Where does the concept of partners come from? Alibaba first proposed the concept of "partners" at the Alibaba 10th anniversary celebration party in 2009. Jack Ma announced that the company's 18 founders collectively "resigned". Baba moved from the founder era to the partner era. To be honest, I felt baffled when I saw some open letters from founders, because the resignation letter said "resignation as founder". The founder itself is not a position, but more of a person's status in the company and an honor. A symbol, a label, can these be "resigned"? Looking at the years after the founder resigned, the actual power of the 18 founders who are still serving in the company has become even greater, and most of them have become real powerful figures. It is true that became "partners".
Of course, the original definition of "partner" may not be completely equivalent to the "partner" in the current "partnership system", but at least in 2009, Alibaba was already considering how to pass the "partnership system" ” to strengthen control over the company.
Another explanation for Wei Zhe’s resignation. Another major event happened in 2010, when Wei Zhe resigned. For a long time, Wei Zhe's "resignation" has been puzzling. Alibaba announced to the public that in order to maintain the company's customer-first values ??and principles of integrity, in 2010 Alibaba B2B Company liquidated approximately 0.8% of more than a thousand Chinese supplier customers suspected of fraud. The company's CEO Wei Zhe and COO Li Xuhui resigned as a result.
In the eyes of outsiders, Wei Zhe's treatment was inevitably a bit too harsh, which triggered various interpretations and speculations. If you think of the Alipay equity dispute a year later, there is another interpretation: In order to prevent Jack Ma from losing control of the company, all hidden dangers must be eliminated, and Wei Zhe is the biggest hidden danger. Why do you say that? Because starting from October 2010, Yahoo's voting rights increased to 39, becoming Alibaba's true largest shareholder. Yahoo's number of seats on the board of directors has increased to two, that is, both Yahoo and Alibaba can appoint two directors, and SoftBank has one seat. Breaking the original balance of four seats. And if Wei Zhe is still at Alibaba, he does not rule out joining the board of directors, which will become an unknown variable, and Jack Ma may be dismissed. Of course, no one knows how likely this is. From another perspective, Wei Zhe was also the only one among Alibaba executives at the time, besides Jack Ma and Tsai Chongxin, who could connect with international capital. Just in time, the incident of supplier fraud triggered the fuse, forcing Wei Zhe to resign.
Wei Zhe is not the founder, and Wei Zhe is not a partner. The source of the hidden pain of control
The reason why Alibaba does not give up the "partnership system" and has repeatedly claimed that it is an "institutional innovation" is that in the final analysis, Jack Ma himself does not want to lose control of the company. Why does Jack Ma value control so much? Read on. Jack Ma founded China Yellow Pages in 1995 and worked hard to start a business. Not long after it started, competitors sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain, especially similar businesses under Hangzhou Telecom. Moreover, their names were also called "China Yellow Pages". Hangzhou Telecom was rich and powerful. Resources, do the same thing again. Unable to endure it, Jack Ma finally decided to cooperate with Hangzhou Telecom. Jack Ma and his team held 30% of the shares, and Hangzhou Telecom held 70%. However, the cooperation quickly ran into problems. As a result, Jack Ma left China Yellow Pages and gave his shares to employees who started the business together. .