Jack Ma explains the true source of innovation

Everybody’s favorite Alibaba founder Jack Ma said a lot of things at a recent China Entrepreneur Club event. But for aspiring startup founders out there, the most interesting part may be a section of his speech that touches on innovation and the future. What follows is my translation of that portion of his remarks. (It’s not Jack’s most easily-comprehensible speech, so I’ve done a fair bit of editing.)

The Chinese character for “Education” can be broken down into two parts: teaching and fostering. China’s teaching is not bad; if it were bad we could not have reached the level of development we have over the past 30 years […] At that time education meant production capacity; knowledge meant money. 30 years of improvements in Chinese education have allowed us to get to today, and actually the greatest upside of China’s reforms were that our teaching is so strong. But fostering, that’s about culture, sport, imagination […] We’re always making kids read so much that they never have enough time to play. If children don’t have enough time to play, there’s no way any real innovative and creative force can be created.

True innovative and creative force comes from play. Sports, music, art: these things seem unimportant, but they are extremely important for shaping imagination and personality. We don’t think that our education system is bad, and I agree that it’s pretty good, but on the fostering side of things we need to do more.

Intelligence is knowing how to get something; wisdom is knowing what you don’t need.

The past 300 years of human society, in terms of teaching, have mostly been about technological development, with knowledge the be-all-and-end-all goal. But before 300 years ago, philosophy, culture, and religion influenced the development of society for thousands of years. Now that this era of big data and cloud computing is upon us, I personally think there will be a major shift in education […] The true fostering in education means cultivating wisdom. Intelligence is knowing how to get something; wisdom is knowing what you don’t need.

I think in the next 30-50 years, humanity will learn about what to give up. The true wisdom that people must learn is what you don’t need. Only once you’ve learned what you don’t need can you go further, better, longer. I personally think everyone in this country needs to have belief, and Communist Party leaders, CEOs, teachers, etc need to have conviction. What is belief? Belief is thankfulness and reverence. Conviction is a firm judgement of the future[.]

Everyone’s judgement of technology and of the markets are an excellent sort of conviction. You must have great conviction, because this conviction is not to sway investors or others. It comes from your deep, unflinching judgement of the future. You can only move forward with firmness and resolution. But on the path towards that conviction there will be pressure, enticements, and challenges[.]

I personally look at it this way […] China must return to being thankful for yesterday, revering tomorrow, and treasuring today. And I think that for any company, no matter how you’ve set it up and no matter whether it’s over 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, I believe that if your product or service is solving a problem in society, the bigger the problem is the bigger your accomplishments will be[.]