[cepp]

1) Jack Ma is neither the CEO nor the majority shareholder in Ant. [1]

2) Jack is one of > 91.2M party members in China. As are most high-ranking managers and professionals, it's simply a fact of life. [2]

Nothing about 1 or 2 makes Alibaba Group or Ant a state owned enterprise (SOE) more than any other company in China. Everything in the world need _not_ be late stage capitalist democracy. There are plenty of ways to attain success and happiness. Lastly, Ant isn't even IPOing in the West. If you disagree then vote with your wallet (or don't).

[1]: https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/ir/pdf/160614/12.pdf

[2]: https://www.statista.com/topics/1247/chinese-communist-party...

[gonehome]

I'm more skeptical after seeing this: https://youtu.be/f3lUEnMaiAU

I would have expected being a party member to just be the default in order for anyone to do anything of substance in China, but he comes across extremely poorly in that interview.

So poorly, that I find it more likely that the companies are being propped up/operated by the government than someone like him could successfully build/run them.

Maybe I'm indexing too much on that, but watch it for yourself, definitely weird.

[cepp]

I worked at Ali and have seen 马云 speak in person. I get that it seems a bit weird because he's _not_ technical, nor particularly enlightened in any area, but the success of the company is in part due to his excellence as a manager. It's part of the reason Ali wasn't, until very recently, in gaming because he wanted to focus the company and to abide by a certain set of principles.

To your second point: doing business in China is partially owed to the niche that the government carves for you. Look at the debacle of Ofo vs Mobike. You need to grow at all costs until you can overtake competition then you're protected.

[gonehome]

I guess I'm skeptical that you can be an excellent manager with that level of inability to discuss anything of depth. The excellent managers I've interacted with (especially at the exec level) have always been really sharp and had a pretty deep understanding of the stack even if they're not themselves programmers. The ones that don't or can't are usually bad.

> doing business in China is partially owed to the niche that the government carves for you...You need to grow at all costs until you can overtake competition then you're protected.

I suspect this protection is what allows people to succeed that would otherwise fail in a real competition. In that interview he comes across like an empty suit/figurehead. It wasn't a huge surprise to me that they got rid of him.

[bofadeez]

"it's simply a fact of life" - No

"Everything in the world need _not_ be late stage capitalist democracy. There are plenty of ways to attain success and happiness."

- You meant to say "early stage" and of course there are many ways to attain success and happiness. That's why we allow people to make their own choices, elect their own representatives, and speak freely. We don't force them into accepting one single system, like they do in China. In America, we believe humans have inalienable rights that the government has no authority to usurp. The government exists subserviently to protect our rights to pursue happiness as we see fit, provided we don't infringe on the rights of others. If you want to go live in a communist community within a free society, you're more than welcome to share your income with a group of people. What you have in China is totalitarianism / authoritarianism, which we believe is axiomatically immoral, as it removes option for people to decide on their own, it removes the inalienable rights that all humans naturally have at birth. Don't you agree that you own your physical body, and you own the fruits of your labor? Don't you think you have the right to express criticism against leaders? From where exactly do they derive their authority? It's not by elected mandate. I would love to hear why you think restricting freedom and being a cheerleader for totalitarianism / authoritarianism can (even in theory) lead to greater happiness. Thank you!