Best Partner
Editor’s Note: This article is from WeChat public account “Feng Lunfeng Ma Niu” (ID: fengluntalk) , author: wind horse cattle.
Sheet title map|Cai Chongxin and Ma Yun
In recent days, Ali co-founder Cai Chongxin has done something he likes and bought the NBA Nets for $2.35 billion. Previously, he also bought the WNBA New York Freedom and a hockey team in San Diego. In the words of Cai Chongxin’s friends, “This is like his shot in the capital market. When the time comes, he will directly take the shot and be neat.“< /strong>
In fact, when studying at Yale, Cai Chongxin was a sportsman. Basketball was a small forward in the school team and hockey was the pillar in the school team. This time he finally turned his hobby into a career. In this regard, Cai Chongxin said: The beauty of sports is to continue to fail, keep climbing and go to victory. Humility is a state of mind, and winning is a belief.
As “the second head of Ali” and the “invisible hero” behind Ma Yun, Ali has been founded since the beginning of his life and death. He is so important to Ali’s success that Ma Yun said: The person I am most grateful to is Cai Chongxin!
If Ali is a movie, then Ma Yun is the director and Cai Chongxin is the producer. One person is responsible for the sky, and one person is responsible for down-to-earth. This is a seamless match for 20 years,a co-produced an “Oscar blockbuster.”
Ali Startup Team
In 1999, Cai Chongxin was a senior executive in Asia at Investor AB, a Swedish investment company, responsible for the company’s Asian private equity business. In May of the same year, a Taiwanese friend told him: Hangzhou has a man named Ma Yun who is a bit crazy, do you want to see it? Cai Chongxin said: Ok, but who is Ma Yun?
So, under the arrangement of friends, Cai Chongxin met with Ma Yun for the first time in Hangzhou. As a result, he found that Ma Yunlian’s company has not yet been established, and there is no entity. There is only one website that has been online for just a few months, with zero income.
Change to others, this time it is estimated that they all got up and left, but Cai Chongxin is willing to stay and listen to Ma Yun to continue. According to Cai Chongxin’s memory: When I met with Ma Yun, I was deeply attracted by his personality charm.
He is very approachable and very attractive, and he has been talking about the great vision. We didn’t talk about business models, profitability, or other business things. At that time, I felt that Ma Yun’s idea of being an e-commerce platform was great, but it was not an earth-shattering idea, but I appreciated Ma’s personality.
The place that really touched Cai Chongxin was not only Ma Yun himself, but what happened next. After seeing the face, Cai Chongxin proposed to look at Ma Yun’s entrepreneurial team, so Ma Yun took him to the lakeside garden. As soon as he opened the door, Cai Chongxin was shocked. A group of young people worked hard like a demon. Everyone had a big pot of rice, slept together, and shouted together…Cai Chongxin saw the infinite light, strength and future from the eyes of these young people.
Afterwards, Cai Chongxin learned that most of the people who followed Ma Yun’s business were Ma Yun’s students. At the time, he thought: This guy has the ability to bring a group of people together and is an influential leader. Ma Yun really has the ability to make a career. So, Cai Chongxin had the idea of joining this adventurous team.
After returning home, Cai Chongxin told the family about the idea of joining Ali. The father and some relatives and friends voted against it. The pregnant wife at that time thought he was “mad.” In order to convince his wife, Cai Chongxin decided to take his wife to Ali to see. After coming to the lakeside garden again, Cai Chongxin still felt that the team atmosphere was very good.
When the boat was rowed in the West Lake, Cai Chongxin said his wife was around and said to Ma Yun: Can I join in a business? When Ma Yun heard it, he almost jumped to the West Lake with excitement. But he immediately woke up again: but I have no money. You earn $700,000 a year. I can only afford you 500 yuan per month. How can you afford it? Cai Chongxin resolutely said: Nothing is worthy of sorry, 500 yuan for 500 yuan. At the same time, Cai Chongxin’s wife, who had a strong objection, turned to him as a lobbyist. She said to Ma Yun: You should let him join, otherwise he will regret it for a lifetime. In this way, Cai Chongxin gave up his high salary and rolled up his sleeves to become one of Ali’s “18 Arhats”.
In Ali’s partner system, two people are permanent partners, one is Ma Yun and the other is Cai Chongxin. There is no doubt that Cai Chongxin plays an absolutely important role in Ali.
Before joining Ali, Cai Chongxin has been involved in tax law business, acquisition of investment management company, and held senior management positions in the enterprise. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and East Asian studies from Yale University and a JD from Yale Law School. In addition, Cai Chongxin has a broad political career. He was born into a Taiwanese legal family. His grandfather had a legal consultation for Du Yuexi. His father was the first person to obtain a doctorate in law from Yale University in Taiwan and a school administrator at Yale University.
The addition of Cai Chongxin, an excellent partner, has solved many difficulties for Ali. So Ma Yun said: I am particularly grassroots, and he is professionally trained and well-trained, disciplined and very intelligent. People like Cai Chongxin can’t be cultivated inside the company. They can only be found outside the company, but most of the time when the company is looking for it, it is almost ready to go public. The purpose of their coming is to prepare for listing. The early entrepreneurs have all committed the mistakes of the offender, and they have paid a heavy price. Some investment mistakes are irreversible.
Cai Chongxin
The famous British poet Coleridge said: Friendship is a tree that can be shaded. In this way, Ma Yun and Cai Chongxin formed the best partner of one earth and one ocean, one positive and one pair, one move and one quiet.
After coming to Ali, Cai Chongxin served as CFO. Every round of financing, legal affairs and finance in the company was done by him. In these years, Cai Chongxin and Ma Yun have been working separately. He is in Hong Kong and Ma Yun is in Hangzhou. He calls every day, but Ma Yun has always trusted Cai Chongxin from beginning to end.
In an interview with the media, Cai Chongxin said, “I have worked very well with Ma Yun. Ma Yun does not have any feeling of owning anything. He is also willing to admit his weaknesses. Many strong entrepreneurs will say me. We are good at everything. From the first day, we are united. In the past few years, what I think is really effective is the honesty we can share with each other. I can criticize him, he can criticize me, of course we will not hurt each other’s feelings.This is very important.< /strong>“
In addition, Cai Chongxin added: Ma Yun not only trusts me, he also trusts many people who have never seen before. This is his kind heart, he is willing to hand over many things. The biggest bottleneck for startups comes from people. Ma Yun and the management team are bringing in the talents from outside every year. This is something that I am very pleased with.
Although he has a wealth of experience and knowledge, Cai Chongxin did not appear to be out of place after coming to Ali. He knew what role he should play. Cai Chongxin is low-key, modest, confident and loves to learn. Everyone respects and trusts him.
In June 1999, Cai Chongxin began to help Ma Yun to register the company. As a result, Ma Yun listed a list of founders. At that moment, Cai Chongxin listened to him. Cai Chongxin said: From the first day, Ma Yun’s heart is open and shared with others. He gave a large part of the company’s equity to entrepreneurship.team. This is Ma Yun, I think this is unique and can’t be found anywhere else.
After that, Cai Chongxin arrived in Hangzhou on a hot summer night in the lakeside garden, waving his sweat to the whiteboard and the first batch of employees to talk about the shares, to talk about rights and interests, and to make 18 English contracts that fully conformed to international conventions. Ma Yun and the Eighteen Arhats signed and painted, which clarified the equity and obligations of each person. The advent of Cai Chongxin has enabled Ali to begin a truly standardized operation and at the same time enhance the trust of venture capital in Ali.
After the early years of Cai Chongxin did not come to Ali, Ma Yun looking for investment can be said to see a family, failed one, once crazy to see dozens of investors a week, but nothing. Ma Yun even thought about putting the company’s base camp in Shanghai, but no one cares about him.
After the company registration, Cai Chongxin began to help Ali solve the most critical problem – money. At that time, the 500,000 yuan that Ma Yun raised in the early days was also exhausted, and even the employees’ wages could not be released. Under the supervision of Cai Chongxin, in August 1999, he was able to negotiate with Goldman Sachs through a referral from an old Goldman Sachs. Since then, Goldman Sachs has led a number of institutions to inject $5 million into Ali, which includes Cai Chongxin’s old owner, Investor AB. The first “Angel Fund” can help Ali to survive the early winter of entrepreneurship and endorsed by investment bank giant Goldman Sachs.
After the fall of 1999, Sun Zhengyi came to China to deploy the “China Softbank Fund”. Cai Chongxin arranged for Ma Yun to meet with many IT tycoons. As a result, Sun Zheng “stared” on Ali and wanted to invest. Subsequently, Sun Zhengyi invited Cai Chongxin and Ma Yun to go to Japan for an interview. Sun Zhengyi decided to inject $40 million into Ali, accounting for 49% of the shares.
Ma Yun feels like this, but Cai Chongxin, who is silent on the side, said “no” to Sun Zhengyong at a crucial moment. After the “perfect match” between Cai Chongxin and Ma Yun, the transaction finally reached US$20 million, which guaranteed that Ali will not be too restricted by Softbank in the future development. Not long after the funds were in place, the Internet bubble burst, and the Internet company’s blood flowed into the river. Only Ali was shocked and survived the disaster.
In 2005, Cai Chongxin led Ali and Yahoo!: Ali acquired all of Yahoo China’s assets, and received Yahoo’s $1 billion investment and enjoyed Yahoo’s brand and technology., Yuantong, Youku, Hungry, Zhongtong, Real Home, etc. As a behind-the-scenes operator, most of the time, after reaching control, Cai Chongxin will enter the board of directors of the other company to establish long-term strategic value for Ali. According to colleagues, Cai Chongxin is very dedicated. When investing in Sina Weibo, he also used Excel to do the second investment-related valuation model in the middle of the night.
Ali At the 2018 Global Investors Conference, Wu Wei said that Ali has made a strategic investment of 80 billion US dollars. So that Ma Yun praised the old comrades in public: Cai Chongxin’s courage, how many people can be like him? There is also a rumor inside Ali: When Ma Yun made a major decision, Cai Chongxin said that when he can do it, he can let go, because he understands that this risk is worthwhile and can be lost.
On June 18, 2019, Ali released a new round of organization upgrade notice. In the open letter, Ali CEO Zhang Yong wrote: Appointed Group CFO Wu Wei Maggie Wu is also the head of the Group’s Strategic Investment Department, to report to me. Thanks to Group Vice Chairman Cai Chongxin Joe Tsai has built a strategic investment team from scratch to provide an important strategic guarantee for Alibaba’s development today. Joe will continue to assist Maggie in the future to help the investment team grow better.
This move means that after Ma Yun is about to step down as the head of Ali, Cai Chongxin is gradually fading out Ali’s daily business.
In recent years, Ali is also preparing for retirement. In the same way, they have established a personal charity foundation to support education. The difference is that Ma Yun focuses on rural education;Cai Chongxin focuses on modern vocational education, youth physical education and education for poverty alleviation.
Young Chua Chongxin and Ma Yun
Many people say: Cai Chongxin is “the man behind Ma Yun”, Without him, Ali will not have today’s achievements. But modest Cai Chongxin said: Exaggeration. Ma Yun’s success is also the success of Ali, with many men and women behind it. Success is a company, and everyone works hard together.
Cai Chongxin’s testimony: The years have not changed Ma’s character. He is still very smart and progresses every year. In fact, everyone in the company has also grown, and I have made progress. Love and curiosity are the secrets that drive me to grow with Ali. I think that compared to my past, I am better today.
In the eyes of others, Cai Chongxin and Ma Yun are completely different in appearance, education, family history and personality, but together they have created Ali’s legend. Cai Chongxin is willing to bravely give up the innate superior conditions and follow Ma Yun’s struggle. Ma Yun also absolutely trusts the other party and helps Cai Chongxin to fully develop his talents. Twenty years, the two have been different, there have been many quarrels, but still do not affect their deep friendship. This story of “Best Partner” is moving in any era.
When a reporter asked why the friendship between Cai Chongxin and Ma Yun was long-lasting, Cai Chongxin said: I am just 9 months older than Ma Yun, He is Virgo, I am Capricorn, Astrology Said that this is a natural match.
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