认为诞生了一个新的商业形式——平台，“第三次世界大战”也随之即将打响——但这不是一场国与国之间的战争，这是一场我们携手对抗疾病、贫穷和气候变化的战争。我认为这是人类的未来。所有的人类，所有的国家，都应该联合起来。依靠年轻一代，而不是武器；依靠计算机和大数据，来解决人类的问题，社会的问题。这是我所热衷的，和钱无关，这是梦想。改变世界的不仅是技术，更是你相信可以改变世界的梦想。我们知道这条路漫长且不易。我以前说过，过去20年在中国做互联网生意很不容易，今天很困难，明天更困难，后天很美好。但是绝大多数人死在了明天晚上，如果你不努力的话。

This time Internet. The data, and I think we have a new business called platform. And the third World War is going to happen. And this war is not between nations, this war we work together against the disease, the poverty, the climate change. And I believe this is our future. The human being, the nations shall unite together. Rely on the young people using not the guns, using computers, using the data to solve the human problem, solve the society problems. And this is what I'm passionate about. It's not about the money, it's about dreams. It's not only the technology change the world, it's the dreams you believe that change the world. And we know the way, the way is not easy. As I was told in the past 20 years doing Internet business in China, today is difficult, and tomorrow is much more difficult. But the day after tomorrow is beautiful. Most people die tomorrow evening, if you don't work hard.

 

谢谢大家！

Thank you very much.

 

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