Escape From North Canton: Why Can't Beijing Keep Ma Yun?

Ma Yun went to Beijing two times and left two times. What was the reason for the general manager who once worked for the joint venture of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation decided to leave Beijing completely? What force did it finally force YAHOO and Sina to have a high salary? Entrepreneurship His determination? Perhaps it was his departure at that time that made today's Alibaba and Taobao more successful today. Jack Ma 。 Why can't Beijing keep Ma Yun?

Yu Zhengsheng once sighed, "why can't Shanghai stay with Ma Yun", but Beijing hasn't even thought of such a feeling. Although Ma Yun had gone to Beijing for the two time and tried to take root in Beijing, he finally left.

At the end of 1998, Ma took the initiative to resign from the seat of the general manager of the Fu Tong information technology development company under the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation and led his entrepreneurial team to evacuate Beijing and return to Hangzhou.

Six months later, Ma Yun's Alibaba website was formally launched.

Four years later, Ma Yun founded Taobao and made it the largest C2C shopping platform in China.

Six years later, Alibaba group merged the world's largest portals. YAHOO's assets in China, Ma Yun's Alibaba became China's largest Internet Co.

Eight years later, Alibaba listed in Hongkong. The prospectus disclosed that there were about 4900 employee stock ownership, with an average of 9 per employee. 05 million shares, if the median price of HK $11 is calculated, each person can get just 1 million Hong Kong dollars through IPO. Alibaba listed tens of millions of millionaires. This is the richest and richest area in the history of Chinese Internet companies. Alibaba entrepreneurs who had been struggling hard with Ma Yun were rewarded beyond imagination.

And it all started in the winter of the end of 1998, Ma said. Leaving Beijing 。

Black and white time in Chang'an Avenue

In fact, Ma Yun and his 13 entrepreneurial team (including Ma Yun) in Beijing in one year and two months, in other people's view, is quite successful. They have done many things: they have done the intranet of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, and have also made their external network; they have made joint ventures and made a profit for one year. Other members of the team are very happy. Only Ma Yun is unhappy. He thinks he has failed.

In December 1997, EDI, China's Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, invites Ma Yun to join as general manager of the Information Department of the center. So, Ma Yun led his entrepreneurial team: Zhang Ying, Sun Tongyu, Wu Yongming, Sheng Yifei, Ma Changwei, Lou Wensheng, Xie Shihuang, Peng Lei, Peng Lei, Yue, Dai Shan and Wei, and set foot on the train to Beijing. These people have become the backbone of Alibaba group in the future.

In the winter of 1997, Ma Yun and his team led him, as described in martial arts novels: a cloth warrior, carrying a group of children to the capital to break through the rivers and lakes.

Their location is located in the 1 building of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, 2 East Chang'an Avenue, Beijing.

It is the place where the MOFTEC is located. It is a great respect for people. The street width of Chang'an Avenue is 50-100 meters. It is the longest and broadened street in the world, and is also the most important street in China. Take Tiananmen square as the boundary, east to East Chang'an Avenue, West to West Chang'an Avenue.

The Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, which stands on the most important streets in China, is similar to the office buildings of most ministries and commissions in Beijing. The three rows of gray and white walls are not mixed with any excess color. Besides the five star red flag on the flagpole of the gate and the green military uniform on the two sides of the gate, the plaque of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation of People's Republic of China marked by the gray brick wall is a black letter with upright white background, giving people a solemn feeling. In short, you dare not speak loudly before you come to it, as if you are afraid of something.

In these days in Beijing, Ma Yun is not happy, sometimes even depressed. He said, "it's better to eat in Beijing than to be in the yellow pages." How much pressure and pain has Ma Yun suffered in Beijing? What difference does he have with the relevant departments of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation? It will remain a mystery forever. Because Ma Yun kept taboo about it.

Here, we have to mention the history of China International Electronic Commerce Center of MOFTEC.

In February 1996, the China International Electronic Commerce Center was formally established, in short, CIECC. Although it was established as early as February 1996, the formal operation of CIECC has to wait nearly one year - January 1997. At that time, the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation had to build a large intranet with an official government website (MOFTEC website).

For the structure of large intranet, the assumption of leaders is: laying optical fiber in the whole country, setting up the interface network in all branches of MOFTEC, and connecting all the networks together form a large intranet. In this large intranet, the foreign trade and economic cooperation and its subordinate organizations can handle all the examination and approval procedures related to foreign trade for enterprises. At the same time, they can also issue relevant foreign trade policies and regulations to foreign trade enterprises through this large intranet. The development of the whole intranet project is responsible for the development of the China International Electronic Commerce Center under the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation. Moreover, this is also a project supported by the United Nations.

With the support of the government, laying the foundations of optical fiber and other basic networks is not complicated. The top concern of MOFTEC is to find the best and most suitable personnel to run the project.

In the initial stage of China's Internet, what is most lacking is the talented person who knows how to operate and knows how to use the Internet as a business. Thus, Ma Yun, who was famous in Hangzhou for running China's yellow pages, became the ideal candidate in the eyes of leaders of MOFTEC.

When I first arrived in Beijing, all the team members lived in the dormitory of Panjiayuan in the eastern suburbs of MOFTEC. The two and the 13 groups were divided into three small groups, living in three simple rooms. The development of Web sites is very hard and often requires overtime work.

Although it is for government departments, Ma Yun's team has not been able to enjoy any special treatment, even harder than most people working in the same department. Day after day, everyone's daily life is a repetitive scene: in the morning, when the alarm clock rings, you have to get up in a very painful and reluctant state and get up with your eyes squint. "Every time you hear the alarm clock, you die!" then everyone gathered to wait for a bus in Panjiayuan. It was hard to get on the bus, and there was no leisure to enjoy the streets and lanes along the way, and soon went to sleep.

The team is mainly responsible for developing the official website of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, which is also the main task of Ma Yun's invitation. For the idea of large intranet, Ma initially opposed it and tried to persuade EDI to build its website on the Internet. Despite Ma's objection, his small manager of the EDI subordinate department can not do the master, and the scheme is also decided by the officials in the Department.

Finally, Ma Yun, who is still in power, succumbed to the official will and started to do it. Ma Yun's 13 person team, though not many, is a great master. They are already familiar with the development of Web sites. Besides, these people have accumulated rich experience in the development of yellow pages in China. The website is ready, done very quickly, and is also very successful.

However, in the operation link, the problem came out again: the government's red tape went down, but the business was very cold. It is also easy to understand that the large intranet of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation is, in fact, somewhat like today's "e-government" system. Its function is also very simple: MOFTEC and its subordinate organizations can handle all relevant examination and approval procedures related to foreign trade for enterprises, and at the same time, they can also issue relevant foreign trade policies and regulations to foreign trade enterprises through this large intranet. Entrepreneurs are bound to think this way: This is what an electronic government should do. Why should we pay the bill?

Therefore, the commercial operation mode of EDI's large intranet project is impracticable. Of course, Ma Yun knew that this embarrassing situation was also unexpected. He thought the leaders did not accept his plan. As a result, after the operation of EDI intranet came into being, Ma began to lobby more and more to expand the intranet and rebuild the Internet.

Finally, in July 1998, approved by the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, EDI set up a joint venture Fu Fu Tong Information Technology Development Co., Ltd.

After the establishment of Fu Tong, Ma led the team to develop the "online Chinese commodity trading market" project, which is a real Internet Project and what Ma really wants to do. Whether from the framework or from the actual operation, the online Chinese commodity trading market is regarded as a very successful project in the field of e-commerce in China. Although it is also a charging business, the charging method is not as old as the big intranet (popularized by the government's red tape), but rather more market-oriented. So small and medium-sized enterprises are very active in accessing the Internet, and the website soon profits. In addition, the websites of Fu Fu Tong and China commodity exchange market were all profitable projects in the year when they were created, with a net profit of up to 2 million 870 thousand yuan.

In the Chinese government's website, the website of MOFTEC is not only one of the earliest and one of the best government websites in China, but also was selected as an excellent website for China's "government Internet Project" in 1999. In October 5, 1998, the textile quota bidding system was put into operation on the China International Electronic commerce network, and the electronic bidding for textile quotas was the first time in China. At that time, the leaders of the Central Committee and more than 10 ministries and commissions came to see the demonstration of electronic bidding. Standing in front of the leaders, it is a young boy with a naughty boy and a smiling face. This young man is Ma Yun, general manager of Fu Fu Tong. And on his left is the vice premier of the State Council, Li Lanqing; on his right is followed by State Councilor Wu Yi and Minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation Shi Guangsheng. {page_break}

The conflict between two modes of thinking

This venture in Beijing seems to have been successful. The new company and new website have good momentum, ideal salary and team spirit.

But Ma is not happy. Ma Yun had no sense of success. For a long time, Ma has found many things difficult to do in the government's preparation. There are many unclear questions. Although at that time, the cooperation between Ma and MOFTEC was mentioned, people said that it was China's "dream team", but in fact, what was the matter, even Ma Yun himself did not know clearly.

With the passage of time, the conflicts between the two modes of thinking and the two modes are more and more obvious, that is, the conflicts between businessmen and officials are more and more intense. Although EDI gave Ma high courtesy and high office, Ma Yun knew clearly that he was just a senior worker who worked as a website. He and his team in Beijing have been outsourcing staff of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation. If there are people in the Department who can do Internet, who will find them?

At the conference of MOFTEC, Ma Yun, who will be the central and local economic and trade officials, will look at Ma Yun? Not to mention the Beijing as a political center.

Zhang Ying (Ma Yun's wife) later recalled: "I know Ma Yun is left out in the cold, but he is a very optimistic person. Ever since I knew him, he never said that he was very depressed and angry today. He always treated these things with his usual heart and always gave me hope.

Ma Yun's pain and annoyance never showed. But Ma Yun came to Beijing to start his own business. He came to pursue his Internet dream. He did not come to work simply to earn money.

By the end of 1998, the tide of the Internet was sweeping across the globe. All kinds of websites are springing up like mushrooms. Sina, Sohu and NetEase have all gone on and on. They were Ma Yun, the first person in China's network. How could Ma Yun not be so worried when he got up late in the morning?

What Ma Yun is facing is nothing more than two ways: stay in Beijing or leave Beijing. If you stay in Beijing, chances are, for example, at that time, both Sina and YAHOO wanted Ma to join, but Ma thought that Beijing's network was too impetuous and difficult to accomplish; moreover, Ma had already had enough of the restrictions, stumbling and cowardly of rules and regulations in the work of government enterprises. Ma Yun's sensitive instinct tells himself: the network form of China has begun to change, and the Internet climax is coming soon.

At the end of 1998, Ma suddenly announced to everyone: I am going back to Hangzhou!

After his decision, Ma called his team from Hangzhou and said to them, "you can stay in the Ministry. There is a big tree in the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation, there are also dormitories, and the income in Beijing is also very good. You have been in the Internet for so many years, and you have been experienced. You can also go to YAHOO. YAHOO has just entered China. It is a very wealthy company. Its wages will be very high, and tens of thousands of wages will be paid every month. Anyway, I'm going back to Hangzhou. "

Then Ma said, "if you go home with me for the two time to start a business, the salary is only 500 yuan, and you must not fight. It is not clear what to do in the 150 square meters of my office. I only know that I want to be the biggest businessman website in the world. I'll give you three days to think about how to make a choice. "

At that time, no matter how opposed or how to understand it, but when it came to making a decision, Ma Yun's team of 13 had no hesitation and no three days to consider. Five minutes later, the decision came out: all of them go back to Hangzhou with Ma Yun!

　 Passion for Lakeside Gardens

Back in Hangzhou, Ma said, "I want to start the best companies in the world." This company is the Alibaba group in the future, and it was born in an ordinary residential area in Western Hangzhou, lakeside garden. The exact address is the 16 house, 1 unit 202 of the lakeside garden Fenghe hospital, a four bedroom house in a 4 storey residential building in the District, with an area of 150 square meters. This is originally Ma Yun's new home. It has been taken as the office of Alibaba when it has not yet had time to live.

At that time, the Alibaba mode was very unique to the Chinese Internet. At first, most of Ma Yun's team thought that making a portal website like YAHOO and Sina was the only feasible solution. But Ma Yun thought, "most people do not want to do anything you want to do, but you can't get round." As a result, Alibaba did not copy any existing mature mode and chose innovation. The risk of innovation is ten times the risk of copying. It is absolutely impossible for such a risky move to be put in Beijing and put into operation in the framework of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation or the wealth of China.

Before Christmas 1998, Zhang Ying and Jiang Fang (assistant general manager of Alibaba B2B-ICBU) first returned to Hangzhou and began to decorate the "office" of lakeside garden. Zhang Ying looked for carpet and curtains from his house, and found an oil fired heater and some old tables and chairs. Everything is simple. Later, several young engineers paste up the surrounding cement walls with newspapers, which is the only decoration. All the Chinese and English newspapers are IT technology, and no one can read them.

The lakeside era is a burning era of Alibaba.

Work and rest is from 9 to 9 in the morning, 12 hours a day, this is normal work and rest time. Overtime, 16 hours a day or more, and overtime. Xie Shihuang (managing director of Alibaba strategic investment and vice president of Alibaba group) said: "there is a small conference room in the lakeside garden, where you can play the floor shop."

The editor in chief of the Asian Wall Street journal, who visited Alibaba at the beginning of the business, wrote, "working day and night, there is a sleeping bag on the floor of the house. If anyone is tired, go in and sleep for a while."

A few months later, Forbes, a senior reporter of Justin Deubner magazine, visited the house of Alibaba when he was in the lead by Mrs. Ma Yun: "20 customer service personnel crowded in the living room, and Ma Yun and financial and marketing personnel in one bedroom, 25 websites, maintenance and other personnel in the other bedroom." Like all good entrepreneurs, Ma knows how to spend more time with limited seed capital.

During this period, there was an interesting interlude.

One day, several engineers worked until 5:40 in the morning. Someone made a suggestion: go out for a stroll. So several people roared out and came to West Lake.

These people have been locked up for months. They have no time to go to town and have no time to come to West Lake. It was in early spring, and the rain was drizzling. Several people ran to the broken bridge, shouting and singing loudly. After being chic for an hour on the side of West Lake, they went to know the delicious vegetarian meal and ran to the Xinhua bookstore. Everyone bought a "good back". It was almost 10 o'clock when I returned to the lakeside garden.

All the other employees were found standing in the balcony to look at them. The first thing Ma Yun saw them was: "it's okay. You're back!"

In the morning, everyone came to work and found that all the engineers were missing, and the server crashed. They should sleep on the floor every day. Some people were in a bit of a panic and even suggested that they should report to the police. The engineer was missing. It was no laughing matter. So everyone ran to the balcony and looked forward.

From these young engineers, the entrepreneurial spirit of Alibaba is reflected to the greatest extent. They can fight hard all night, and they can enjoy themselves in hardships. Sometimes they watch ghost movies in the middle of the night. One day, at 12 in the middle of the night, several engineers chatted at the roadside, and saw a man coming up, hoping to frighten him. When the man saw the swing, they swinging the swing up and hiding quickly. The man saw a nobody's swing and was scared to death, and quickly ran away. It is impossible to imagine such a relaxed and comfortable working overtime in the gray and white building of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation.

In November 5, 1999, Zhang Pu, the director of human resources of the former Alibaba, interviewed the Alibaba on the first day. He recalled: "when we reach the lakeside garden, we feel that this company is a bit strange, like a purse company. After going in and out, I felt bad, black and cold (because of power failure), there was a pile of shoes at the door, more than 20 people lying on the carpet in the room, smelly... "

The more than 20 people in the 150 square meters of lakeside garden are obviously alike. As Ma Yun's passionate speech, "just go ahead and go straight ahead." Failure and the team, and a group of people supporting each other, what can you fear? Today, if you want to go out alone, you are a bit nervous. At this age, you are now looking for a job in Hangzhou. You get it for three thousand or four thousand yuan a month, but you won't have this kind of energy today. You will find another job in 35 years. I felt that all of us groping together in the dark and shouting and rushing ahead would not panic. More than a dozen people have a big knife in their hands. Ah! Ah! Ah, go ahead. What's so good? "

This is the story of little Ma Yun. If you enter WWW in the browser, Haibofanyi. Com (Ma Yun, who was founded as an English teacher after he went to sea, founded the first company: Haibo Translation Society), you will see a simple but shocking speech written by Ma Yun: never give up! {page_break}

Conclusion: create dreams for yourself!

William Ryan Phelps, a famous scholar and late professor of Yale University, often said, "the happiest people are those who are happiest." With this sentence, we can also say that the most successful thing is the most successful person.

The lofty aim of the husband is lofty. This is the reason we were taught from an early age. But now, do you still remember the original dream? At first, you happily carried 50 Fen of the popsicles, thinking that you would travel in space in the future. Now, you are frugal every day and walk a few miles to the subway station, only to save 2 yuan for bus fare, for the two bedroom home loan. What's wrong with "north up Canton"? "Northward Canton" is not good at this: it bullies the weak.

So Ma left. He had to find a suitable nest to hatch Alibaba and hatch his ideals before he really grew.

Ma Yun has left, but there are still people pouring into the north. In June 2010, the zero point research group issued a survey on the willingness to move Chinese cities and rural residents. It is pointed out that if Beijing has the freedom to choose a place of residence, nearly half of the urban residents will choose Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou as their preferred residence. Among them, 97% of respondents in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou hope to still live in these three cities. The survey also pointed out that rural respondents also showed strong willingness to move to cities and county towns: 55. 5% of people expressed willingness to live in cities and counties, significantly higher than 38 of those willing to live in rural areas. 9%, and the smaller the age group, the more inclined to choose city life.

The survey of "escaping from North China" conducted by the HR service provider in June 2010 on his recruitment website reveals the other side of the big city.

According to the survey, nearly 60% of white-collar white-collar companies working in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have the intention to leave these cities. Among the participants surveyed, 66% were male, 91% were college degree or above, 21% were from foreign enterprises, and 41% were from two to five years of work experience.

Sina also joined the "Beijing News", aiming at the pressure of life in Beijing, and made a special investigation of "North drift", do you plan to "return"? In the survey, 38. 7% of the working people are not satisfied with the current development, of which 82. 5% of the workers considered home development or non tier one urban development. "If two or three lines of cities have better opportunities for development, will you choose to leave Beijing?" for this problem, 69% of the workplace people have chosen a positive answer.

"People in the city want to go out, and people outside the city want to rush in." The phenomenon of "Besieged City" written by Qian Zhongshu has intensified in recent years in China's megacities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

In fact, no matter "rushing in" or "escaping out" is just a choice of life, the key lies in what you are pursuing.

Obviously, Ma pursued his ideal, and his "Internet dream" - the largest website in China. So Ma went away from Beijing. In March 10, 1999, there was a website called Alibaba in Hangzhou.

After eight years, Alibaba listed in Hongkong. But as chairman and founder of Alibaba's board of directors, Ma Yun only owns 5% of Alibaba B2B subsidiary (1). 8 billion 900 million shares), calculated on the basis of the stock price cap, is 22 after the listing. HK $700 million. In the 2007 Hurun IT rich list released by Hurun rich, Baidu Robin Li became the richest man in IT with a value of 18 billion yuan, and Shi Yuzhu and Ma Huateng occupied two or three of the 13 billion 500 million yuan and 12 billion yuan respectively. Ma Yun, a Alibaba of the Hongkong stock exchange IPO, ranked eighth in the valuation of 5 billion.

The reason is simple: Ma Yun has the lowest shareholding among these people. Ma Yun only held 5%, while grand Chen Tianqiao held 75%, while Baidu's Robin Li held 25%.

Ma once said, "I can not become the richest person in the world, nor do I want to be the richest person in the world. I never thought about it." Therefore, the Alibaba does not make the richest and build rich group, but not to pursue personal wealth and pursue the common prosperity of employees. This is Ma Yun's realm. He pursued more than material things, so he and the people around him received substantial material rewards.

If he only wanted to make money, he did not have to leave Guo Fu Tong, and did not have to leave Beijing, as the general manager of the joint venture company of the Ministry of foreign trade and economic cooperation. At that time, both YAHOO and Sina had used high salary to dig him in the past. But if he does not leave, there will be no Alibaba, nor will ma Yun today.

Therefore, this truth is very simple. We discuss the departure, not to give up, not to let you retrogress, but also do not want you to fall into the comfort of two or three line cities but mediocre life, but do not want to see your limitations in the light of the first tier cities can not extricate themselves, I hope you can dream of, see the status quo, calm analysis, find the most suitable starting point for their own. Then, fight hard!