馬云美國哥倫比亞大學商學院英語演講

Mr. Ning評論：

任何一個在苦心思索自己人生的意義以及自己的職業(yè)夢想的申請人，都應該從頭至尾認真聽聽馬云的演講。首先，這是英文演講，可以提供很多可供學習的素材;其次，里面有很多的說法，可以讓一些只會在商言商，看不到金錢之外的價值的人大開眼界。

就博主看來，馬云是為數(shù)不多的能夠用英語的思維來表達自己中文思想的成功企業(yè)家和領導者!

結(jié)合馬云在斯坦福以及哥倫比亞的演講，我們可以全面地了解馬云是如何做的，如何說的。希望大家好好聽、認真想，不要酸溜溜地說什么馬云會神侃之類的屁話，好好挖掘人家傳遞的有意義的信息，這才是重要的。學習，學習，在學習。

以下為CBS配發(fā)的演講文本相關(guān)的英語文章，節(jié)選了馬云一些簡單經(jīng)典的話：

Alibaba Makes Internet Magic

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You may not have heard of the Alibaba Group, but investors, competitors and business leadersaround the world are paying close attention. Formed 11 years ago by high school teacher JackMa, Alibaba.com is China's largest B2B Internet marketplace for small- and medium-sizedcompanies. Other holdings include Alipay, an online payment service similar to PayPal; AlibabaCloud Computing; and Taobao, a social networking and shopping site that Mr. Ma describes asa mash-up of Amazon, eBay and Facebook. But it's the flagship company, Alibaba.com, thathas been the incubator for his sometimes-unorthodox ideas on management and productdevelopment.

"We don't think about making money," Mr. Ma said in September during the Sir Gordon WuDistinguished Speakers Forum at Columbia Business School, sponsored by the Chazen Institutefor International Business. "We think about creating value for society, for the people, and forthe customer. And because we don't think about making money, we make money."

That might sound flippant coming from someone whose website raised $1.5 billion in 2007,making it the second largest Internet IPO in history (only Google's, at $1.67 billion, was larger).Today, market capitalization for Alibaba.com is nearly $10 billion, and Taobao has mushroomedinto China's largest retailer by some measures. That's all the more remarkable considering thatMr. Ma operates in a country with some of the most restrictive Internet censorship policies inthe world. Still, he has succeeded by adhering to one simple six-word tenet: customers first,employees second, shareholders third.

The Early Days

Dressed casually in canvas shoes and a white windbreaker, Mr. Ma recounted for the audiencehis childhood in Hangzhou, a major city in China's Yangtze River delta. He was, he said, a fan ofwu xia (martial arts) novels, and often got into fistfights as a young boy. He picked up Englishon his own by acting as a tour guide for foreign visitors in exchange for language lessons, butbecause he had difficulty with math, he twice failed his general college entrance exams. On thethird try, he was admitted to the languages program at the local university, after which hebegan a career teaching high school English.

But along the way, the entrepreneurial bug bit. He launched a translation service and washired by an American businessman, who was bankrolling construction of a local highway, totranslate negotiations with Chinese municipal authorities. Part of the deal-making called for himto travel to Las Vegas to meet some investors, and it was there, in 1995, that he first heardthe word "Internet." He then travelled on his own to Seattle to visit VPN, a small Internet serviceprovider with five employees. There he got his first look at the technology that would, within adecade, make him one of the most influential entrepreneurs in the world.

Fee or Free?

A key to his success, Mr. Ma said, was having a business model so simple that any customercould instantly understand it. Unlike eBay, which has a sliding scale of fees, plus commissionif the item sells, Alibaba.com charges nothing for up to 50 product listings. "Chinese SMEs[small and medium enterprises] want to sell their products abroad," he said. "We help themcreate revenue." But what about Alibaba's revenue? That comes largely from annualmembership fees that sellers pay to upgrade to "Gold Supplier" status, which gives themaccess to more buyers and an online storefront.

"A membership fee is something all SMEs understand," he said. "If you talk about transaction[charges], our P/E [price to earnings ratio] would go up, but customers wouldn't understandus. Our business model should be simple and easy enough for customers to understand."Taobao, meanwhile, has also steadfastly adhered to the "no transaction fee" philosophy, whichcaused it to leak money for several years. Recently, though, it began selling ad space on thesite. Revenues have been high enough to push Taobao into the black, Mr. Ma said.

For the first five years of Alibaba.com, Mr. Ma was the site's chief quality control officer. Everyfeature of the site was put to one test: if he couldn't figure out how to use on his own,without explanations or manuals, it didn't get implemented. "I'm not a high-tech guy," he said. "My wife bought me an iPad and I still don't know how to use it." The site's design isdeliberately no-frills: Clicking on the "categories" tab, for example, pulls up an easy-to-scanalphabetical list of items for sale, everything from fresh garlic to pipe fittings. New requestsfrom buyers are prominently displayed and constantly updated. And for buyers who cringeat the thought of racking up a phone bill, there's a list of Chinese suppliers with toll-freenumbers.

What's ahead for the Alibaba Group? Don't expect a foray into online gaming any time soon. "Idon't believe in online gaming," he said, noting that his son and his friends spend hours afterschool glued to a computer screen. "We could make a lot of money on gaming, but I just don'twant my kids to be focused online," he said. Instead, he said, the next big thing in China will beB2C commerce.

“The world is changing,” he said. “With so many consumers, they can say ‘I want my productstailor-made.’ This will fundamentally change the Internet.”