Jack Ma, co-founder of the Alibaba conglomerate is back, or at least he’s made a return to the public eye with a memo to his employees. Reports said he commended the leadership of CEO Eddie Wu and Chairman Joe Tsai and lauded the decision to split his company into six divisions that has enhanced decision making and focused on consumer needs.
The South China Morning Post quoted Jack Ma as saying, “We made countless mistakes in the past 25 years, and we will continue to make mistakes in the next 77 years. Facing problems is not to deny the past but to find the way responsibly for the future.”
Ma, who’s been under a cloud since passing negative remarks about the country’s regulatory authorities in 2020, has kept a low profile and stayed away from any activity that could offend the government. His comments at that time torpedoed the Alibaba affiliated Ant Group’s initial public offering, followed by a crackdown on China’s booming tech sector.
The Alibaba group is a Chinese multinational technology firm specializing in e-commerce, retail and internet. It was founded in 1999.
So are Ma’s sins forgiven and is he preparing to return to helm the company he founded? Hard to say and Ma did not indicate anything to that effect in his memo. Rather he focused on the future and what the company must do.
As he wrote, “Our innovation has never been to surpass our opponents but to catch up to the future. Innovation is not about following the trend, it’s a test of your true ability to survive.”
Ma’s memo made it clear that the company must embrace change in the face of an evolving technology landscape. He believes the future of e-commerce lies not in competing with today’s counterparts but in envisoning and realising the possibilities of tomorrow.
