Chapter 7 How to choose: "Airborne" or "Soldiers"

What is the second culture of Alibaba?Inverted culture. Handstand is a gymnastics often done inside Alibaba - comrades with high blood pressure should not go to work in Alibaba in the future. Why is there a handstand culture?Ma Yun said, the world is right in the eyes of everyone, so what should we do?We are going to turn the world upside down.How can it overturn the world? The first way is to stand on your head first, because after you stand on your head, the world in our eyes becomes different.Standing upside down means looking at the world from the upside down. This was established when Ma Yun started Taobao in 2003, and Alibaba called it the inverted culture.For those friends who are born in the world's top 500, this will cause some troubles, because this standing world is built by the world's top 500 companies, so they are used to living in a standing world created by them. The world looks at all the rules of the game.Suddenly one day they are asked to do it upside down, and they may think: what about the tie?How to wear a suit?

Therefore, Alibaba's upside-down culture is unimaginable for those who come out of the world's top 500 companies.This is the number one reason why the "airborne" died: cultural exclusion. What is the second reason?It is the utilitarianism of performanceism.The world's top 500 companies are not without performanceism, and their assessment is also very strict, but the performanceism of the world's top 500 companies is: if they make 1 billion this year, then they will increase by 16% next year, and the year after that will also increase by 16%. In the next year, it will also increase by 16%. In short, it cannot be lower than 16%. If it is lower than 16%, it will be punished. It is unnecessary to exceed 16%.Therefore, the performance assessment and value evaluation of Fortune 500 companies is a balanced evaluation. Its requirement is to move forward at a constant speed and overcome all difficulties to reach that destination.

But what does performanceism look like for a company like Alibaba?If we make 100 million this year, we will make 500 million next year; after 500 million next year, we will make 2 billion in the year after; and it is best to make 12 billion in the year after.Its assessment is a geometric and non-linear. This kind of performance-based assessment is very suitable for those reckless entrepreneurs: as long as I can go from 500 million to 2 billion, I can get equity, get rewards, get promoted, and get great personal achievements feel.For friends from Fortune 500 companies, it will become very difficult and difficult to adapt.Because in the original enterprise, the assessment target for them was about 16% growth, and suddenly jumping to 200% growth here, he might just collapse on the ground.

But in a company like Alibaba, there is a unique martial arts culture, full of the atmosphere of "meeting Buddha and killing Buddha, seeing ghosts and ghosts".Its rules of the game are, if you can pass the test, you are a hero, if you cannot pass the test, you are a bear, no matter where you come from, if you can't do it, you should leave.Therefore, its very harsh performanceism and extreme utilitarian characteristics are difficult for executives of large companies who are more suitable for constant growth. The third reason is the cruelty of corporate politics.As long as there are people, there will be politics. In China, there is no problem with one person. Two people can become brothers, three people can form a gang, and five people can form two teams.So there is a very popular saying that a Chinese is a dragon, and a group of Chinese become a worm.

Inside Alibaba, corporate politics also emerged. At that time, the 17th "Arhat" started a business with Ma Yun. Later, Ma Yun told them that you can only be the squad leader, the company commander, and it is very difficult to be the team leader. You can only be the deputy team leader.Then suddenly came a group of people who were not much different in age from them, and these people all became division commanders, army commanders, and leaders.For these seventeen "arhats", how can this be tolerated?They thought they were Jack Ma's "subordinate soldiers", and they were all "airborne soldiers" who came in behind.Because of this disagreement, the struggle within the company has become very intense and brutal.

Huang Ruo, who once served as the vice president of Taobao, is an "airborne soldier".She once said something to Ma Yun, which was later recorded by the reporter: "You are now the head of Alibaba, and you face two kinds of people: one is your daughter, you grew up watching her, no matter how you look at it Comfortable, even if she has pimples on her face; we are the daughter-in-law who married into your family. , if you can't solve this problem well, you will make life very difficult for these daughters-in-law." This is an important reason why whether it is Taobao or Alibaba, although they have spent a lot of money to introduce many excellent executives, they cannot keep them.Huang Ruo compared these foreign executives to "daughters-in-law" and the seventeen "arhats" to "daughters". This difference in identity will inevitably lead to conflicts.

Over the past two thousand years, whether in China or the United States, or even in any country in the world, has any family been able to completely resolve the relationship between daughter and daughter-in-law?no.Therefore, the conflict between Alibaba's very strong martial arts culture and military culture and these foreign executives is natural. Ma Yun is also very helpless about the natural nature of this conflict.So for a while, he became very anti-intellectual. He once said: "There are two things I hate the most. The first one I hate is MBA. MBA is unreliable. Can you fight wars? You can't What is the use of MBA in war? MBA is not a thing in the eyes of Alibaba. The second thing you hate? Consultants. Consulting companies set up a consulting project, take me 5 million, 10 million or even take me 20 million, take me Show me a pile of papers. Have you ever fought a war? Do you know what's going on in the Chinese market? You don't know, why do you charge so much money?"

Ma Yun began not to believe in books, but intuition.A big reason for this is that he suffered a lot in the introduction of international companies' "airborne troops" talents.