Jack Ma: Alibaba.com creator imparts lessons in excellence

Q: You borrowed USD 2000, I believe this was in about 1995 and you knew nothing about personal computers or emails and yet today you are the hottest Chinese internet tycoon. How does this actually happen?

A: I was just lucky; had great team, at the right time and right internet time. I still think someday, if I go back whether this thing will happen again because I was trained to be high school English teacher and I learn English by myself when I was kid and internet was so new to everybody, so why not learn from the beginning because if you want to learn, if you want to focus, if you have a great team then you will make it happen.

I have more confidence now for the future because ten years ago when I started alibaba.com, I just thought it's so new to everybody, why not start from the beginning and learn.

Q: Expand this because there are a lot of entrepreneurs who would be watching this show to understand how they take forward a business that they know nothing about, they don't understand the basics of it, they don't understand the principles of it. What was it to you mind that actually worked in your favour - was it intuition, was it your gut. What was telling you that this was something that you could capitalise and monetise on? 

A: I said internet is going to change the world but nobody believed it. So I said Bill Gates said, internet is going to change the world and then they beleived.        

Q: So it was a power of Bill Gates in that sense?

A: At that time Bill Gates did not agree internet is going to change the world. But people used my quote; Bill Gates said internet is going to change the world. But I know that I said that.

I think one of the reasons why we survived for the first five-ten years are the three reasons which I said in Harvard Business School when people asked me, why you survived after ten years. First we didn't have money, second we didn't have tech knowledge, third we never planned and these are three principles which are all against Harvard business thinking.

For complete interview watch video.