Joe Tsai Co-founder & Chair of Alibaba | In Good Company | Norges Bank Investment Management
发布时间 2024-04-07 11:29:02 来源
摘要
Alibaba co-founder & Chair: China, Jack Ma, AI and basketball
Joe Tsai is chair and co-founder of Alibaba, one of the world’s largest companies with over a billion consumers. Joe shares unique insight in the Chinese economy and consumer, how he met Jack Ma, and how far behind China is from the US when it comes to AI development. Joe is also a huge sports fan and owns the NBA basketball team Brooklyn Nets. We own almost 2% of the company, and it's one of our largest holdings in Asia. So, a lot to talk about, tune in!
The podcast In Good Company is part of Norges Bank Investment Management , a podcast about our investments. We are transparent about how the fund is invested. In this podcast, you to get a deeper insight into the companies the fund is invested in.
We own about 2% of Alibaba.
Our CEO, Nicolai Tangen, has in-depth interviews with the leaders of some of the largest companies in the world. You will get insight into their leadership principles, the company’s strategy and how they are dealing with a large investor like us. You will also learn more about our role as an owner of the companies.
You can read more about the podcast on https://www.nbim.no/en/publications/podcast/
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Hi everyone! Today we have a special guest visiting called Joe Tsai, chair co-founder of one of the world's largest companies with more than one billion consumers called Alibaba, a giant e-commerce, digital payments, cloud computing, entertainment and much more. We own almost 2% of the company and you know what? Joe is also a huge sports fan and you even own a basketball team, Rocklin Nets. So great to have you here Joe and lots to talk about. Thanks for having me, Nikolai. Now let's start with the beginning just to get to know you. You were born in Taiwan but when you were 13 you moved to the US. So how was that transition?
大家好！今天我们有一个特别的客人来访，他叫蔡崇信，是全球最大公司之一的联合创始人之一，拥有超过十亿消费者的阿里巴巴集团，是一家巨大的电子商务、数字支付、云计算、娱乐等公司。我们拥有该公司近2%的股份，你知道吗？蔡先生也是个狂热的体育迷，他甚至拥有一支篮球队，洛克林篮网队。很高兴你能在这里，蔡先生，我们有很多话要聊。谢谢你接待我，尼古拉。现在让我们从一开始开始，只是为了更好地认识你。你出生在台湾，但在十三岁时移居美国。那个转变是怎样的呢？
It was an extraordinary transition. I came from a very different culture. I grew up in a very Chinese environment and went to a Chinese school so I barely spoke English when I landed in New Jersey in the United States, at age 13. So I went to a boarding school. I thought the best way for me to integrate and be friends with everyone was to play a lot of sports. I tried out for a lot of teams. I got cut from the baseball team. Were you any good? I wasn't good skill wise in baseball but I was fairly athletic and had some speed right? I was fast. So I tried out for football, American football. I played American football on the varsity team and also played lacrosse in high school and then went on to play lacrosse in college. He was a formative people in your upbringing.
这是一次非同寻常的转变。我来自一个非常不同的文化。我在一个非常中国化的环境中长大，上的是一所中文学校，所以我在13岁时来到美国新泽西时几乎不会说英语。于是我去了一所寄宿学校。我觉得融入并和所有人做朋友的最好方式就是参加很多体育运动。我尝试加入了很多队伍。我被棒球队剔除了。你当时打得如何？在棒球方面我技术不好，但我相当有运动天赋和速度对吧？我很快。所以我尝试加入了橄榄球队，美式橄榄球队。我在高中时打了橄榄球并且也参加了曲棍球比赛，之后我还在大学里打了曲棍球。他是你成长过程中的重要人物。
My father, he is one of the most brilliant, one of the most sharp-minded people I know but he's very tough. I feared my father. You still for him? I still for him. Well he's no longer with us. He's still kind of a bit of a ghost in your life. A bit of a ghost but I think over the years I felt that if he were alive I could talk to him and say, hey I've accomplished something in my life as well and probably could rival your accomplishments but I'm still not as smart as he is. You know I just love to see these drivers. We all have something we want to prove for somebody.
我的父亲，他是我认识的最聪明、最敏锐的人之一，但他非常严厉。我害怕我父亲。你还为他感到难过吗？我依然为他感到难过。不过他已经离开了我们。在你的生活中他仍然有点像一个幽灵。有点像幽灵，但我觉得多年来我感到如果他还活着，我可以和他说，嘿，我也在生活中取得了一些成就，可能可以和你的成就匹敌，但我仍然不如他聪明。你知道我只是喜欢看到这些司机。我们都有一些想为某人证明的东西。
Now before you went to Yale, you studied law but before you joined Alibaba you also worked for the Swedish Wollenberg family, the investor AB. What was that like? It was one of the best experiences I've had. I transitioned from being a lawyer to being an investor. I worked for investor in Hong Kong in their office and focused on private equity investments and it was really where I learned the fundamentals of investing. I still remember they gave everybody a book, the McKinsey corporate finance book on valuation and that's when you learn how to do a DCF model. The discipline, the work ethic was incredible and I love that environment. I still stay in touch with him.
在你去耶鲁之前，你学过法律，但在加入阿里巴巴之前，你还为瑞典沃伦伯格家族的投资者AB工作过。那是什么样的经历？那是我有过的最好的经历之一。我从律师转变为投资者。我在他们的香港办公室为投资者工作，专注于私募股权投资，那里真的是我学会投资基本原理的地方。我仍然记得他们给每个人一本书，麦肯锡的企业财务估值书，那时我学会了如何做DCF模型。纪律性和工作态度都非常好，我喜欢那种环境。我仍然和他保持联系。
In fact before I came in here earlier this week I was in Stockholm and had dinner with Marcus and Jacob. Both of them actually at the same time which was rare. I really enjoy that time just catching up with them. They are for sure long-term thinkers. Now how did you end up with Alibaba? I was at investor AB. I think it was my fourth year going into it. I started working at investor AB in 1995 and then in 1999 a friend of mine who I knew from Taiwan, our parents or friends as well. He came to me and said you have to go to Hanzhou to meet this man, Jack Ma. He is special. He is kind of crazy but you should meet him. I got on a flight to Hanzhou. Back then there were only two flights a week between Hong Kong and Hanzhou, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
事实上，本周早些时候在我来这里之前，我在斯德哥尔摩与马库斯和雅各布共进晚餐。事实上，他们同时出现的情况很少见。我真的很享受与他们一起的时间。他们肯定是长远思考者。那么你是如何加入阿里巴巴的呢？我当时在投资者AB工作。我想那是我第四年进入那家公司。我在1995年开始在投资者AB工作，然后在1999年，一个我在台湾认识的朋友，我们的父母也是朋友。他来找我，告诉我你必须去杭州见这个人，马云。他很特别。他有点疯狂，但你应该去见见他。我坐上了去杭州的航班。那时候香港和杭州之间一周只有两班飞机，分别是周二和周四。
I got on a flight and I went to Hanzhou to see him. When I went into this apartment he had a second floor apartment in the city of Hanzhou and it's called Laysai Gardens. I saw multiple pairs of shoes outside. There were quite a few people inside working. There were engineers, customer service people. Back then Jack had created a website to have small, medium-sized companies from China that are exporters that want to sell around the world. Our first website, believe it or not, Alibaba was in English language because it was customer facing to the west. There were engineers working away, customer service people doing things.
我乘飞机去杭州看他。当我走进他在杭州市的二楼公寓时，这所公寓名为雷塞花园。我看到外面有多双鞋子。里面有很多人在工作。有工程师，客服人员。那时候，杰克创建了一个网站，让中国的中小型出口企业可以在全球销售。不管你信不信，我们的第一个网站阿里巴巴是英文的，因为它面向西方客户。工程师们忙碌地工作，客服人员在忙碌着。
I still remember they had a notebook. They wrote down every single register user on the site and there were 28,000 register users at the time. After about an hour I chatted with Jack. I said, Jack, I have to use the restroom. Can I go to the bathroom? I went in there. There were like 10 toothbrushes next to the sink. I thought, oh my god, these people are 24-7 living, breathing in this room, working away. That was the start of the culture. That's the equivalent of a garage. Did you join that toothbrush club? I joined the tooth. I didn't bring my toothbrush, but I went away very inspired, not just by Jack's vision and charisma, but also the fact that there were a lot of people that are willing to follow him. It was very early.
我仍然记得他们有一个笔记本。他们在网站上把每一个注册用户都写下来，那时有28,000个注册用户。大约一个小时后我和杰克聊天。我说，杰克，我得上洗手间。我可以去洗手间吗？我进去了。洗手间旁边有十个牙刷。我想，天哪，这些人在这个房间里24小时不停地工作着，呼吸着。那就是文化的开端。那相当于一个车库。你加入过那个牙刷俱乐部吗？我加入了。我没带牙刷，但我离开时感到很受启发，不仅仅是因为杰克的愿景和魅力，还因为有很多人愿意跟随他。那是非常早期的时候。
He didn't have any money. The people that worked there were his students. Why did they want to follow him? What are the characteristics of a leader who people want to follow? I think the most important thing is to give people a site of what the future looks like. What kind of site did he give you at the time of what Alibaba could be? Well, at the time, our business is a B2B marketplace and he said, on the cusp of China joining the WTO, all these small and medium-sized companies want to do business around the world. Alibaba's mission back then was and still is to make it easy to do business anywhere.
他身无分文。那里工作的人是他的学生。他们为什么想要跟随他？什么样的领导者才能赢得人们的追随？我认为最重要的是给人们展示未来的景象。当时他给了你什么样的展望，关于阿里巴巴可能会成为什么样子？嗯，那时我们的业务是一个B2B市场，他说，随着中国即将加入WTO，所有这些中小型公司都想在全球开展业务。当时阿里巴巴的使命是，而且至今依然是，让在任何地方进行业务变得更加容易。
Our DNA, our culture, is to help small businesses, to go as far abroad as possible. That was the vision. Obviously, we developed into a big domestic consumer company as well as cloud computing now. When did you understand that this was going to be really big? I didn't appreciate the scale until around 2005 when that was six, seven years into our founding when Yahoo came knocking on the door and they said we want to invest. At the same time, eBay was also looking at investing in the company.
我们的DNA，我们的文化，就是要帮助小企业尽可能走向更远的国外。这是我们的愿景。显然，现在我们已经发展成为一个大型国内消费公司以及云计算公司。您是何时意识到这将会变得非常大？直到大约2005年时我才意识到这个规模有多大，那时我们创立了六七年，雅虎上门投资，eBay也在考虑投资我们的公司。
We were even thinking about selling our little baby called Talbao, which today is the largest e-commerce marketplace in China for consumer e-commerce. Eventually, we negotiated with Yahoo and it's just the size of their investment. They invested $1.25 billion not just into the company, but they also bought out a number of VCs in a secondary transaction. $1.25 billion that value the company at over $4 billion. I still remember it was the summer and then I saw my parents in the summer, talking about my dad.
我们甚至曾考虑出售我们的小宝贝塔宝，如今它已经成为中国最大的消费电子商务市场。最终，我们与雅虎进行了谈判，他们投资的规模令人惊讶。他们不仅投资了12.5亿美元到公司，还在二级交易中收购了一些风险投资公司。这12.5亿美元给公司估值超过40亿美元。我依然记得那是夏天，当时看到我的父母在夏天谈论我的爸爸。
That was a proud moment when I said to my dad. I think I've made it sort of. But when did you see the real potential scale of the business? When did you really feel that it was taken off? It's a good question.
当我对爸爸说这句话时，那是一个令人骄傲的时刻。我觉得我已经在某种程度上成功了。但是你是什么时候看到企业的真正潜力规模的？你是什么时候真正感到它开始腾飞的？这是一个很好的问题。
The scale of the business didn't take off until when Talbao started to monetize. We knew we had a good thing going with Talbao, with buyers and sellers in the marketplace, but we were having trouble monetizing. There were several efforts in 2006 and 2007 that didn't work out that well. But then we got onto something. We basically monetized the marketplace using search advertising. You can imagine you have a Google way of monetizing the marketplace on an eBay type marketplace. That was unique. That was actually new pioneer by Alibaba.
直到淘宝开始变现，业务的规模才开始起飞。我们知道在淘宝上有买家和卖家，市场正在蓬勃发展，但我们一直在努力变现。在2006年和2007年进行了几次努力，但效果不是太好。但后来我们找到了一种方法。我们基本上通过搜索广告实现了市场变现。你可以想象，在一个类似eBay的市场中，用谷歌的方式变现市场。那真的很独特。那实际上是阿里巴巴开创的新先河。
I just remember in 2008, our cash flow started to go grew exponentially. That's when we realized we had a really good thing going. Now, you're not the only one who's seen the opportunities here, and so you have now competition in several of your businesses. Tell me about the most serious competition you are facing. I think the competition, I can name a number of competitors, and you know them too. You probably invest in some of them. I think when we look internally and self-reflect over the last several years, we have fallen behind because we forgot about who our real customers are.
我还记得在2008年，我们的现金流开始呈指数级增长。那时我们意识到我们正在做一件真正棒的事情。现在，不止你一个人看到这里的机遇，所以你现在在几个业务中遇到了竞争。告诉我你面临的最严峻竞争对手是谁。我觉得竞争对手有很多家，你也知道他们。你可能投资过其中一些。我觉得当我们内部审视和自我反省过去几年时，我们落后了，因为我们忘记了我们真正的客户是谁。
Our customers are the users that use our apps that are shopping. We did not give them the best experience. In a way, we stepped on our own foot and didn't really focus on where the value is, where we could provide value. As part of the reorganization, our new CEO comes in. I'm the chairman, but I work with a CEO who's 12 years younger than I am. He's very, very user focused on the product and the interface and the user experience, and that's the most important thing for us.
我们的客户是使用我们购物应用的用户。我们没有给他们提供最好的体验。在某种程度上，我们自己给自己挖了坑，没有真正关注价值所在，没有发挥我们可以提供的价值。作为重组的一部分，我们的新CEO上任了。我是主席，但我与一位比我年轻12岁的CEO合作。他非常注重产品、界面和用户体验，这对我们来说是最重要的事情。
How are you rectifying it? What kind of steps are you taking? The first thing we did was to acknowledge mistakes. We've acknowledged that in the past, we might have not focused on our user experience. The second thing is to reorganize our personnel, change the organizational structure that fits the strategy. I think this is a very common problem of big companies. Big companies are set in their organizational structures, and then they don't change because people don't like to change. They don't want to change jobs. They are afraid to be fired and things like that.
你们是如何纠正的呢？采取了什么措施？我们首先承认了错误。我们承认过去可能没有专注在用户体验上。其次是重新组织人员，改变适应战略的组织结构。我认为这是大公司的一个很普遍的问题。大公司往往固守自己的组织结构，因为人们不喜欢改变。他们不想换工作，害怕被解雇之类的。
Then you start to fit the company's direction into your org structure, which shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be the other way around. You should define what the direction is and then set the company's organization. We actually reorganize ourselves within Taobao, our group CEO, who is also directly the CEO of the Taobao T-Maw marketplace. If you look at his direct reports today, they're drastically different from who his direct reports were three months ago. Was there bureaucracy building up or what happened? What made you not see the change in the marketplace?
然后你开始将公司的方向套入你的组织架构中，这样做不应该是正确的方式。应该是反过来的。你应该明确定义方向，然后再建立公司的组织结构。我们实际上在淘宝内部重新组织自己，我们的集团CEO同时也是淘宝天猫市场的CEO。如果看看他今天的直接下属，与三个月前相比已经大为不同。到底是官僚主义开始形成，还是发生了什么？是什么让你没有看到市场的变化？
I think it's human nature that people don't like to acknowledge mistakes. True leaders and true good managers have that ability to self-reflect and say, I might not have done something right. I did this wrong. I need to change. They need to change themselves. But it is human nature that they don't do that. I think we fell into that trap.
我认为人类的本性是不喜欢承认错误的。真正的领导者和优秀的管理者有能力自省并说出“我可能做错了某事。我做错了。我需要改变。”他们需要改变自己。但人类的本性是不愿意这样做。我认为我们陷入了这个陷阱。
You have to eat a little bit of humble pie. I think part of leadership is humility. You got to be able to admit your mistakes and say, all right, let's correct course. But here's the new vision. Because employees are looking for that direction. It's very, very important. What is it due to morale in a company which has been growing so fast and where the share price went through the roof when these kind of things reverse? The morale has not been good in the past three years. I mean, through multiple factors, first we had COVID and then the economy, the Chinese economy sort of bounced back after COVID, but then it sort of flattened out. Competition was another issue. Also, another issue was regulatory scrutiny. We paid big fines, but that's all behind us. But all those things combined was quite devastating to the morale. But as I said, the most important thing though is employees are looking for a direction. If you can clearly communicate what the direction is, then they will get rejuvenated.
你必须适当谦卑一点。我认为领导力的一部分是谦逊。你必须能够承认自己的错误，然后说，好吧，让我们改正错误。但是，这里是新的愿景。因为员工们正在寻找方向。这非常非常重要。在一个公司中，当这些情况发生逆转时，对士气有什么影响呢，特别是在一家成长得很快、股价飙升的公司？过去三年士气并不好。通过多种因素，首先是COVID，然后是经济问题，中国经济在COVID之后有所回升，但之后又趋于平稳。竞争是另一个问题。还有一个问题就是监管审查。我们支付了很多罚款，但那都已经过去了。但是所有这些事情加在一起对士气造成了很大打击。但正如我所说，最重要的是员工们正在寻找方向。如果你能清晰地传达出方向，那么他们会重新振作起来。
Changing the talk a bit, of course, your business depends on a strong consumer. How do you see the Chinese consumer just now? If you look at the whole Chinese economy, China is about 31% of global production, but the consumers only consume 14% global consumption. So obviously there's an imbalance. China is a net export country, makes a lot of things. But at some point, Chinese consumers should come into more significance and rival that of the Western developed markets. In China, overall consumption is slightly over 50%, whereas the developed market's consumption is over 70% of the total economy. So there's a lot of potential. But the way I see the consumers today is there's a couple of factors that kind of temper their confidence and willingness to spend. Number one, there's a wealth effect from the property downturn. I think on average property prices have come down 30%. When people's assets, a lot of their wealth is tied up in real estate, and this sort of downturn happens, they don't feel as wealthy and they want to save, they want to propensity to spend is diminished.
稍微改变一下话题，当然，您的业务取决于强大的消费者。您如何看待目前的中国消费者？如果您看整个中国经济，中国约占全球生产的31%，但消费者只消费了全球消费的14%。显然存在不平衡。中国是一个净出口国家，生产很多东西。但在某个时候，中国消费者应该会显得更加重要，与西方发达市场媲美。在中国，总体消费占总经济的略高于50%，而发达市场的消费占总经济的70%以上。因此有很大的潜力。但从我看消费者今天的情况来看，有几个因素在一定程度上削弱了他们的信心和消费意愿。首先，从房地产市场的下行中产生了财富效应。我认为平均房价已经下降了30%。当人们的资产，很多财富都投资在房地产中，当这样的下行发生时，他们感到财富不那么充裕，他们会想要储蓄，他们的消费倾向会减弱。
The second thing is I think young people today are still worried about being able to get a job. Just look at ourselves. In the last several quarters, we've had headcount reductions. Just through attrition, it's not like we were laying off people, but just through attrition, we're not hiring. I think it's important that businesses, especially private businesses, are given incentives and the signal and the confidence to invest and hire people. So when people don't feel very certain about the future, about their jobs ability, then their propensity to spend is also affected. The ability to spend, though, is there. China has very high savings rate and household cash is still very strong. Yeah, we had expected the upturn off the COVID in China to be stronger than what actually happened. But it sounds like the same. You had the same opinion. Well, I just said consumer confidence is quite low right now because of the wealth effect and uncertainty about employment in the future.
我认为今天的年轻人仍然担心能否找到工作。看看我们自己吧。在过去几个季度，我们进行了人员减员。并不是因为裁员，而是通过自然流失，我们并未雇佣新人。我认为很重要的是给予企业，尤其是私营企业，提供激励措施和信心，鼓励他们投资和雇佣更多人。因此，当人们对未来和就业能力感到不确定时，他们的消费意愿也会受到影响。虽然有能力消费，但中国的储蓄率很高，家庭资金仍然非常充裕。是的，我们曾经预期中国的疫情反弹会比实际情况更强劲。但听起来你也有同样的看法。我只是说消费者信心目前非常低，因为财富效应和对未来就业的不确定性。
You mentioned increased regulation. Are you still seeing increased regulatory pressure? I don't think it's increasing. I think regulatory framework is now more clear. We know what are the lines, how to keep within the boundaries and not to overstep the boundaries. So having that clarity is very good for business. Now, China has been the factory of the world for many years now. How do you see this developing going forward? I still think China will continue to be a manufacturing powerhouse in the world. Despite declining population on a relative basis, China's population is still very large. You're looking at 800 million productive workers in the economy. Even if that reduces to 600 million, 650 million, that is still very sizable at production force at scale. The Chinese people are in industrious and the education system has been very good. So you have a well educated labor force and skilled labor force. You see a lot of reshoring or offshoring to people diversifying their supply chains to Vietnam, Mexico. But look at the population. The population of Vietnam is about 100 million. The working population, the workforce is 60 million. China is more than 10 times the size of that. They will never be able to replace China as the manufacturing center of the world.
你提到了增加的监管。您是否仍然感受到了增加的监管压力？我认为这种压力并没有增加。我认为监管框架现在更加清晰了。我们知道了底线在哪里，如何在边界内保持，并且不要越过边界。所以有了这种清晰度对于企业来说非常有利。现在，中国多年来一直是世界工厂。您如何看待这种发展前景？我仍然认为中国将继续成为世界制造业强国。尽管相对人口数量在下降，中国的人口规模仍然非常庞大。您看，经济中有着8亿劳动力。即使这个数字减少到6亿，6.5亿，仍然是一个非常庞大的生产力规模。中国人民勤劳好学，教育系统也非常好。因此您有一支受过良好教育和技能的劳动力。您会看到许多公司重新回到或者分散供应链到越南、墨西哥。但是看看人口规模。越南约1亿人口，劳动力规模是6000万。中国的规模是它的十倍以上。他们永远无法取代中国成为世界制造业中心。
Now, we know in the second year in the AI revolution, how do you approach AI as a firm? We're one of the largest cloud players in China. So AI is essential. Having a good large language model that is proprietarily developed in-house is very, very important because it helps our cloud business. If we have a great LLN and other developers are developing on top of it, they're using our computing services. We see AI as very much the left hand and right hand for our cloud business. The other aspect is the e-commerce business is one of the places where you can have the most, the richest use cases for AI.
现在，我们知道在人工智能革命的第二年，作为一家公司，你是如何对待人工智能的？我们是中国最大的云服务提供商之一。所以人工智能是必不可少的。拥有一个在内部独立开发的优秀大型语言模型非常重要，因为它有助于我们的云业务。如果我们拥有一个出色的LLN，其他开发者在其基础上开发，他们将使用我们的计算服务。我们把人工智能视为我们云业务的左手右手。另一个方面是电子商务业务是最能利用人工智能的领域之一，拥有最丰富的使用案例。
So you can develop a lot of really cool products on top of our own model or even someone else's open open source model. We have multiple development efforts going on. In those scenarios, for example, you can try something on using virtual dressing rooms. Our merchants doing business on our marketplace will be able to use AI to self-generate photos, product descriptions, and things like that. Is that because you have less GDPR and more personalized data? I don't think it's less GDPR. We collect a lot of data.
因此，您可以基于我们自己的模型甚至其他人的开放源模型开发很多非常酷的产品。我们有多个开发项目正在进行。在这些场景中，例如，您可以尝试使用虚拟试衣间。我们在我们的市场上做生意的商家将能够使用人工智能来自动生成照片、产品描述等等。这是因为您拥有更少的GDPR和更多的个性化数据吗？我不认为这是因为GDPR更少。我们收集了大量数据。
We have a lot of data of our consumers. There's a lot of open source data because the whole premise of a large language model is you can crawl the web and be able to get open source data to train your model. It's the same thing in the US. It's the same thing in China. But we are able to further use AI to develop vertical applications given our own data, what we know about the consumers and the merchants. So it's a beautiful combination using AI to improve our user experience. Where do you think China is in the AI development compared to the US companies now?
我们拥有大量消费者数据。由于大型语言模型的基本前提是可以爬取网络并获取开源数据来训练模型，因此有很多开源数据可用。在美国也是如此，在中国也是如此。但是我们能够进一步利用AI开发垂直应用程序，根据我们自己的数据、了解的消费者和商家信息。因此，通过使用AI来改善我们的用户体验是一种美妙的组合。你认为中国在AI发展方面与美国公司相比现在处于什么位置？
I think China is today behind. It's clear that the American companies like OpenAI have really leaped ahead of everybody else. But China is trying to play catch up. How far behind do you think it is? I think China could have a lag that will last for a long time. Because everybody else is running very fast as well. But do you think it's one year, five years, three years? What do you think? I think today we're probably two years behind the top models. Now, what is your situation when it comes to chips and semiconductors? So last October, the US put in very stringent restrictions on the ability of companies like NVIDIA to export high-end chips to every company in China.
我认为中国目前是落后的。很明显，像OpenAI这样的美国公司真的已经领先其他所有人。但是中国正在努力赶上。你认为它落后多少？我认为中国可能会有一个持续很长时间的滞后。因为其他所有人也在快速奔跑。但你认为是一年、五年、还是三年？你觉得呢？我觉得今天我们可能落后于顶尖模型两年。那么，谈到芯片和半导体，你的情况如何？去年十月，美国对像NVIDIA这样的公司向中国所有公司出口高端芯片实施了非常严格的限制。
So they've sort of abandoned the entity list approach and they put the entire China on their list. And I think we're definitely affected by that. In fact, we've actually publicly communicated it did affect our cloud business and our ability to offer high-end computing services to our customers. So it is an issue in the short run and probably the medium run. But in the long run, China will develop its own ability to make these high-end GPUs. And you are doing that yourself as well? We have some effort of doing that, but we also are looking at other players to source chips from other players.
所以他们已经放弃了实体清单的方法，而是将整个中国放在了他们的名单上。我认为我们肯定受到了影响。事实上，我们公开表示它确实影响了我们的云业务和向客户提供高端计算服务的能力。因此，在短期内和可能中期内这是一个问题。但从长远来看，中国将发展自己制造这些高端GPU的能力。您自己也在这方面努力吗？我们有一些努力在进行，但同时也在考虑从其他公司采购芯片。
So how big an issue is this lack of chips? It's a big issue. It's something that everybody is trying to grapple with. In the short run, though, I think prior to the restrictions coming down, people have stocked up inventory. So currently, I think in the next year or 18 months, the training on large language models can still go have given the inventory that people have. I think there's more high computing that's required for training as opposed to the applications, what people call inference. So on the inference side, there are multiple options.
这种芯片短缺问题有多严重？这是一个大问题。这是每个人都在试图应对的事情。短期内，我认为在限制措施出台之前，人们已经囤积了库存。因此，我认为在未来一年或18个月内，由于人们已经有了库存，大型语言模型的训练仍将进行。我认为对于训练而言，需要更多的高性能计算，而与之相对的应用方面，人们称之为推理。因此，在推理方面，有多种选择。
You don't need to have as high-power and high-end chips as the NVIDIA, the latest model. So if you had had unlimited supply of NVIDIA top models and everything else you wanted, how would your business look differently? I think we will have a more robust cloud computing business, and we will be able to have customers that want to rent computing power from us. So this leads us to the geopolitical aspects of running a company like Alibaba. Now, what kind of geopolitical considerations do you need to take when you run a company like this?
您不需要像NVIDIA最新型号那样拥有高性能和高端芯片。因此，如果您有无限供应的NVIDIA顶级型号及其他所需的一切，您的业务会有何不同？我认为我们将拥有一个更强大的云计算业务，我们将能够吸引想要从我们租用计算能力的客户。这使我们进入了像阿里巴巴这样经营一家公司的地缘政治方面。那么，当您经营这样一家公司时，您需要考虑什么样的地缘政治因素呢？
I think the first thing is to understand all the regulations, we need to make sure that we are compliant with law and with the policies everywhere we operate. So you don't run afoul of regulators and then catch the attention of the politicians. And that's very, very important to us. I think in terms of compliance structure, we are one of the most robust companies around the world, not just one of the robust Chinese companies, we are one of the most robust companies around the world. I think that's very, very important.
我认为第一件事是要了解所有的法规，我们需要确保我们在所有经营地点都遵守法律和政策。这样就不会招惹监管机构，也不会引起政客的注意。这对我们来说非常重要。我认为在合规结构方面，我们是全球最强大的公司之一，不仅仅是在中国，我们是全球最强大的公司之一。我认为这非常非常重要。
Now, speaking of US-China specifically, if you look at Alibaba, we do so much business on behalf of US companies. We sold over $60 billion of American products to Chinese consumers annually. And that trade is two-way. And in Europe, about 14 billion euros of French products to Chinese consumers, 7 billion German products to Chinese consumers. These are all really great stories that people really don't understand. So Alibaba is good for the world, good for global trade. And so set in that context, people can understand Alibaba better and really not say, oh, you're just a Chinese company that is trying to flood the market with your cheap Chinese products. I think it's very, very important for the world to know Alibaba is here to do business globally.
现在，具体说到美中关系，如果你看阿里巴巴，我们为美国公司代理了很多生意。我们每年向中国消费者售出超过600亿美元的美国产品。这种贸易是双向的。在欧洲，约有140亿欧元的法国产品销售给中国消费者，70亿德国产品销售给中国消费者。这些都是人们真的不了解的很棒的故事。所以，阿里巴巴对世界有利，有利于全球贸易。因此，放在这样的背景下，人们可以更好地理解阿里巴巴，并真正不要说，哦，你只是一家试图通过廉价的中国产品泛滥市场的中国公司。我认为对世界了解阿里巴巴是非常非常重要的，我们是来全球做生意的。
Now, in addition to the cheap act, are there any other geopolitical tensions that impact the way you do business? Just generally being a Chinese company in the US, we have to be very careful. So for example, we don't have much of a consumer facing business in the United States. And that's because concerns about data privacy, cybersecurity, and things like that. And these are some of the issues that we will have to navigate in the future.
现在，除了廉价行为之外，还有其他地缘政治紧张局势影响您做生意的方式吗？作为一家在美国的中国公司，我们必须非常小心谨慎。例如，我们在美国没有太多面向消费者的业务。这是因为人们担心数据隐私、网络安全等问题。这些是我们未来将要应对的一些问题。
What are some of the misconceptions that you see that people in the West have when it comes to the current situation in China? I think people tend to be categorical about China, whereas a lot of the truth is somewhere in between. I find this talk about whether China is investable or not quite ridiculous. You're talking about the second largest economy in the world, a very industrious labor force, as I referred to before, 800 million people that are working very hard. So I don't think it's constructive to talk about whether to pull out from China or investable in China. I think people have to recognize that you can't bet against the Chinese people. This is an economy that will be around for a long time, and that will actually be good for the world.
在西方人对中国当前情况存在哪些误解？我认为人们往往对中国持有绝对看法，而事实往往是介于两者之间。我觉得有些人谈论中国是否可投资是相当荒谬的。你在谈论世界第二大经济体，一个非常勤奋的劳动力，正如我之前所提到的，有着 8 亿人正在努力工作。因此，我认为谈论是否从中国撤资或者在中国投资并不有意义。我认为人们必须意识到不能对中国人民持负面看法。这是一个将长期存在并对世界产生积极影响的经济体。
You mentioned that more combat against China, which kind of brings me to corporate culture and work ethics. So what is strong corporate culture do you? A strong corporate culture means that you identify with a mission, the company. You see the company's direction very clearly, and you love working with your colleagues. You love your boss. You love your colleagues. I think that has always been the Alibaba culture. We have a saying, work happily, live seriously. People always talk about work-life balance, but Alibaba will say, well, why does it need to be a dialectic of work versus life? When you come to work, you should be happy because you're among friends. Do you work all the time? No, I don't work all the time. I have to admit, I have actually found ways to become more efficient. So I don't have to work a lot more a lot harder. You used to have the toothbrush in the office.
你提到了对抗中国的更多斗争，这让我想到了企业文化和工作伦理。那么什么是强大的企业文化呢？强大的企业文化意味着你认同公司的使命。你非常清晰地看到公司的方向，并且喜欢与同事一起工作。你喜欢你的老板。你喜欢你的同事。我认为这一直是阿里巴巴的文化。我们有一句话，快乐工作，认真生活。人们总是谈论工作与生活的平衡，但阿里巴巴会说，为什么需要将工作和生活对立起来呢？当你来上班时，你应该感到快乐，因为你身处朋友中间。你整天都在工作吗？不，我并不整天都在工作。我不得不承认，我实际上找到了更高效的方法。所以我不需要更努力地工作很多。你以前是在办公室刷牙的。
I used to have the toothbrush in the office, but here's the thing. And what do you do to make yourself more efficient? I apply some of the things I learned in sports and athletics. Like training, high intensity training for a few minutes, and then you rest. So on a given day, I don't want to go 10 hours the whole day working really, really hard. I would go two or three hours, very intense work. I'll be very efficient and get something done, and then I'll take a rest. I'll read the newspaper or take an app or go out for a workout. So this interval training is the concept that I take from sports and apply that to work. What does it look like when you do high intensity work in your office? What do you tell me?
我过去在办公室里有牙刷，但事情是这样的。你是如何让自己更有效率的？我运用了一些我在运动和体育方面学到的东西。比如训练，进行几分钟的高强度训练，然后休息。所以在某一天，我不想整天工作10个小时，非常努力地工作。我会工作两三个小时，非常高效地工作。我会很有效率地完成一些事情，然后休息一下。我会看报纸，或者打个盹，或者出去锻炼。所以这种间歇训练就是我从运动中学到的概念，我把这个应用到工作中。在办公室里进行高强度工作是什么样子的？你告诉我吧。
People are very afraid of me. I'll make a lot of phone calls and ask tough questions. But I also like the fact that I'm untrained as a lawyer. And as well as the training and investor A.B. They taught me how to work a spreadsheet. I do a lot of things by hand myself. If I'm working on a deal, for example, an investment project, I'll write my own term sheet. You close the door and have no interruptions, and how does it look like in your office? How do you operate? Nobody likes interruptions.
人们非常害怕我。我会打很多电话，提出艰难的问题。但我也喜欢自己不是一名受过训练的律师这个事实。同时，投资者A.B.也教会了我如何操作电子表格。很多事情我都亲自动手处理。比如说，如果我在处理一笔交易，比如一项投资项目，我会亲自撰写条款表。你会关上门，不受打扰地工作，你的办公室是什么样子的呢？你是怎么操作的？没有人喜欢被打断。
I seldom work in the office. I'm always traveling. I'm in a hotel room. I'm on the plane. Sometimes I just call in and say, I'm going to stay at home. And in the next five hours, I'm just going to focus on doing something so nobody should call me. So it's never in one place. It's always finding that chunks of time where I can be not bothered. Do you see yourself as a nice boss? I would like to. I think being a good boss, I think nice is not because if you're too nice to people, you are misleading them. I think the most important thing about a good boss is you give them immediate feedback.
我很少在办公室工作。我总是在旅行。我在酒店房间里。我在飞机上。有时我会打电话说，我要呆在家里。接下来的五个小时，我只会专注于做一些事情，所以别人不要给我打电话。所以我从不呆在一个地方。我总是找到可以不被打扰的时间段。你认为自己是一个好老板吗？我希望是。我认为成为一个好老板，不仅仅是nice，因为如果你对人太好，你可能会误导他们。我认为一个好老板最重要的是能够给予他们及时反馈。
Feedback can't be a quarterly review thing or a year-end review thing. Feedback has to be immediate. People need to know whether they did something that wasn't quite right or they didn't apply the full effort, they need to know right away. What are some of the other leadership principles that you adhere to? I think humility. I talked about humility. You have to be able to admit to your own mistakes. The other thing is you can't pretend to be the smartest person in the room always. Sometimes people are looking for that leadership. You want to come up with a good idea or whatever, but that can be all the time because you've got to let your people, the people that report to you, be empowered to come up with your own ideas, otherwise you kill innovation.
反馈不能只是季度审查或年终审查的事情。反馈必须是即时的。人们需要知道是否做错了什么或者没有尽全力，他们需要立即知道。您尊从的其他领导原则是什么？我认为是谦卑。我谈到了谦卑。你必须能够承认自己的错误。另一点是你不能总是假装自己是房间里最聪明的人。有时人们正在寻找领导力。你想提出一个好主意或者其他什么，但这不能始终如此，因为你必须让属下的人有权提出自己的想法，否则就会扼杀创新。
You mentioned sport. Tell me about your love for sport and why you bought a basketball team. I've always been fairly athletic myself and just having participated in sports both in high school and in university. There are a lot of people who like sport who don't buy sport clubs. You're right. But first about sports. I think sports teaches you not only the discipline and hard work, but also sport teaches you how to fail. If you fall down, if you lose a game, you've got to bounce back. I think that's really, really important. A lot of those principles apply to business.
你提到了运动。告诉我你对运动的热爱以及为什么购买篮球队。我自己一直都比较运动，不仅参加过高中的运动活动，也参加过大学的运动项目。很多喜欢运动的人并没有购买运动俱乐部。你说得对。但先谈谈运动。我认为运动不仅教会你纪律和努力，还教会你如何面对失败。如果你跌倒了，如果输掉了比赛，你必须振作起来。我认为这非常重要。很多这些原则也适用于商业。
Why I bought a sports team? It's actually a serendipity. When the Brooklyn that's where I'm up for sale, this is in 2017, I really had no idea what it's like to invest and be an owner of a sports team. But then I looked at the characteristics of the league, how the league shares economics. One of the great things about the NBA is they have a very good collective bargaining agreement that splits the economics between the teams, the owners and the players. The players are really providing value, so they should get their fair share of the economics. That's all set out in the collective bargaining agreement.
为什么我买了一支体育队？其实是一种意外的收获。2017年，当布鲁克林尼克斯队开始出售时，我真的不知道投资和成为一支体育队的所有者是什么感觉。但是我看到了联盟的特点，以及联盟如何分享经济利益。 NBA的一个很大的优点是他们有一份非常好的集体谈判协议，将经济利益在球队、所有者和球员之间进行了分配。球员们真的创造了价值，所以他们应该得到他们应得的一部分经济利益。这一切都在集体谈判协议中明确规定。
Then the other thing about the NBA is among the 30 teams, it doesn't matter if you're competitively successful or not. There is a mechanism for all teams to be, even the small market teams, to be competitive and to also make money. There's a pretty fair sharing economics among the teams. For example, the TV rights, the NBA today gets something like $2.7 billion of national TV revenues every year. That gets split among the 30 teams evenly. That's very, very different from the EPL, for example. I thought those characteristics are almost like a little bit socialist, but it ensures that everybody that invest in the league will not lose a lot of money.
在NBA中的另一件事是，在30支球队中，无论你在竞技方面是否成功，都没有关系。所有球队，即使是小市场球队，也有竞争力，也能赚钱的机制。球队之间有相对公平的经济共享。例如，电视转播权，NBA每年获得约27亿美元的国家电视收入，这个收入被均分给30支球队。这与英超联赛相比非常不同。我觉得这些特点有点社会主义，但它确保了每个投资联盟的人不会损失太多钱。
The other thing is Brooklyn. We're in New York City. How else can you get an opportunity to own an asset that is kind of like a crown jewel in a big city, in a big country, with one of the most popular sports in the world? Is it fun? It's absolutely fun. I love going to games. I can see you. I have fun with it. What are the other ways you're having fun? I spend time with my kids. One of the most rewarding things is to see my 17-year-old son play a basketball game, just a high school game. He's the starting point guard on the basketball team. It just gives me so much pleasure to see him do well on the court.
另一件事是布鲁克林。我们在纽约市。还有哪里可以让你有机会拥有类似于大都市中的王冠珠宝的资产，在一个世界上最受欢迎的体育项目之一的大国家？这是有趣的吗？当然有趣。我喜欢去看比赛。我可以看到你。我从中获得乐趣。你还有哪些其他方式让你开心呢？我花时间和孩子们在一起。最令人满足的事情之一就是看到我17岁的儿子参加篮球比赛，只是一场高中比赛。他是篮球队的首发控球后卫。看到他在球场上表现出色给我带来了很多快乐。
Do you read? Yeah. What do you read? Well, I like to read spy novels. I'm a big John Lickari fan. I still remember when I was a teenager. One of the first books I read was Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. I got hooked on it right away. All that I think Lickari, the author, has been able to take some of his real life and turn it into this experience for the readers. It's almost aspirational. You want to be one of the characters in the book. I enjoy that very much. Other than that, I try to read as much current and fairs. I love the economist, but that's probably not reading books.
你读书吗？是的。你读什么书？嗯，我喜欢看间谍小说。我是约翰·利卡瑞的忠实粉丝。我仍然记得我还是个十几岁的少年时读的第一本书是《间谍大师》。我立刻就迷上了它。我觉得利卡瑞这位作家成功地将他的一些真实经历转化为了读者的体验。几乎是令人憧憬的。你希望成为书中的一个角色。我非常享受这种感觉。除此之外，我还尽量多读一些当前和公平的作品。我喜欢读经济学家，但那可能算不上读书吧。
What would be your advice to young people? My advice is learn one or two very fundamental skill sets that you're going to be on the top 10% of everybody else. If you want to learn how to code, if you want to learn a particular subject area, I think you have to develop some specialty. My specialty professionally was actually tax law. I was a tax lawyer for three years. I knew I could go into a room and be at least somewhat smart when people talk about tax structuring. It still is helpful to me today. We're looking at some things internationally where structuring the right corporate entities and tax structures and licensing structures are important. I get very involved in that. You can't just be a walking to a room and just be a generalist in all areas. You have to be able to tell somebody, I'm an expert in one thing, this particular thing, and that's how you get respect.
你对年轻人有什么建议？我的建议是学习一两项非常基础的技能，让自己成为所有人中的前10%。如果你想学习编程，如果你想学习某个特定领域，我认为你必须培养一些专长。我的专业专长实际上是税法。我曾经是一名税务律师，三年时间。我知道自己至少在人们谈论税务结构时能够表现出一些聪明才智。这对我今天仍然是有帮助的。我们正在国际上审视一些事务，其中公司实体结构、税务结构和许可结构的设计是重要的。我对此非常投入。你不能只是走进一个房间，然后在各个领域都是个泛泛之辈。你必须能够告诉别人，我是某件事情的专家，这个特定的事情，这就是获得尊重的方法。
The other thing that I would say to young people is learn multiple things. In particular, I think in the future, data science is important. Take a class in data science. It used to be called statistics, but data science is the more fancy way of naming it. Also, take a class in psychology. I think there is something that's fascinating about the human mind and how the mind works. That's very different from machines.
我想对年轻人说的另一件事是要学习多种知识。特别是，我认为未来数据科学很重要。去上一堂数据科学课程。以前叫统计学，但数据科学是更时髦的说法。同时，也要学习心理学课程。我觉得人类思维和思维方式非常迷人。这与机器非常不同。
If you are equipped with some ability to code, like young people nowadays, they all learn how to code on Python or Java or whatever it is, have an understanding data science and understand a little bit of psychology. I think you're equipped with all the tools that you need to be successful in life. Sounds like a good plan that you, for sure, have been very successful and it's been really great having you on. Thank you so much.
如果你具备一些编码能力，就像现在的年轻人一样，他们都学习如何在Python或Java等语言上编码，理解数据科学并了解一点心理学。我认为你已经具备了成功生活所需的所有工具。听起来像是一个很好的计划，毫无疑问，你一定非常成功，很高兴能有你的参与。非常感谢你。
Nick Lick, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
尼克，谢谢你。非常感激。