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Blarney Meets Chutzpah in China
His achievements have proved otherwise—this dumbing down is of course just a
feint. Jack once explained
2
that he loves the lead character of the movie
Forrest
Gump
because “people think he is dumb, but he knows what he is doing.” In his
early speeches promoting Alibaba, Jack referred so often to Forrest Gump that I
came to think of his stump speech as his “Gump speech.” Much has changed for
Alibaba, but Gump’s appeal endures. On the first day of trading of Alibaba’s
shares, Jack was interviewed by CNBC live on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange. When he was asked which person had most inspired him, Jack replied
without hesitation, “Forrest Gump.” His interviewer paused, then said, “You
know he’s a fictional character?”
Jack’s ability to charm and cajole has played an important role in attracting
talent and capital to the company, as well as building his own fame. Jack has a
unique Chinese combination of blarney and chutzpah. One of his earliest foreign
employees
3
summed up for me his qualities in two words: “Jack Magic.” In this
respect, Jack shares a characteristic with Steve Jobs, whose charisma and means
of getting his way were famously described by a member of the original Apple
Macintosh design team as a “Reality Distortion Field.”
Central to Jack’s own distortion field are his skills as a communicator.
Jack’s speaking style is so effective because his message is so easy to agree
with, remember, and digest. Collections of his quotes circulate widely online, in
English as well as in Chinese. Most are bite-size messages of inspiration, words
that wouldn’t be out of place on a motivational poster, such as “Believe in your
dream and believe in yourself,” or “Learn from others the tactics and the skills,
but don’t change your dream.” Other popular quotes read more like an Aesop
fable: “If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just
focus on one. Change your tactics if you need to, but don’t change the rabbit. . . .
Get one first, put it in your pocket, and then catch the others.” People have even
taken to inventing carpe diem–style quotes from Jack to justify, for example, the
purchase of a pair of expensive shoes.
Jack always speaks without notes. His oratorical skills are so effective
because his repertoire is so narrow. Jack can dispense with notes because he
already knows much of his material: a well-honed stable of stock stories, mostly
tales from his childhood or Alibaba’s own infancy. A close inspection of all of
his speeches reveals he has essentially been giving the same speech for the last
seventeen years. Yet by subtly tweaking his message to match the mood and
expectations of the crowd, he somehow manages to make each speech sound
fresh.
Jack is a master at appealing to people’s emotions, which is not something
you’d expect from the founder of a company that started out focusing on
international trade. Sometimes, as he’s launched into a familiar story, I have
turned around to look at the faces of the audience, trying to understand what
explains his enduring appeal.
Humor is a big part of it. As a quick look at any of the hundreds of videos
available on YouTube of his most popular speeches will reveal, Jack is very
funny. Back in the early days, after he came offstage at an event we’d both
spoken at, I joked to him that if his day job at Alibaba didn’t work out he had a
promising career as a stand-up comedian.
4
Jack’s set pieces, his one-liners and
anecdotes, and the way he combines them are essentially the same as the “bits”
that comedians use to make up their routines.
With his tales of overcoming challenges and defying the odds, Jack
regularly drives some in his audience to tears, even hardened business
executives. After giving a talk to a group of students in South Korea, Jack
himself appeared to be consumed by emotion when asked about his biggest
regrets in life, replying that he regretted not spending more time with his family.
After composing himself, he added, “Normally
I
make other people cry.”
Jack’s speeches, like that one in Seoul, reach a much wider audience than
speeches by many public figures in China in part because he is able to deliver
them in fluent English. Other tech executives in China speak English, too, many
having been educated overseas, but Jack’s message has much greater resonance
in both languages. Jack’s long-term business partner, Joe Tsai, told me: “Jack
today is still one of the only international businesspeople who is as attention-
grabbing in both English and Chinese.”
To build a connection to foreign audiences, Jack often peppers his speeches
with pop-culture references—including citing more recent movies than
Forrest
Gump,
some of which Alibaba is now financing. As his company expands its
presence in Hollywood, Jack now regularly enlists the support at his public
appearances of famous actors like Daniel Craig, Kevin Spacey, and Tom Cruise,
the star of Paramount Pictures’
Mission: Impossible
franchise—in 2015 Alibaba
invested in
Rogue Nation,
the franchise’s latest title. To audiences in China, Jack
often draws on stories from his favorite martial arts novels, or Chinese
revolutionary history. An American colleague once asked Jack about his
references to Mao in his speeches in China. Jack explained, “For me to motivate
you I would talk about George Washington and the cherry tree.”
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