Alibaba’s new chairman Joe Tsai
Alibaba, the leader of the digital economy platform, has ushered in another big change. Zhang Yong (Daniel Zhang) will step down as chairman and CEO on September 10 this year, and will serve as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, focusing on the development of Alibaba Cloud. Joe Tsai will serve as chairman of Alibaba.
1. The initial acquaintance of Joe Tsai and Jack Ma
Jack Ma once said that he is most grateful to Joe Tsai for his achievements today, because Tsai and Ma started Alibaba from scratch. Their backgrounds are very different at the same age. But it was just a chance meeting and they started a business together. Tsai was born in a legal family and received a bachelor degree in economics and a doctorate in law from Yale University. After graduation, he first worked as a tax lawyer in New York for three years, and then moved to the venture capital department of Investor AB in Sweden. By chance, he met Jack Ma, who was preparing for his fourth venture, the establishment of Alibaba. Not long after Tsai met Ma, he left Investor AB and joined Alibaba. He served as the CFO with a monthly salary of only RMB500, and became one of Alibaba’s Eighteen Arhats. Since then, the fate of Tsai and Ma Yun has undergone great changes.
2. Early stage of Alibaba
After joining Ali, Tsai did two major things. One is to help Ali establish a modern enterprise structure that is in line with international standards. He established the VIE structure by referring to the corporate structures of the three Internet giants Sina, Sohu and Netease at that time. Since then, Tsai has rooted in Ali the concepts of modern enterprises, joint-stock systems, and capital markets.
After that, Tsai started the second major thing is external financing. In 1999, Goldman Sachs and other institutions invested $5 million in Ali, including Investor AB, where Tsai Chongxin worked, which was the first key financing. After many rounds of negotiations, Ali got the key second financing. Softbank Group acquired a 30% stake in Ali for $20 million, but the board of directors is dominated by Ali partners. In 2004, Tsai completed a key financing of $82 million for Ali, which was used to support the development of Taobao, which was just emerging at that time. After the three key financing rounds, major venture capitals are chasing after Ali. Joe Tsai became the key helm of Ali’s financing.
Before 2013, the CFO of Ali Group was the most familiar identity to Joe Tsai. Joe Tsai’s most essential identity is not Ali’s CFO. He is Ali’s co-founder, the most important owner and boss. According to Ali’s 2014 reports, Tsai held 3.6% of the shares at that time, and he and Ma were the two largest natural person shareholders. At the same time, they are also the only two permanent partners in Ali. In 2013, Ali went public in the United States. That was the largest IPO in the history of the US stock market. By that time, Joe Tsai had been with Ma Yun for 14 years and contributed all his professional ability and external resources.
3. Joe Tsai’s super power
Joe Tsai has cooperated with Jack Ma so far because of his own charisma and superpowers, especially because he can cooperate harmoniously with Jack Ma and other executives. For most of the time after Ali stepped into the right track, Joe Tsai and Jack Ma did not work together. He was based in Hong Kong, China, and Ma was based in Hangzhou. They talked on the phone every day. In terms of division of labor, Joe Tsai is fully responsible for Ali’s finances and investments. In his words, he is managing and spending money. Jack Ma fully respects his authority and does not interfere with financial work. Joe Tsai also does not interfere with Ma and other Ali affairs that Ma is responsible for, especially external affairs, and he trusts Ma very much. In other aspects, Joe Tsai has always maintained a modest and low-key attitude, so that the outside world does not feel his existence. Joe Tsai played an important role in the start-up, development and glory of Alibaba. His globalization experience and insight into the macro environment are a strong support for Alibaba to further promote internationalization. His full understanding of the development process of Alibaba, his grasp of the strategic direction and the inheritance of culture will help the Alibaba Group continue to develop in the future.
