Evening with hider alabadi the Prime Minister of iraq. It is within the government and we have regular meetings for the leadership of the country and we have a very Good Relationship among the iraqi institutions. The executive which is the government on parliament. I think this has benefited us and has facilitated a lot. Rose jack ma and the Prime Minister of iraq next. Rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose jack ma founded alibaba out of his apartment in china 16 years awe go. Today it is the largest e Commerce Company in the world, over 1010 million buyers go to a site each day. Last year transactions totaled 248 billion more than ebay and amazonmthey went public issuing stock. The ipo was the largest in history and made him the richest person in china. I spoke with jack ma at the Economic Forum in switzerland. Here is that conversation. How big is alibaba. How many people come in a day, how many come in a week. How fast is it growing. We have over 100 million buyers shopping our site every day. And we create rose 100 million every day. We created 14 million jobs for china directly and indirectly. And we grow from 18 people to 30,000 people. 18 people in my apartment to now we have full big campus. Compared to 15 years ago we were big. But compared to 15 years later were still big. Rose how big will you be 15 years from a now. I think 16 years ago i told my team that 15 years in the past 15 years, we grow from nothing to this size. 15 years later i want people to know about alibaba because its already everywhere. I want 15 years ago when we talk about what is e commerce. Why Small Business can using this e commerce internet can do business across the nation. I hope 15 years later peopleio forget about e commerce because they think its like electricity. Nobody thinks its high tech today. This is something that i dont want 15 years later we still walk on the street talking about why and how e commerce can help people. Rose talking about the ipo. Did it exceed your expectations . Thats a pretty small ipo 250. Rose the largest ipo in the history. And number two with the chinese bank. Thank you. I remember year 2001 we went to raise some 5 million for indenture capitalists in the usa. And i said we come back raising a little bit more. But i think what we think more about for 25 billion how we can spend the money efficiently because this is not money this is the trust from the world. The trust from a those people. They want better jobs to help more people. They want to have a good return. So i think low pressure was when our market cap is a big idea were one of the top 10, 15 Largest Market Cap Company in the world. I told my team and myself is that true . Were not that good because years ago alibaba was terrible. Have this and that all the big bad things because amazons better ebays better googles better. Theres no such model like alibaba in the usa. I told myself we are better. But today when we are that big size i said no, were not that good as peoplewere just a company 15 years old. Laverage age is 27, 28 years. People doing something that human being have never tried. Rose you true up in the 60s. 64. That was the culture revolution. It was the end of the culture revolution. Liberation was considered a bad guy so i was, i know how tough it was jp when i was kid. Rose you tried to get into three colleges. Each time they rejected you. I tried the examination. The young people, if you want to go to University Take the examination. L. T . I took it three times. I failed for funny things. I failed Key Primary School test two times and i failed like three times for the middle schools. And in my city theres only one native school that blocked only one year. It was changed from Primary School middle school because graduates of our school mow middle school accepted because we were too bad. Rose what effect did it have being rejected . I think we have to get used to it. Were not that good. Even today we still have a lot of people reject us. I think graduating from university and for three years i tried universities. I applied jobs. 30 times i got rejected. I went for police they say no youre not good. I went to even the kfc. When kfc come to china. 24 people went for the job. 23 people accepted. [laughter] and we went for police. Five people, four were accepted. I was the only guy. So for me, they turned down, rejected. Oh, by the way i told you i applied for harvard, ten times rejected. Rose ten times you wrote them and said id like to come to harvard. Yeah. I told myself some day i should go teach there. [laughter] rose i thinkarranged. Richard nixon came through. Yes. Rose tourists flooded the place. Yes. Rose thats how. learned english. Yeah. I really liked, i dont know why at 12 13 years old i suddenly fell into the language of english. There is no place you can learn english at that time. Theres no books english books. So i went to the hotel can receive the foreign visitors. Every morning for nine years i showed them around as a free guide and they taught me english. And i think that changed me. Today im 100 trained in china. I never got train outside china. When people talk and say jack how can you speak english like that. Why you talk like western guys. Im think that was the nine years. These western tourists opened my mind because everything they told me are so different from the things i learned from the schools. And from my parents. So now i have a habit. Whatever i see i use my mind. Think about it. Rose is that how how this retained jack ma. The name was given by a lady, shes a tourist came here and she become friends. It is so difficult to pronounce. So she said you have english name. Its okay keep the english name. She said okay. O she said my father called jack, my husband called jack. What do you think about jack. I said good. [laughter] rose first visit to america 1995. 1995, yes. I come here for a project helping the local government to building up highway. Rose and you tried the internet. I tried the internet in seattle. And in a building called u. S. Bank. I dont know whether u. S. Bank still there or not. But its a building and my friend opened an office not much bigger than this room and set a computer there. He said jack this is internet. I asked what is internet. He said search whatever you want. At that time they use mosaic, very slow. And i said i dont use it. I dont want to touch because computer is so expensive in china. If i destroy it, i cannot pay. He said just search it. So i searched the first word beer. [laughter] i dont know. And i see beer from germany, beers from usa, beers from japan. But theres no beer from china. I say okay tried the second word china. No data. Rose nothing. Nothing. Rose 1995. 1995. No data about china. So i talked to my friend. Why not i make something about china. So we made a small very ugly looking page called china. Its Something Like i did a translation listed on there. It was so shocking. We launched it at 9 14 in the morning. 12 30 i m got funny call from my friend. Email. I said what is email. He said these are the things people send. Where are you. If this is the first time i seen a chinese website on that. Can we do something together. So i say this is something interesting. We should do it. Rose why do you call it alibaba. Alibaba . Well, when i started, i think internet is global. We should have a global name. And i named interesting like the best name is yahoo. I think ive been thinking for many days, alibaba is a good name. I happened to be in San Francisco and it launched and i asked him do you know about alibaba. She said yes. What is alibaba. She said open sesame. Good. So i went down the street ask people. They all know about alibaba 40 seas and open sesame. And i think this is a good name. And started with a whatever you talk about alibaba is on top. [laughter] rose you have said before in creating alibaba, you had to create trust. Yes. Rose because people in china were used to face to face. Yes. Rose how did you create trust . I think because we started a business internet. I dont know you, you dont know me. How can you do things online unless you trust. So for e commerce, the most important thing was trust. When i first went to usa for raising money, a Venture Capital a lot of people think oh jack no no. China do business how can you do business in internet. I know you have to trust thesystem the Credit System is impossible to do business. So in the past 14 years everything you do is trying to build up the trust system. The record system. Well charlie, you know, im so proud today when i china and the world people dont trust everybody. The people everybody. But with e commerce we finish 16 million transactions every day. People dont know each other. I dont know you you send products to you. You dont know me you wire the money to me. I dont know you. I dont know him. He took something to sell across the ocean, across the river. We have at least 60 million trust happening every day. Rose you did it by creating an escrow in the beginning. You held the money until you got the product. Yes. Thats the services we pay. It was a big division. First three years alibaba is just e marketplace for information. What he have, what i have, we talk a lot of time but dont do any business. There was no payment. I talked to the banks. No banks wanted to about it. These never work. If i start to launch a system its against the financial legal world because you have to have a license. If i dont do it, e commerce would go no where. So i went toz avos and listened to leadership. Leadership is about responsibility. And after i listened to their panel, i give a call to my friend. My colleagues and say do it now. Immediately. If something wrong the government not happy about that. If one body go to the prison jack ma go to the prison. Because its so important for china and for the world to be able to trust a system. If you do not do it properly, the money wash, no trust, i send you to prison. And people dont like it. So many people i talked to at that time this is the stupidest idea you have ever got. But i think, i dont have stupidest idea as long as people use it. Alipay. Rose thats not part of allah be. No. Rose you have never gotten money from the chinas government. No. Rose none. I wantedit but then i dont want it. Because if the Company Always think about taking money out of the government pockets that company is rubbish. Think about it. How can you make money from the customers and market and have customers. Rose no money from chinese banks. No. At that time i want and now theyre going to give me, i dont want it. [laughter] rose all right. Your relationship with the government. I mean heres what some say. That you had existed in an environment thats not, they have restricted competition for you. And thats a pretty good thing to do for a private company. Yeah. I think the relationship with the government, its very interesting. First five years, i think work as a Part Time Job for a Government Organization ministry of foreign trade. 1997. So 14 months. And i learned that you should never like Government Organization to do e commerce. And i started business, i told my people and team in love with the government dont marry them. [laughter] respect them and arx lot of people say wow government officers are talking censorship and this and that. Its an opportunity, its a responsibility talking to them. Tell me how internet can help. Rose you tell them we create jobs. Oh yeah. I think a lot of people debate and fight against them. In the first 12 years anybody come to my office i sit down talking to them. How we can help economy. How we can create jobs. Why china would improve by the internet. I think because internet at that time is new to any government. And if you have somebody you have to choose. So today im very talkative. That probably this is why i talk to so many people. Rose so the government comes to you and asks you to do something for them. Normally, when government comes say jack, can you do this project, i say no. I say no. I can introduce some friends who are interested in doing that for you. But if they continue to want me to do it, i say okay i do it but i dont want i dont charge. I hope next time dont come to me again. But recently we have some government organizers. For example, every spring festival, the train station, it is so difficult. Hundreds and thousands of farmers work in the cities in the spring festival they go to the home town. But when they order tickets on the whole system crashed. For five years. So i told my young people go support them. Dont charge anything. Because i dont want to see millions of farmers go back to cities and they cannot buy their tickets. So its something that its not for money. Its Something Like its not for the government its for the millions of people. They can buy tickets in a snowy night and they dont have to wait. They just buy online and get ticket. Rose one stop along the route to where you were that big ipo was yahoo. They invested a billion dollars. Yes. Rose it turned out to be a pretty good investment. Yes. Rose but one time after another you raised this money on your own outside of china with investors. Yeah. Im very thankful for all the investors because 1999, year 2000 and even yahoo came, a lot of people say this jack is crazy. Hes doing something that we dont understand. A lot of Venture Capitals give you money because theres such an american model always being compared. But alibaba we dont see this kind of model. Rose they say jacks crazy. This is crazy guy. I remember my first time in Time Magazine they call me crazy jack. And i think crazys good. I may be crazy but im not stupid. [laughter] we know what were doing. If everybody agrees with me, if everybody believe my idea is good we have no chance. So the money we raise were very thankful. So when our investors make a lot of money. Rose in the United States theres issue about privacy. Google and apple and questionsof whether the government should have access to files. How do you handle that if the Chinese Government says you know a lot about people. You have transactional relationships with lots of people. And they said we want to see your files. Well so far i dont haveu . Aoxz kind of problems about chinas government. And i told them any government if younational security antiterrorist, anywhere antiterrorist will work together. If a criminal well work. But the rest of that no. I said we are business. The datas so precious because we do know how if we give to anybody its going to be a disaster. Also about privacy issues i think just like hundreds of years ago people say i would rather put the money under my pillow rather than put in the banks. But today banks are special they know how to prepare the money much better than you do. Privacy issues. All this kind of securities today, we may not have solutions. We dont have the answers. But i believe our young people have the solutions. In the next 20 to 30 years there will be break through on that and im truly confident on that. Rose your life is a testament to the idea that nothing is impossible. That if somebody says no you say its just the beginning. Where does that come from . Well, i at the beginning i never thought, i thought when i was young possible. Now i know. 3ot everythings possible. We have something we have to think about. We have to consider about the others. You have to consider about the customer, society, the shareholders. Theres so many things that i think if you continue to work hard, theres possibility. And i just think im enthusiastic about what were doing. From the beginning, i just want to survive. And five years rose thats 2000. But winter, i think wow, so many peoples lives changed. I was so excited you know. For the first three years we made a zero revenue. Zero revenue. But we are so excited to continue to work. I remember many times when i go to restaurant have dinner, somebody came when i would try to pay the bill the owner of the restaurant came to say sir, your bill is paid by someone. And a small note said hey, mr. Ma, im your customer of alibaba group. I made a lot of money and i know you dont make any money i pay the bill for you. [laughter] i remember one thing, one day that i was sitting somewhere in the coffee, somebody sent me a cigar. I dont smoke cigars but theres a note, thank you very much im your customer. And i remember in the days in beijing when i get on the taxi the man opened the door for me like the boy at the gate he said jack, thank you very much. My girlfriend makes more money than i do on your site. And this is something that we know, if you dont do it, nothings possible. If you e try to do it at least you have the hope. Rose the revenue comes from advertising and a smaller amounts from transactional figures. Yes. Rose most from advertising. Tiny. Rose tiny from advertising. Tiny from advertising and tiny from transactions. Now we have more than 10 million Small Business power sellers selling our site everywhere. So the transactions we have is second after warm up. Rose after warm up. Tiny of the money take us big. So you know, second after i remember the management guys came five years ago and jack you did a great job. So i said maybe two years it will be warmer. He said young man, you have good hope. I think in ten years well be bigger than walmart because if you want to have 10,000 new customers, you have to build a new warehouse all this and that. Rose where are you going . What does jack want . Think the because of the name alibaba, were an Internet Company happened to be in china. We have the entrepreneur like every great entrepreneurs in the world. And i remember the day when i said alibaba. We are the Mission HelpingSmall Business doing easier. So next step today so many Small Business using our platform to sell things. And over 300 Americ