不忘初心

在美国纽约时间2015年6月9日，中国电商巨头马云面向近千位商界领袖发表了一场震撼美国商界的演讲，这也是马云继朱镕基、董建华之后在纽约经济俱乐部作主题演讲的第三名中国人。

马云不仅横跨美国接触小型美国企业，还在《华尔街日报》上刊发专栏文章解释阿里巴巴的扩张计划不包括入侵美国市场。他希望美国企业通过全球最活跃的阿里巴巴网上交易平台开辟中国市场。

“在美国，电子商务是商业。在中国，电子商务是一种生活方式，”马云说，“在未来五年，将有逾5亿中国人步入中产阶级行列。他们将需要高品质的产品和服务，但现在他们中有很多人无法获得这一切……中国必须学会如何去购买，而不只是进口。”

Im so honored. I never expect there are so many people coming here to listen to my talk. And when I sitting there I feel so important. Thank you， thank you very much. Before my talk I would like to ask how many people here have used Alibaba services. Good， not many. And how many of you here have never been to China？ Never been， never been to China. Good， thank you very much.

非常荣幸，从来没想到会有这多人来听我的演讲。我站在这里的时候，感觉自己如此重要，如此责任重大。谢谢你们！正式开始演讲之前，我想请问一下在座有多少人在使用阿里巴巴的服务？好的，不是非常多。那么，你们当中有多少人从来没有去过中国？好的。非常感谢。

Well， 20 years ago I came to America. My first trip to America， to Seattle. Before that I learned so much about America， from my books， from my teachers， from my school， and my parents. And I think I know enough about America. But when I came to America I thought I was totally wrong. America is not what I learned from the books. And in Seattle I found the Internet， and then I came back and tell my friends that Im going to open a company called Internet. I invited 24 of my friends， had a two-hour discussion. And finally we had a vote. 23 of them against me. “Forget about it. Theres no such kind of network called Internet. Dont do it.” Theres only one person who said， “Jack， I trust you. I dont know what that is， but if you want to try it， go ahead， try it. Because youre still young.” At that time I was 30 years old.

20年前，我第一次踏上美国，美国之旅的第一站是西雅图。来到美国之前，我从书本、老师、学校和父母那里了解美国，我以为自己已经非常了解美国。但是，当 我踏上这片土地的时候，我才发现我完全错了，美国和我从书本里学到的根本不一样。在西雅图，我平生第一次认识了互联网。回到中国之后，我告诉朋友们，我打算开一家名叫互联网的公司。我邀请了24位好友，讨论了两个小时。我们进行了投票，23人反对。我的朋友们劝我说：“忘了它吧！根本就不存在这么一个叫做互联网的东西，千万不要去尝试。”只有一个人对我说：“马云，我相信你，虽然我不知道你想要做什么，如果你想做，就大胆去做吧，因为你还年轻。”那年，我30岁。

So I started my business， without knowing anything about computer， without knowing anything about business. I started my first company， my wife and I and a school mate. We borrowed US $1，000 and we start the business. It was so difficult. I called myself like a blind man riding on the back of blind tigers. Jumping around for the past 20 years， I survive today. For the first three years life was really bad. I remember I tried to borrow US $3，000 from the banks. It took me three months asking any friend I know to borrow the money， still failed. Everybody said “Jack is telling a lie”， because theres no such network called Internet in 1996.

没有任何的计算机知识、商业知识，我开始了创业之路。我开办了第一家公司，和我的妻子，还有一位同学。我们东拼西凑了1000美元，创业之路非常艰难。当时，我觉得自己是骑在虎背上的盲人（成语：盲人摸象，又骑虎难下）。20年风雨过去，我存活了下来。但是创业前三年，生活真的非常糟糕。我清楚地记得，我想向银行贷款3000美元，这花去了我整整三个月时间，我动用了所有的关系，还是没拿到贷款。每个人都认为马云在撒谎，因为1996年他们不相信有互联网这个东西的存在。

So one day， later 1996， China was connected to the Internet. I invited ten media friends to my apartment. I want to tell them Im not telling a lie. There is a network called Internet. We waited three hours and a half to see the first—to download the first picture. And people said “Is that thing going to work？” And I say “Yeah， itll work， but not today. In ten years itll work.” But at least it proved that I was not telling a lie.

有一天，1996年下半年，中国正式接入了互联网。于是，我邀请了10位媒体朋友到我家里来，想告诉他们我没有撒谎，确实存在互联网这个东西。为了下载一张 照片，我们当时花了三个半小时。大家说，“那东西真的能行得通吗？”我说，“是的，行得通的，不是现在，是在未来十年之内。”不管怎样，这至少证明了我没有撒谎。

In 1999 I invited 18 friends of mine to came to my apartment. We decided to do it again. We call the name alibaba.com. And people say why Alibaba？ We believe Internet is a treasure island which opens sesame for small business. And we used Alibaba because its easy to spell， easy to remember. And we want to focus on helping small business.

到了1999年，我邀请18个好友到家里，我们决定再一次尝试，并且把网站命名为alibaba.com。人们问为什么叫阿里巴巴？我们希望互联网就如同一个宝库，可以让小企业芝麻开门。另外，这个名字容易拼写，也朗朗上口。我们想做的事情，是帮助小企业。

This time Internet， the data， and I think we have a new business called platform. And the third World War is going to happen. And this war is not between nations， this war we work together against the disease， the poverty， the climate change. And I believe this is our future. The human being， the nations shall unite together. Rely on the young people， using not the guns， using computers， using the data to solve the human problem， solve the society problems. And this is what Im passionate about. Its not about the money， its about dreams. Its not only the technology change the world， its the dreams you believe that change the world. And we know the way  is not easy， as I was told in the past 20 years doing Internet business in China. Today is difficult， and tomorrow is much more difficult. But the day after tomorrow is beautiful. Most people die tomorrow evening， if you dont work hard.

在这个互联网时代，DT时代（Data Technology，数据时代），我认为诞生了一个新的商业形式——平台，“第三次世界大战”也随之即将打响——但这不是一场国与国之间的战争，这是一场我们携手对抗疾病、贫穷和气候变化的战争。我认为这是人类的未来。人类，所有的国家，都应该联合起来。依靠年轻一代，而不是武器;依靠计算机和大数据，来解决人类的问题，社会的问题。这是我所热衷的，和钱无关，这是梦想。改变世界的不仅是技术，更是你相信的梦想。我们知道这条路漫长且不易，正如我过去20年在中国做互联网生意被告知的。今天很困难，明天更困难，后天很美好。但是绝大多数人死在了明天晚上，如果你不努力的话。