Book Review: Ali Baba: The House that Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark

Duncan Clark provides an account of the world of Jack Ma, one of the leading figures in the present economy of China. Jack Ma built one of the largest companies of the world. An American tourist give him the name 'Jack.' His original name is Ma Yun.

Jack took the Gaokao. In China it is seen as the most challenging exam in which high school students appear for a merit based exam for higher education. Jack badly failed in the exam. scoring 1/120 in math. In the early phase of his career Jack listed different positions on several versions of business cards (p. 70-71). I personally find this a very unethical act.

Jack says: " Today is brutal, tomorrow is more brutal, but the day after tomorrow is beautiful" (p. 120). Clark explains Jack's marketing techniques, his personality and how he keeps his staff involved at various levels. To keep up the morale, the staff were involved in playing video games, coding, exercises and handstands. Jack says that 'if you use money to solve problems, why on earth would the world need businessmen anymore" (p. 176). Jack says that he has three principles of doing things: first,  100 percent legal; second, 100 percent transparent; third, build the company sustainably and healthily. 

Writing about business in China, the author argues that 'for Alibaba, and any other private company, the Chinese government itself is a multiheaded hydra of agencies, often competing with one another for influence, licensing fees; or other forms of rent to justify their existence, often lacking sufficient central government support to finance their operations (p. 238). During a IPO show Alibaba focused on three central growth drivers for the future which includes 'cloud computing/Big Data; expansion into rural markets; and globalization/cross-border trade (p. 250). 

When in the United States of America, Jack was often asked 'When are you coming to invade America?' Why do they perceive him as an invader? A question- what does free market preach?

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Book Review: The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason

Buying this book, one important thing that came to my mind was that this book would serve to explore the in-detail study of the life of the Babylon people. Unfortunately, it did not. Instead, after reading a few pages I realized that in fact this book provides the success secrets on wealth of the ancient people of Babylon. This book provides an insight to the secrets of personal wealth.

The author of this book George S. Clason, was born Louisiana in November 1874. He served in the United States army during the Spanish Civil War. Moreover, he became a successful businessman. In 1926 he published a famous series of pamphlets on thrift and financial success. For this he used parables from the ancient Babylon to make his points. The most famous of these was the Richest Man in Babylon, from which the present volume takes its title.

Clason frequently quotes from the parables of the ancient times. If one applies his writings to the present time one can extract some teachings from them. His aim is to promote savings by methods of thrift, advise struggling entrepreneurs in establishing their business and encourage young people to benefit form the wisdom of the old. The author views ancient Babylon as wealthiest of the ancient cites because he thinks that its people knew the value of money, they practiced “sound financial principles in acquiring money, keeping money and making their money earn more money”. Even today, after thousands of years, money is governed by the same laws.

Some of the chapters of the book are about gold, lean purse, goddess of good luck, five laws of gold, gold lending walls of Babylon, camel trader and the last chapter is about the historical sketch of Babylon. Babylon had fertile land and river water. The Babylonians built canals by brilliant engineering techniques which helped greatly in crop production. Wisdom, enterprise and justice made Babylon famous through history. They were an educated and enlightened people who were the first engineers, first astronomers, first mathematicians and first financiers. In addition to that, they were also the first people to have a written language.

Babylon was never said to have been entered by hostile armies until about 540 years before the birth of Christ by Cyrus who entered the open gates of the city and took possession without resistance.

 

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