Here are the 10 most interesting things Jack Ma said last year

Photo credit: Asia Society

China’s internet industry has a lot of colorful characters, but there’s nobody who can turn a phrase quite like Alibaba founder Jack Ma. The former English teacher has a way of speaking (in both English and Chinese) that tends to turn heads. Here are 10 of the most head-turning things he said last year.

1. Forget about ecommerce

I hope 15 years later people forget about ecommerce, because they think it’s like electricity.

That was Jack Ma during a speech full of quotable lines at Davos in January of 2015. He said he expects ecommerce to become so mainstream that the term ecommerce itself will be unnecessary – it’ll just be commerce. At least in China, ecommerce is already pretty ubiquitous; if anything Ma’s 15 year target may be overly conservative.

2. When pigs fly

First of all, a pig can fly in the wind, but when that wind dies down it’s the pig who’s going to fall to his death. Because he’s still a pig. What everyone has to think about is how to control the wind, how to grasp that wind and push yourself up. I think we shouldn’t seek the next strong wind; we should make ourselves into people that can fly at even the slightest breeze, people who can soar.

In an interview with Sina Tech last year, Jack Ma was reminded of the saying “even a pig can fly in a strong breeze,” and asked where he thought the next strong breeze in China’s internet industry would be. His response isn’t really about pigs, of course. What he’s saying is that rather than trying to seek out the next hot market, entrepreneurs should endeavour to create companies capable of succeeding even when the prevailing industry trends aren’t in their favor.

3. Taobao’s fakes aren’t fakes

Actually, Taobao doesn’t have many fake products. There are some products that are original creations, without official approval, but that doesn’t mean they’re fakes. These are classified as ‘web products.’”

Not everything Jack Ma said in 2015 was admirable. This was his noticeably unconvincing attempt at spin early in the year when Alibaba got into a spat with the Chinese government revolving around counterfeit products on Taobao. It’s interesting that even in 2015, when you’d think the company was making the vast majority of its money from licensed, official products, Jack Ma still seems quite happy to brush off accusations that the company could be doing more to combat fakes.

4. Lessons for Jack’s son

5. Why his face looks weird

6. Learning to say ‘no’

7. Worry when people are happy

8. Respecting the competition

9. What works in China will work elsewhere

10. Ecommerce king talks environmentalism