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  • 2 days ago
Government Shutdown and Comeback_ The Toughest Test for Alibaba’s Founders
Transcript
00:00In particular, some government officials were jealous of Jack Ma's fame and fortune,
00:04and they started making his life difficult.
00:06One day, government officials raided Easy.com's office and shut down the company.
00:11Jack Ma and Joe Tsai were devastated, but they refused to give up.
00:15They knew that they had done nothing wrong, and that they had a great product that people loved.
00:19So they started planning their comeback.
00:21While government officials were questioning Jack Ma,
00:23they told him that if he wanted to continue running an e-commerce business in China,
00:27he needed to move to Beijing.
00:28So Jack Ma and his family packed up and moved to the capital city.
00:32There, he met a new friend named Lucy.
00:34She was a smart and ambitious woman, who had worked for several internet companies in China.
00:39She was impressed by Jack Ma's story, and she wanted to help him start a new company.
00:43Together they brainstormed ideas for a new business model
00:45that would be more acceptable to the Chinese government.
00:48They wanted to focus on domestic sales rather than international sales.
00:52And they also wanted to focus on small businesses rather than large factories.
00:56After months of research and planning, Jack Ma and his team launched a new website called Taobao Marketplace.
01:02It was an online auction site that allowed individuals to sell their items to other individuals.
01:07It was a risky move, because it was a very competitive market.
01:10There were already several popular auction sites in China, such as eBay and Amazon.
01:15But Jack Ma and his team were confident that they could compete with the best of them.
01:19They knew that they had a great platform and a great team.
01:22And they were also very lucky.
01:23Just as they were about to launch their website,
01:25the Chinese government announced a new policy that would make it easier for individuals to sell online.
01:30This gave Taobao Marketplace a huge boost,
01:32and the company quickly became one of the most popular auction sites in China.
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