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Alibaba breaks itself up in six

economist.com

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Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#251

Post by gordian-mind »

kranke155 wrote: post #188
iforgotpassword wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, Ma was kinda struggling to get a train of thought across linguistically and half the time when Musk interrupted him he was rather making fun of some poor choice of words and being like "lol whatever" than trying to actually engage in a conversation. And I guess now with the Twitter shitshow Musk doesn't exactly look like a genius either.

Pretty much impossible to defend Elon's Twitter tenure. Can't think of a single thing he did that made that company more valuable.

What about laying off 75% of its workforce and open sourcing the twitter algorithm?

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#252

Post by alexandre_m »

littlestymaar wrote: post #235
toyg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One doesn't need to be clueless in order to lose a power struggle. He might have been betrayed, he might have overestimated the resources he could fully count on, he might have simply been backing a faction in the party that ended up losing. Xi Jinping went as far as kicking out of the public congress a previous president, which was unprecedented; who knows what else he's capable of.

> One doesn't need to be clueless in order to lose a power struggle. But one has to be clueless in order to start a power struggle with Xi. He's not like the old school CCP head at all (not even Mao), he's much more of an all-powerful tyrant like Stalin was. Starting a power struggle against such a ruthless despot is clueless.

Are you suggesting that Xi is more of a tyrant than Mao?

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#253

Post by ssnistfajen »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #247
ssnistfajen wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai also step off the stage after finishing speeches. Does that mean they have been "disappeared"? They have a private life in case you aren't aware. Acknowledging the fact that the CCP is meddling with private sector businesses is not an excuse to spout misinfo.

He went missing for months Tim Cook stepped off Trump’s board of CEOs and did not disappear. Jack Dorsey banned Trump from Twitter and didn’t disappear. Elon Musk constantly goes after Biden for no reason. He has not disappeared.

[flagged]

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#254

Post by ssnistfajen »

kkarakk wrote: post #236
ssnistfajen wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai also step off the stage after finishing speeches. Does that mean they have been "disappeared"? They have a private life in case you aren't aware. Acknowledging the fact that the CCP is meddling with private sector businesses is not an excuse to spout misinfo.

jack ma disappeared from the entire world - not a single photo could be found by people legitimately asking where he was. not even a publicist "he's holidaying in this country at the moment" could be had. if he was a reticent person maybe it could be excused but he's been a jet setter for a decade now with tons of social appearances.

[flagged]

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#255

Post by SkyMarshal »

kdmccormick wrote: post #249
SkyMarshal wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s the problem - the risk of losing a power struggle in a democracy with rule of law, separation of powers, an independent court system, and regular elections is vastly different from the risks of losing a power struggle in the CCP, which controls all branches of government, law enforcement, and the military and is accountable to no one. The former has a limited downside, the latter unlimited. Whatever the Ce…

As reasonable as your argument is, let's apply Occam's Razor. Which is more likely? 1. Jack Ma knows things you don't, and those things made mouthing off seem worthwhile to him. Still, he miscalculated, but not out of sheer cluelessness. 2. You, HN commenter, understand Chinese politics and power better than Jack Ma, a prominent Chinese billionaire. He is clueless. Doesn't 2 seem a little arrogant to you?

Haha, you're not wrong.

Though I would argue that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is not that Ma was being calculating and strategic, but that he just got cocky and said something dumb in the moment. He let all the global feting of his rise from schoolteacher to China's richest man go to his head, made an all-too-human mistake, and said something inadvisable.

He may even have been trying to defend the CCP in that moment, trying to communicate to US audiences that the CCP doesn't need to be feared because it's not scary, and thus he himself didn't fear it. But Xi and the powers that be interpreted it differently, and disappeared him. Which is always a risk in that system, but not in liberal democracies.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#256

Post by eternalban »

rs999gti wrote: post #176
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #138

Isn't seven the most powerfully magic number? Wouldn't it be better, make Alibaba stronger...to split the soul into seven pieces?

Even numbers are lucky in Chinese culture

And Allah loves odd numbers

إِنَّ‭ ‬اللّٰه‭ ‬وِتْرٌ‭ ‬يُحِبُّ‭ ‬الْوِتْرَ

"Truly God is One and loves odd numbers" - hadith

Arguably it is natural that belief in chance ("luck") and a supreme being would be at odds (npi). Odd number do seem to have a greater claim to authenticity than even numbers. Even directly implies division and multiplicity, whereas odd numbers are the children of unity, thus the 'world' and its chance events fall under the even numbers, but the reality is all about 1 and its odd children.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#257

Post by kdmccormick »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #255
kdmccormick wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As reasonable as your argument is, let's apply Occam's Razor. Which is more likely? 1. Jack Ma knows things you don't, and those things made mouthing off seem worthwhile to him. Still, he miscalculated, but not out of sheer cluelessness. 2. You, HN commenter, understand Chinese politics and power better than Jack Ma, a prominent Chinese billionaire. He is clueless. Doesn't 2 seem a little arrogant to you?

Haha, you're not wrong. Though I would argue that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is not that Ma was being calculating and strategic, but that he just got cocky and said something dumb in the moment. He let all the global feting of his rise from schoolteacher to China's richest man go to his head, made an all-too-human mistake, and said something inadvisable. He may even have been trying to defend th…

Fair enough! There are certainly other recent examples of billionaires getting themselves in trouble by saying too much....

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#258

Post by fortuna86 »

Animatronio wrote: post #242
fortuna86 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does any western government activity promote monopolies abroad and threaten consequences if such monopolies are fought against, all while accepting state-backed monopoly at home? https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-threatens-retaliation-aga... To recap, the Alibaba break up wasn't about a monopoly, it was about a rival power base to the CCP that couldn't be allowed to exist.

Well, how about Boeing vs Airbus?

How is it even possible to establish a monopoly market with airplanes considering you can operate both at the same time?

https://www.quora.com/Can-an-airline-have-both-Boeing-and-Ai...

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#259

Post by SkyMarshal »

kdmccormick wrote: post #257
SkyMarshal wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, you're not wrong. Though I would argue that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is not that Ma was being calculating and strategic, but that he just got cocky and said something dumb in the moment. He let all the global feting of his rise from schoolteacher to China's richest man go to his head, made an all-too-human mistake, and said something inadvisable. He may even have been trying to defend th…

Fair enough! There are certainly other recent examples of billionaires getting themselves in trouble by saying too much....

I know right. A lot of that going around these days. Maybe something in their bottled water.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#260

Post by hunvreus »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #225
ethbr0 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always figured that's why high-level power struggles were so constant and severely fought in totalitarian regimes. If the downside is unlimited then you do whatever it takes to win, always. And if there isn't currently a struggle then you prepare for the next one, constantly. Or in other words, you only spend a small portion of your total ability and time on the job, because you have to constantly expend effort on…

I have that impression too. Without having directly experienced it myself, it seems like a hellish system. Though it does at least seem like getting “purged” isn’t always final, and that execution is the last choice. Xi Jinping himself got purged in his youth and spent that time living and working in the countryside and building his ‘man of the common people’ cred, then made it back into the CCP’s favor later. Though…

For anybody looking to get some understanding of Xi Jinping's life and ascension to power, I'd recommend listening to "The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping" from the Economist: https://www.economist.com/theprincepod
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