Shadowing Practice: Africa is the ultimate destination for unlimited business ideas and opportunities - Jack Ma - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Last year was my first trip to Africa.
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Last year was my first trip to Africa.
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Before I came to Africa,
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I worried a lot like anybody else.
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Ah, this and that, this is no good,
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that is no good, this is not safe, everything.
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But I said, no matter whatever you worry,
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you have to step on Africa and feel it and touch it yourself. So I came.
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I thought, it's too late.
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Why didn't I come 10 years ago?
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Africa is a continent full of opportunities.
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And I was inspired, and I said,
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from now on, every year,
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I would come to Africa, visit the three countries.
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So this is my second trip to Africa.
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And I hope in the next 10,
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15 years, I can finish visiting 54 countries in Africa, every country.
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And I came with a lot of friends,
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business leaders in China, and they said, what we can do?
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I said, don't do anything.
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Come here, feel it.
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Only when you feel it, you will love it.
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When I left Africa last year,
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I feel something, something should be done.
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And a lot of things can be done.
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And I asked myself one thing,
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that the day when I studied Alibaba,
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and I told my team,
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and there is a sentence we remember, if not now, when?
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If not me, who?
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Right?
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So we said, let's come to Africa, do something.
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And this is why we came.
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And people say, well, Africa, there's so many problems.
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Tell me, in the world there is a place there's no problems?
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no place in the world there's no problems, right?
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And people say, yeah, Africa is poor,
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there's no wealth, but I feel there's the best wealth of human beings here.
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You have a beautiful air,
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blue sky, and the nature, and wild animals.
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These are the richest assets that the whole world We are the world at the mine, especially China.
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We are the mine, blue sky.
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I wish I could stay here for 20 days and a whole month here.
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I visited Ethiopia and Botswana and South Africa this time,
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and we already started to plan next year what countries we want to visit.
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I say, well, Africa is too old,
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but I think this continent is such a young,
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full of young people everywhere, right?
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And when you listen to the entrepreneurs,
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the e-founders in Hangzhou, I said,
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these people, the entrepreneurs in Africa,
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they are the super first class in the world.
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I'm not telling, I'm sitting from the heart.
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The way they say the dream,
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they believe the action and the passion.
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This is amazing.
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I think this land is full of chance,
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full of opportunities, full of dreams.
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Entrepreneurs do the things before everything's ready.
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There will be no Alibaba if everything's ready.
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Why Jack Ma?
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You know, this guy failed again and again for so many times.
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Failed examination for university for three times no money and my father,
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my mother, those are very poor people in the cities.
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So there's no chance for us.
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Africa is the same.
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Today's Africa is much better than 19 years ago when we started Alibaba.
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People was such a terrible speed at that time if we're using internet.
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You know, when I started my business 1994 for the internet.
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I invite, a lot of people say,
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Jack is telling a lie.
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There is no such thing called internet.
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I went to register my company.
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And in the company registering office,
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people say, what kind of company you wanna do?
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I say, Hanzo Internet Consulting Company.
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He said, internet, there is no such word in the dictionary.
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They cannot register the company.
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And China was not connected to the internet the day when I registered my company.
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Three months later, China was connected to the internet.
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So in order to prove that I was not a liar,
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I invited TV people came to my room.
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We waited three hours and a half to download the first front page. And that was true.
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And that was true, right?
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And this is, say, and at that time, nobody believed internet.
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Nobody believed e-commerce.
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Nobody believed China would have e-commerce.
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No logistics, no credit cards.
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The same question people ask you now,
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how can Africa have internet companies?
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How can you do e-commerce?
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You don't have a credit card.
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You don't have logistics.
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You don't have government support.
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You don't have everything.
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That's the opportunity.
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As an entrepreneur, As an entrepreneur, we never complain.
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We make other people complain.
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We make our competitors complain.
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We never cry because if cry can solve the problems,
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can solve no problem.
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We make competitors cry.
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We make those people who do not believe our dreams cry.
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In my apartment where we started,
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18 founders, and we aim high, we have a dream.
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We want to make become the top ten internet companies or websites in the world.
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Guys, at that time we are ranking several million names.
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But we say, what will be number ten?
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Oh, the top ten of the world.
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We want to make this company last 102 years and we don't know where is our pay next month.
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Well, when you are poor,
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if you have dreams, you'll never feel poor.
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You know what we are doing?
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So after, we never say we will win next year or we win tomorrow.
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We say we will win in 10, 20 years.
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19 years passed, today we are the top 10 websites,
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internet companies in the world.
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And 19 years passed, 90 years passed,
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today we never think, We never expect that Alibaba business,
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Alibaba companies, just e-commerce without Ali and financing.
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Alibaba e-commerce, our market cap is 500 billion US dollars. So think about it.
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Tell me 19 years ago,
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anybody can say a company in China can be the top 10 internet companies in the world?
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Or 10 years ago, 20 years ago,
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anybody can believe a company in Asia could be the top 10 global tech companies in the world.
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So people here believe in Africa in 10,
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20 years you will have at least 10, 20 Alibaba companies.
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Because if you don't dream,
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if you don't start to work,
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this thing will never happen.
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But if you start to do it, you have a chance.
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If not 500 billion, 50 billion is okay.
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Imagine Africa, 1.2 billion people,
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most people young people, right?
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As I heard from my friend Dr. Katooi,
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you have got 13 million young people graduate from university looking for jobs.
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These are the resources.
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When Alibaba started to hire people,
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we could not hire people at all Because nobody wanted to join a company strange named Alibaba, right?
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And work in an apartment.
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And nobody believed in e-commerce or internet.
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So we hired anybody who can walk.
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We don't care, right, whether you have a bachelor degree or a bachelor degree,
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as long as you believe us.
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So they joined us.
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We started off with nothing.
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It was true.
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For the first 10 years,
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it was tough, very difficult days.
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Because we cannot find customers.
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We cannot find good engineers.
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We cannot find any sort of resources we cannot get money from the banks.
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So people say, well, you know,
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in Africa we cannot get loans from the banks.
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Everywhere in the world banks do not give small business money.
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So we start to be very careful for every cent we spend.
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And the day our first IPO year 2007 when Alibaba IPO'd in Hong Kong,
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year 2007, we had a lot of millionaires in the company.
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And I asked my colleagues,
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we have like 300 people become millionaires.
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And I ask them, hey,
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now tell me, you've become millionaires because you are smarter than the others?
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People say, no, no, no,
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no, no, no, no. We even cannot find jobs. Because you are hardworking?
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Yes, we find more people hardworking than us.
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But they do not succeed.
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Why are they not smart?
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All the smart people at that time,
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they went to Microsoft and IBM.
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And headhunting companies came to headhunt all the best guys from us.
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And we are the people nobody come to headhunt us.
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We have no place to go.
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We believe in ourselves.
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We believe our dream.
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We work together.
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So I say we are the people because nobody want us.
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I am the person over 30 companies don't want me.
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Right?
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So we are the people who get used to be rejected.
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We are the people who get used to be saying no from the other people.
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Why people should help you?
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People help you, that is unusual.
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People do not help you, that is very common.
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You should work to earn to be helped.
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Right?
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So in order to encourage my 17 founders and all the people who joined us,
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I said, our competitors are very strong.
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At that time, our competitor was eBay.
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A lot of the eBay guys graduate from Harvard.
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We are people graduate from,
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no, no, I don't want to even mention about the university names.
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We're nobody.
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I say, if we can win,
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if we can succeed, 80% of the young people in China and the world can be successful.
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Because we believe, we work,
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a lot of them have dreams,
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but they don't work hard.
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A lot of them work hard,
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but they don't have dreams.
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Entrepreneurs should work plus dreams.
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And this way we can win.
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Do not think about your own country.
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Think about the whole Africa,
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think about the whole world.
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If you only think about your own country,
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there's no difference between thinking your own country and your own village.
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The internet connects everywhere.
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And this continent is very simple.
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People say very complete.
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I think it's very simple.
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If you have been to Europe,
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you know how complicated it is.
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They worry too much.
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Right, you know, security, privacy, this and that.
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Before the business is done,
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they start to put a lot of rules and laws.
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Here, you have nothing to destroy.
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So this world, the most difficult thing is to convincing a successful people.
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Successful people is telling you,
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ah, don't do this, don't do that,
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you know, we have experience of this and that.
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We are the people.
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We want to be successful,
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we want to create the future.
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We want to do something that we believe in.
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So, I think the very important for Africa is create jobs.
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And the best way to create jobs is to encourage small business.
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The best way to create jobs is to trust young people.
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And I talked to the president yesterday evening.
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We should, every country in this world,
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this century, should encourage, give good conditions,
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tax conditions to the startups, not big companies.
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And I'm very happy to hear that he agreed.
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Because those big companies, they don't need that.
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We startup need that.
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If you take tiny techs from those tiny startups,
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it's just like taking the meat of the mosquito legs.
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You're killing the others.
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You did not survive.
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So in this world, there are so many great conditions for big companies.
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It is time.
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Let's get policies for startups, for young companies.
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And also I encourage all the entrepreneurs,
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if you want to start a business,
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don't think you will be successful next month or next year.
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Think about at least five years.
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Because if something can be successful next month, why you?
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You have a rich father,
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you don't have to be a startup.
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Right?
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And by the way, don't be discouraged because you have a poor diploma or you know,
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graduate from a poor university or low education.
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Don't worry about that.
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If you graduate from MIT,
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Harvard, you will never be entrepreneur.
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Right?
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They can only be the white collar guys.
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So as an entrepreneur, you should have.. what is the strategy for entrepreneurs?
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strategy is time, 10 years.
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You compete with the other people, the vision.
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The world will be there,
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will be there, what kind of customers they need,
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how we can build up.
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If you prepare for five years and ten years,
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if you have a good team,
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and always do before the government do.
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If you're waiting for government, you have no chance.
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Right?
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When government will say, there is opportunity there, go that direction.
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Because we'll be too crowded there.
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Right?
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This is always...
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So as entrepreneur, always ask yourself three questions.
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What do you have?
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What do you want?
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And what will you give up?
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What do you have?
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We have nothing.
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Right?
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The only things we have dream,
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we believe, we have a team.
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And I believe we have the time to work hard.
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And what do you want?
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And what do you want?
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You have to ask what the customer wants.
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What's the problem of the society?
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What's the problem of your customers?
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And what the team wants?
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Think about what you have we want and what we give up.
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If you don't want to give up everything, you will get nothing.
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A lot of business people,
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they never learn to focus.
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If you start up, learn to be focused on one thing, right?
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Because learn to be focused just like there are nine rabbits on the ground.
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If you want to catch the rabbit,
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don't change the rabbit, change yourself.
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If you want to catch this one, you finally get nothing.
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So for nine rabbits, don't change the rabbit,
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change yourself to catch that rabbit until you got it.
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A lot of things we have to learn.
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It's a great experience to be an entrepreneur.
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Life is so cool when you become an entrepreneur.
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In my life, the day I never write a book for myself,
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I think those people who write books are getting too old.
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My life is just the beginning.
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The day when I want to write a book, Alibaba 1001 Mistakes.
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And I want to tell my kids how many tough days I have grown through.
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How many silly mistakes I've made.
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And this is the best experience.
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This is, because it's easy to be good,
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but it's tough to be bad.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will enhance your English listening and speaking skills by practicing with a motivational talk by Jack Ma about his experiences in Africa. You'll explore the themes of opportunity, entrepreneurship, and the beauty of the African continent. This lesson encourages you to engage with the material through shadowspeak exercises, allowing you to improve your pronunciation and fluency as you mimic the speaker's tone and pace.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Opportunities: Situations that make it possible to do something that you want to achieve.
- Entrepreneurs: Individuals who start and manage their own businesses.
- Wealth: A large amount of money or valuable possessions.
- Nature: The natural world, including plants, animals, and landscapes.
- Experience: Knowledge or skill acquired by doing something.
- Inspiration: A feeling of enthusiasm that encourages you to do something.
- Mindset: The established set of attitudes held by someone.
- Young people: The new generation or youthful individuals full of energy and potential.
Practice Tips
For effective learning, consider utilizing the shadowing site techniques. Start by watching the video once to familiarize yourself with Jack Ma's voice and the message he delivers. During your second viewing, repeat immediately after him, focusing on mimicking his intonation and rhythm. This shadow speak technique will help you internalize the natural flow of English.
As you practice, note the speed of Jack Ma's speech. He speaks clearly but at a moderate pace, ideal for practicing your learn English with YouTube skills. Don't hesitate to pause the video if you need more time to catch up or if a particular phrase is challenging.
Additionally, try repeating key phrases like "if not now, when? if not me, who?" multiple times to enhance your confidence. Engage with the content personally; think about how the entrepreneurial spirit resonates with your own aspirations. This will not only improve your language skills but also connect you with the broader theme of opportunity in your life.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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