Jack Ma cedes control of Ant Group | Hacker News Reader

Jack Ma cedes control of Ant Group

ft.com

45 pointsmfiguiere21 comments

So in China, you can work super hard, but if you actually become successful the good ol' CCP will come and take your wealth from you?

Private entrepreneurship was possible, but now Xi has been turning the clock back and clawing the control back to Bejing. More authorian, more central, lead China seems to be the way, with the extended third term for Xi.

One view of the Chinese system is that they run their country like a company. With that analogy, it's expected for a company to profit off the rewards of their employees' labour, and therefore it's within a country's right to rein in their business leaders as their success was facilitated by the country's resources.

This is a very fertile perspective. Explains so much about CCP.

That would explain taxes, and to some degree regulations, not taking away control entirely.

In this view companies like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple and their founders could be said to be/have been beyond control of the US government. China’s government does not permit this to happen.

I studied at a Chinese university for a semester and as part of the program they put on seminars on things like the media, demographic issues, etc.

One of them was about the economic system and they explained that while small businesses (think street shops, small restaurants, etc) are hands-off as there's not much value in being hands on. Large businesses are at the state's control. They explained that you can see the party serving a similar role as the "board of directors."

I think it's a mistake to attribute all the success to hard work and all the headwinds to state intervention. More realistically, Jack Ma was seen as "on side" for the CCP and so it was acceptable for his companies to succeed. There were always some questions around what he said in interviews - but it's impossible to argue with a billionaire. Now he's "off side" -he's not an ally of the regime and so he can't succeed.

If he really is the genius that we all know he is, he'll build a billion dollar company in Japan. If he was just in a good spot with the government in China, then maybe not.

I took GP as saying that the current chinese system, whatever it is (socialism, state-managed capitalism, whatever) is removing incentives for entrepreneurs. Perhaps entrepreneurs are not necessary in the first place, or perhaps it is still worth it to become an entrepreneur in China even if you have to check out in the end (I'm sure he's still well off, please correct me if I'm wrong). Only time will tell, but I don't think GP is saying that Ma's success was inevitable, only that his exit has shown future businessmen in China what the new* terms of the game are.

*one might say these were always the terms

I would kinda argue that the regime changed more than Ma did, since 2017-ish the CCP has cracked down especially hard on all kinds of things that seem strange to me and on things they were kinda lax about before.

Yes. They're communists.

My understanding is that you don't get to play politics with your success. Had he kept his nose only in his business he probably would have been better off.

Quite interesting how much Xi Jinping has sought to humble Jack Ma.

Also known as destroying those that might compete with your power.

There are only so many billions to go around for Xi and his family.

Consolidating power is a convincing argument, but Xi doesn't seem to especially greedy (I am sure he's extremely comfortable, but he doesn't strike me as only in it for the money somehow). Though I see his extended family do seem to be doing a lot of business[1].

1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping#Family

For the great leaders, money no longer matter as their yes man can deliver them anything they wish. Thus, the next step on Maslow hierarchy is to make oneself to a god:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_need...

This line of reasoning is increasingly popular for some reason, probably because it's pushed by people like Bill Browder and some influential think tank types but it doesn't really stand to reason that dictators' primary motivation is money. I'm not doubting that Xi or Putin or whoever are probably worth at least a few hundred million (definitely not $200 billion) but if all they care about is money and the high life why have they been in politics for 25+ years when they could be living in London with a new identity and a few billion dollars?

It isn't logical. Some people are mentally ill in such a way that they are compelled to single mindedly seek power. Once they actually attain what they originally thought they wanted, nothing changes, because it's the process of gaining power that drives them. I think these people are more widespread than we would like to think, but in normal context they are merely considered "successful."

Jack Ma woke Xi Jinping to the West's interference in the Communist Youth League's United Front and the grooming of the nextgen communist econocrates. Had Jack Ma run his mouth through a political focus group and understood messaging in the way of ad industry before venting on the State regulator he might still head the Ant Group.

I am not sure the West even needed to influence these people in the slightest when China has actively sought out western ideas since economic relations began anew back in the late 90s. If these people all saw a generation of success due to blending of profitable ideas, why wouldn’t they “turn west”, so to speak? But you are right, Ma did alert people in China(and the outer world) with how casually unaligned to the party his speech was.

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