When Forrest Gump meets Alibaba Jack Ma

Alibaba group’s chairman Jack Ma gave credit to Forrest Gump‘s personality in the web cast featured in the United States last week.  The movie, which was released in 1994, has become the main course in Mr Ma’s speech. 

Forrest Gump

During his 15-day team-building and learning tour, Mr Ma delivered a speech in Asia Society by sharing his thought and impression after visiting a couple of companies in Silicon Valley. 

” I am surprised to see most of the companies we visited are in a very depressed mood… people are talking about (KPI) numbers, IPOs, stock shares, people do not talk about dream and vision…”  he said.

The appetizer ended with a disappointed notes, saying that he did not hear engineers’ talks about how their products would change our life and the world, they only told them how good of these products would generate profit.

Customers first, create value to them

Then Mr Ma raised the core issue by bringing out Forrest Gump, a fictional person with down-to-earth character. 

“He’s not a smart guy, yet he’s focused; he’s not very talented, he works very hard;  he’s very simple and optimistic.” he said.

Mr Ma encouraged people to go back to basic, looking into customers’ interests and placing them at the first priority. Employees and shareholders’ benefits are those key items that companies should take care of as well.  He stressed that companies with social responsibility should help creating job opportunities and committing themselves to customers’ value.

Amid a gloomy economic outlook,  he quoted one of the most memorable statement in the movie to shore up morale of the attendees listening to his speech online:     

My momma always said, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

Uncertain times lay ahead 

While acknowledging that the world economy meltdown had hit the country hard, Mr Ma said the Chinese government has moved quickly to resolve the problems and to adopt a thoughtful approach to tackling the current economic difficulties. He predicted that in the next five years,  a “watering” system would be in place to finance Small-and Medium Companies (SMEs)  by the Chinese government.

Alibaba Jack Ma at Asia Society

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