
Jack Ma retires as Alibaba’s chairman - doppp
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/09/jack-ma-officially-retires-as-alibabas-chairman/
======
pgodzin
People seem to be missing

> The transition was announced a year ago.

~~~
enjoyyourlife
He has been planning on retiring for a while now as he stopped being CEO back
in 2013

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Traster
I think it will be really interesting to see if Alibaba significantly changes
after Ma. In silicon valley you absolutely have the cult of the founder -
Apple would be nothing without Steve Jobs, Facebook would be nothing without
Zuck, everything Bezos touches turns to gold.

People around here seem to have a very low impression of Ma (apparently based
on one youtube video), but I can imagine running a huge e-commerce empire in
China is non-trivial. I could imagine the personal management of relations
with the senior Chinese politicians could be make or break for a Chinese
company in a way that US companies simply don't face.

~~~
logicchains
I think people who came away from that video thinking Elon won don't
understand the Chinese sense of humour. Jack Ma was trolling the shit out of
Elon ("Alibaba AI", "the future is not IQ or EQ, but Love Quotient"), and not
only did Elon take the bait, he seemed like he was trying to one-up Ma's
ridiculousness. "Protect the light of consciousness!". Musk even managed to
mention aliens at one stage. To me it seemed like the kind of video someone
might show their children: "Don't do drugs, or else you'll end up publically
making a fool of yourself like Musk did!".

~~~
owens99
I highly doubt your point of view on this. Can you provide any evidence?

~~~
logicchains
This is the man who paid to make a movie of himself beating up Jet Li
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfS9Uf5SKu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfS9Uf5SKu8)),
the man who showed up to an annual company event dressed as Michael Jackson
and dancing Thriller
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31pwCOSVS0g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31pwCOSVS0g)).
If you really think he believes that the "love quotient" is the future of
humanity, I've got a bridge to sell you.

In Mainland China to get ahead you need to learn to say a bunch of stuff that
nobody believes in, e.g. Maozedong Thought in high school/uni exams. Like
political correctness in the West, except few people take it seriously. Ma's
points were an example of this: focus on education, focus on AI helping us
understand ourselves, focus on growing creativity, focus on what we can do to
help the Earth, focus on automation freeing up more time for leisure. Non-
controversial platitudes that nobody can really disagree with (at least not in
China). Musk completely misses this, and goes out saying all kind of stuff
about aliens, superintelligent robots and "biological bootloaders" that sounds
completely bonkers to somebody not caught up in the hype (or somebody who
actually works with ML). Ma catches on to this and has a field day hamming up
his presentation, realising that this game is something Musk is completely
incapable of playing. Just imagine how absurd it would be if somebody stood up
at Party Congress and started talking about aliens; that person certainly
wouldn't be presenting at the next Congress to say the least.

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26165
I would point your attention on this video. It contains the exiled Chinese
Billionaire's Accusations of China and also the speculations on what has
happened to Jack Ma and what may happen in the future. The video is quite
long.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE)

~~~
christophilus
Not sure why you’ve been downvoted. This is exactly what I thought of when I
saw the headline.

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TheCryptoTengu
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE)
this guy i think is predicting the future.

~~~
alexhektor
Well he's not dead yet or in jail ;) But will be interesting to see how this
plays out.. Are there any good resources summarizing these facts/ allegations
or "connecting" them? Would be interesting to dive down that rabbit hole..

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HNLurker2
No more AI (Alibaba intelligence)

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sgt101
996 for life for some, not for the winners though.

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mogadsheu
He was almost certainly ousted. Look for Ant Financial to grow in even closer
connection with CCP interests. My guess is that Alipay will be used as a means
to strengthen international dependence on the RMB. The trail of acquisitions
suggests such.

Very exciting and uncertain times we live in!

Edit: this isn’t an anti-China rant at all, just musings based on observations
and incomplete data.

~~~
pgodzin
He was ousted a year ago and was allowed a year-long transition as the ousted
head of Alibaba?

> The transition was announced a year ago.

~~~
mogadsheu
I think it's entirely possible that he's just selling high after a few decades
of hard work.

Ousting to me doesn't mean getting thrown out of the building with your things
in a box, it can happen peacefully and gradually. Jack almost certainly has
ties to the CCP and a good dialogue with them--it's a necessity to grow a
business in that country. My guess is that there was a good amount of pressure
gracefully imposed by an outside group to step down.

But maybe he just wants to start a university/cure malaria and move on before
China exports slow down.

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senectus1
anyone ever see when he shared the stage with Elon Musk?

Watching Elon control himself was amazing. the guy was _trying so hard_ to not
laugh or verbally slap the guy in public.

*edit for the lazy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKYWu-S2G0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKYWu-S2G0)

~~~
hipoglucido
For those who didn't watch it here are the highlights of that debate
[https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw](https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw)

~~~
dr_dshiv
At least watching the first half of the highlights only, Elon comes off...
poorly. And I'm a super fan!

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rvz
End of an era.

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mark_l_watson
As others have mentioned here, the recent “debate” between Jack Ma and Elon
Musk was not excellent, but I put that more on Elon Musk. I have listened to
other Jack Ma interviews, panel discussions, etc. and I really like his
humanistic view of what life could be. People first, technology second.

I like Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for difficult problems, but I didn’t like his
(what I perceived) lack of respect for Ma.

~~~
namelosw
A person win debates does not necessarily practice what he say. Jack Ma is
famous for encourage employees working overtime, and leads Alibaba to a toxic
workplace where HR abuse everyone with their KPI.

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lwansbrough
The quality of conversation in this thread is _really bad_. Feels like reddit
in here.

~~~
szggzs27
reddit has become toxic pool of garbage.

the anti china sentiment that has been driven up by US media and Hong Kong
protests alike is irrational and is bordering xenophobia and bigotry.

just a small glance at r/HongKong and you can see images posted out of context
with slogans against the police and government, most of which are targeted
towards kids in school, sometimes by the same kids.

~~~
nailer
The HK police, at the behest of a leader chosen by the CCP, are attacking
journalists, beating and killing protesters and violating the Sino British
joint declaration that determines that HK has their own civil and criminal
law. Why would it be bigotry, rather than simple judgement of the CCP for the
CCP's actions?

~~~
szggzs27
and are you there to witness both sides of the story? i will have a wild guess
that no.

~~~
nailer
I'm not sure what "both sides" of pressing someone's hand into their arm until
their wrist snaps is. Nor am I sure what "both sides" of someone being hit
with truncheons until they convulse and stop moving is.

Are you saying the footage is faked or something else?

~~~
szggzs27
not at all, but you need to consider the context of what happened. the
protesters were throwing molotvs.

there are footage of protesters beating the police with equal brutality, but i
guess you won't find it on reddit.

i'm ending my discussion here with you, you can choose to consume and believe
whatever media you like.

my 2 cent was that reddit is a cesspool of propaganda now.

~~~
nailer
You were writing about images being posted out of context. I'm still
struggling to determine the context that would make these things (or other
things, like slowly sinking your thumbs into a hospital patient's eyes while
they're restrained) OK. You've replied by discussing other incidents, which
doesn't answer the question.

------
noname120
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938262](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938262)

~~~
jeffchien
I found it a little unfortunate that one of the threads was so dismissive of
NYT [1] due to a SCMP article [2]. I checked archive.org's original snapshot
of NYT article [3] and Newsdiff [4] to try to make sure that NYT didn't edit
the original article in response, and sure enough they were all worded
"planned to step down" and "Mr. Ma will remain on Alibaba's board of directors
and continue to mentor the company's management", which is accurate.

I suppose the lesson I'm taking away is to not buy into a counter-reaction
immediately. It's obvious in hindsight: SCMP is owned by Alibaba after all.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17940919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17940919)

[2]
[https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2163376/jack...](https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2163376/jack-
ma-remain-alibabas-chairman-succession-plan-younger-talent)

[3]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180907230109/https://www.nytim...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180907230109/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/technology/alibaba-
jack-ma-retiring.html) (may need to turn off JS)

[4] [http://newsdiffs.org/article-
history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co...](http://newsdiffs.org/article-
history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/technology/alibaba-jack-ma-
retiring.html)

~~~
noname120
Thank you for your documented insight. In spite of our best intentions, we—as
a community—often do judgement mistakes. One thing that I've been meaning to
do is to write postmortems about our reaction to some events, and their
eventual outcome. This would help us improve the way that we digest
information.

One particularly interesting subject to cover would be Bloomberg's alleged
“Big Hack”[1]. Between the initial publication and the final denial by all the
involved companies, a lot of different narratives have emerged and gained
traction here—and most of them turned out to be incorrect.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18138328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18138328)

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xbiitx
after elon interview :)

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aegis123
Maybe Mark Zuckerberg should take a hint like this

~~~
akskos
Let's arrange a debate for zuck and musk!

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chirau
HN hates China. You can tell from the dialogue and tone whenever it is brought
up. Objectivity is out of the window, all of a sudden.

When it comes to America and the beloved companies, there is always
justification. The other day it was privacy and ability to unsubscribe. HN was
justifiably ranked really really terrible. Of course everyone came to its
defense.

Then of course the tyranny of the majority on this beloved forum, though not
any participant is willing to accept it.

HN needs Dave Chappelle.

~~~
aaomidi
No shit HN hates China. How can you actually LIKE China?

China is literally one of the worst countries in the world at this current
moment. Their ethnic cleansing, treatment of minorities, extreme censorship
and state control does not make them a likable country.

~~~
TomMarius
I like China. Of course I hate the government. The country is super exciting
though and it's very sad that it's ruled by such dystopian regime.

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60
Oh wow

