The opportunity is in the place where you are complaining

Being able to stand here, I feel very glorious and humble. I never thought that there would be a chance to come to the United Nations in this life. Many thanks to the Asian Association.

At the age of twelve, I started to learn English myself. I didn't know what I was for. I just fell in love with the language. At that time, I would ride for 40 minutes every morning at 5 o'clock in the morning, go to the hotel in Hangzhou to find foreign tourists, they taught me English, I took them to visit the city in exchange.

From then on, I began to have a habit of thinking about problems with my own brain and spending a few more minutes. When everyone is right, wait a few minutes; when everyone says no, wait a few minutes and think about the thing itself. Because when you look at the world from a different perspective, you can also do things in different ways.

Tonight, I am deeply inspired by all these innovators. While listening to their stories, I realized that there are so many things in the world that I can do, there are so many things I can do better, there are so many things we can do together. Today, I am not representing myself, but on behalf of all the small people and small businesses that work with me.

When I left college in 1995, I told the principal that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and do the Internet. He asked me: What is the Internet? I replied: I don't know. He listened to me for two hours and said, Jack, I know you want to have something to do, I don't understand what you are doing. But if you want to come back ten years later, then come back. I said: Ok, ten years later, if I want to come back, I will be back. As a teacher, you will always believe in the future. You believe that knowledge will change people's lives. You believe and hope that your students are better than you. Students are the best products. Today I am no longer a teacher, but I believe in the company, the CEO represents the "Chief Education Officer." Because of the many words, my colleagues don't like me. However, I am responsible for saying that they are responsible for doing it.

In the era when I started my business, it was very difficult to be a small entrepreneur in China. It took me five months to borrow $500, and the company failed. I didn't have a chance at the time, and I don't know how to run a business. When I went to register for the first company, I wanted to name it Internet. The registration office told me that no, the word is not in the dictionary. You must change your name to register the company. He suggested that I use a computer consulting company, but I don't even know what the computer is. So my first company was called Hangzhou Hope Computer Consulting. It was very bitter at the time. I didn't know anything about technology and computers.

For the past fifteen years, I used to say that I was a blind man riding on the back of a tiger, but the experts who were riding on the horse failed, and we survived. Because we are thinking about the future, we believe in the future, we change ourselves, we never complain about others.

I told the team in my apartment that we must prove ourselves, because if we succeed, 80% of the young people in China will succeed. We don't have a rich father, a right uncle. We didn't take a dollar from the government. We didn't take a dollar from the bank. We started from scratch. So I have to work hard, not only to prove ourselves, but also to prove our generation and prove the power of the Internet. This is what I want to share with young people.

Another thing I deeply believe is that small is beautiful. If you don't help the little guy, then I use the Internet to help the little guy. Multinational companies are well taken care of by Wall Street, and only small businesses have no one to help them. If we create value for them, then we will succeed. Our philosophy is: If you help others succeed, you will succeed. I have always believed in the future, I believe in young people, and believe in innovation.

As the Secretary-General said, today’s world is in trouble and the community is full of complaints. I also complained when I was in my 20s. Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, they are big companies and we are helpless small companies, they are too big. At that time, we also complained. But now I don't complain anymore, because we have become one of the big guys.

What I want to tell the young people is that if most people are complaining, it is the opportunity. Some people choose to complain, while others choose to change themselves and help change others. The opportunity is where those are complained. I always believe this, and we have stepped to this day.

The last and most important thing is that everyone in the room will be given a T-shirt. This is a special limited edition T-shirt for Alibaba IPO. All these T-shirts are made by small people, our small businesses. This is to give small people, small is beautiful, small has power.

Printed on the T-shirt is the Alibaba success password that few people know. Just like the opening of sesame, Alibaba also has a password, which is "what is the dream, if it is realized in a day?"