On April 3rd, in the latest interview video released by Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (Norges Bank Investment), Alibaba co-founder and Chairman of the Board Cai Chongxin revealed his various reflections on Alibaba and some views on the current Chinese consumer market.
Before joining Alibaba, Cai Chongxin worked for the Hong Kong branch of Investor AB, the main investment company of the Wallenberg family in Sweden, engaged in private equity investment. After becoming the co-founder of Alibaba in 1999, he has been playing an important role in this large Chinese Internet company.
Cai Chongxin not only helped Alibaba establish a reasonable corporate governance structure, but also played a core role in financial management, laying a solid foundation for Alibaba's successful IPO in 2014.
He led a series of major investment and acquisition projects for Alibaba, helping Alibaba expand its business territory through capital operations and strengthening its layout in multiple fields such as e-commerce, cloud computing, logistics, and health.
In this interview, Cai Chongxin said, "In the past few years, when we conduct internal review and self reflection, we know that Alibaba has fallen behind because we have forgotten who our true customers are. Our customers are people who use apps for shopping, and we have not given them the best experience."
In addition, he also mentioned some views on the current hot trend of artificial intelligence and personal growth.
"Ali smashed his own foot"
Cai Chongxin mentioned in an interview that to some extent, Alibaba "smashed its own feet" and did not truly focus on creating value for users. Therefore, as part of the restructuring, a new CEO was brought in.
When it comes to the new CEO Wu Yongming, Cai Chongxin's statement is, "Very user centered, focusing on products, interfaces, and user experience."
Cai Chongxin's answer to the problem-solving method is also consistent with Alibaba's recent adjustments. He said that the first thing Alibaba did was admit its mistake: it may not have focused on user experience in the past. The second thing is to reorganize personnel and change the organizational structure that is in line with the strategy. Another step is to integrate the company's direction into the organizational structure.
He attributes the above errors to "human nature" because people do not like to admit their mistakes. Truly excellent managers possess this perception, have the ability to self reflect, and realize that they may not have done the right thing and need to change, but not doing so is also due to human nature.
Artificial Intelligence is the Left and Right Hand of Alibaba Cloud's Business
Regarding the global discussion of artificial intelligence, Cai Chongxin pointed out that China is currently lagging behind the United States in some aspects, but is currently striving to catch up.
Alibaba is also participating in this AI construction. Cai Chongxin emphasized that having an excellent large-scale language model developed internally is very, very important because it helps Alibaba's cloud business.
"If we have a great big model that others or developers can develop on, they will use our computing services. Therefore, artificial intelligence is the left and right hand of our cloud business."
On the other hand, e-commerce is one of the fields for implementing AI, which can generate many artificial intelligence application cases, such as the virtual fitting room launched by Alibaba, AI tools that merchants can use, and so on.
Chinese consumers will become more important
Cai Chongxin analyzed in an interview that China's manufacturing output accounts for about 31% of the world's total, but consumption only accounts for 14% of the world's total, indicating a significant imbalance.
He believes that at some point, Chinese consumers should become more important and compete with developed Western markets. In China, consumption contributes slightly more than 50% of GDP, while consumption in developed markets accounts for over 70% of the total economy.
According to Cai Chongxin's analysis, several factors may affect consumer confidence and willingness to consume, including the frugality effect caused by the sluggish real estate market, young people seeking jobs, and the resulting changes in consumer tendencies.
But he believes that China will continue to be a world manufacturing powerhouse, although its population will relatively decline.
"The Chinese people are hardworking and have a very good education system, so we have a skilled labor force with good education," he said.
At the end of the interview, Cai Chongxin also suggested that young people learn one or two very basic skills. He gave an example that his professional skill is actually tax law, and he worked as a tax lawyer for three years. "You must be able to tell others that I am an expert in something, and that's how you earn respect."
He believes that young people need to understand various professions and skills, especially in data science, and should also learn some psychology. "Having understood these, I believe you already have all the tools needed to achieve success in life."