In the year 1999, with the help of more than a dozen friends who pooled their resources - some $60,000 - Jack¹ Ma, founded Alibaba, a business-to-business online platform. No one at that time would have thought a small start-up would initiate² the world’s largest initial public offering (IPO) on Wall Street, earning higher profits than those of interational giants like Amazon.com and eBay combined.

1999年，数位朋友集资6万美元，帮助马云创建了阿里巴巴——一个B2B的在线交易平台。当时，没有人会想到这家刚起步的小公司会在华尔街上市，并且融资额超过亚马逊，eBay等国际巨头，创下美国市场最大规模IPO纪录。

Ma’s bold ambitions, which were birthed in a time when China was a digital backwater, were realized last week.

马云的无畏抱负在中国数字化落后的年代产生，上周终于得以实现。

The initial public offering, which will raise as much as $25 billion, cements his position as one of China’s richest.

（阿里巴巴）首次公开募股，股指就达到250亿美元，使马云一跃成为中国首富。

Charismatic and energetic, Ma is nicknamed “Crazy Jack Ma” and is seen as China’s version of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, according to AP. And his story of starting an empire from scratch already makes him an inspiration to millions across China.

马云的超凡魅力和活力，被美联社昵称为“疯狂的杰克•马”，将其视为中国的乔布斯或比尔•盖茨。而他白手起家创建电商帝国的故事也早已激励了数百万中国人。

Ma isn’t just popular because of his wealth. He also possesses communication skills that allow him to communicate with audiences from a wide variety of cultural contexts through roadshows and TV interviews.

马云不仅因其财富而出名，在路演与电视采访中，他还展示出与各文化背景观众无障碍交流的强大沟通能力。

Reflecting on his success as a startup manager and English major, we try to analyze³ how Ma used his language skills to become an international superstar and profound visionary.

不论身为企业创始人还是英语专业毕业生，马云都是成功者。下面，就为大家分析马云是如何运用他的语言能力成为国际注目的商界明星，成为富有深刻远见卓识之人。

Underdog who seized the moment

抓住机遇的“失败者”

Ma failed his college entrance exams twice. He managed to enroll⁴ in Hangzhou Normal University on his third attempt, where he studied English.

经历了两次高考落榜后，马云终于在第三次勉强考进杭州师范大学学习英语。

He graduated in 1988 and taught English for years at the Hangzhou Institute of Electronic Engineering.

1988年毕业后，他进入杭州电子工业学院，教授了数年的英语。

Ma first experienced the Internet in 1995 on a short trip to Seattle. He can remember searching for the word “beer” on Yahoo!.

马云第一次接触网络是在1995年。当时是短暂途经西雅图，他第一次在雅虎上搜索了“啤酒”这个单词。

Ma noticed there was not a single online listing for “China” and “beer”, unlike those that popped up for American and German beer.

他注意到没有一家网站上有“中国”的“啤酒”，而当时弹出框中美国或德国的啤酒随处可见。

He quickly became obsessed⁵ with this online information system. Gradually, his obsession⁶ turned into a vision.

他很快就沉迷于这种在线信息系统。渐渐地，他的沉迷变成一种愿景和远见。

According to USA Today, he believed in the Internet’s business potential when few other Chinese did. So in 1999, Alibaba, which is dedicated⁷ to promoting online businesses, was born in his apartment.

根据《今日美国》的报道，在鲜有中国人注意互联网的时候，马云已经开始看好网上市场的潜力。于是，1999年，致力于连接商家之间的网络交易平台“阿里巴巴”公司在他的公寓中诞生。。

At the time e-commerce was unheard of in China.

那时，电商在中国还闻所未闻。

“I called myself a blind man riding on the back of blind tigers,” he once said to The Guardian⁸.

谈到当年的决定，马云对《卫报》的记者说：“我觉得自己就像骑在盲虎背上的盲人。”

\It turns out he was right.

结果证明，他是对的。

“The business model Ma Yun created in China suited the Chinese market,” said Feng Pengcheng, director of the China Research Center for Capital Management at the University of International Business and Economics.

外经济贸易大学中国资本运营研究中心主任冯鹏程说：“马云在中国创建的商业模式很适合中国市场。’’

“Ma seized opportunities as China was transforming into a market economy with the middle class unleashing⁹ buying power online on a significant scale.”

他说，“马云抓住了中国向市场经济转型的机遇，此时，中产阶级正释放出空前规模的网上购买力。”

Success in communication

交流上的成功

Many are surprised to see how good Ma’s command of English was in his IPO roadshow video and interview with Bloomberg after the listing (both video clips went viral online). He was always an English ethusiast. Starting at age 12, Ma says he awoke at 5 am to walk or bicycle to Hangzhou’s main hotel so he could practice his English with foreign tourists. He did this for nine years and acted as a free tour guide to many, befriending several groups along the way.

在IPO路演与上市后接受彭博社采访的视频中，马云都展示出惊艳的英语水平（这两段视频已在网上被疯转）。其实，马云一直是狂热的英语爱好者。他说，12岁开始，他每天都早上5点起床，步行或骑自行车去杭州一些主要的酒店，与那里的外国游客练习口语。这一练就是9年，期间，他还给很多游客做过免费导游，甚至帮助过一些旅行团。

“He is the opposite of stuffy¹⁰ and canned. He’s a funny, creative and a compelling speaker. I often thought he could have another career in stand-up comedy,” Said Duncan Clark, a Beijing-based technology consultant¹¹.

来自北京一家公司的技术顾问邓肯•克拉克曾评价道，“他（马云）一点也不沉闷古板。相反，他说话风趣，很有想法，也很吸引人。我总觉得，他如果去做脱口秀，也能做得很好，”

Responding to rumors¹² that Ma planned to move to Hong Kong next year on an investment immigration scheme, according to comment from The Guardian, “his speech was both patriotic¹³ and diplomatic, colloquial¹⁴ yet clearly well-planned. He explained that he had no plans to emigrate.”

在回应一些媒体对于他计划于明年通过投资移民搬往香港的传言，英国《卫报》对马云的沟通能力有如此评论，“他的演讲既充满爱国热情又兼顾外交效果，语言通俗但内容明显经过精心准备。他澄清自己并没有移民计划。”

Describing his ideas to press in the US and UK, according to BBC, Ma often uses a dizzying array of visual symbols, such fish in a pond and gold bars falling from the sky.

据BBC报道，在面对英美媒体，表达自己的观点，马云常会运用很多生动形象比喻，比如，池塘里的鱼，以及天上掉下的金条。

Sanjay Varma, a former Alibaba vice-president who now works in Hong Kong, still remembers how Ma could be such a convincing speaker when talking about his ambitions. He had long, late-night conversations with Ma about his ambitions in 1999, soon after the company was founded.

目前在香港工作的阿里巴巴前任副总裁——桑杰•瓦尔马仍然记得马云在陈述自己的抱负时，令人动容的说服力。1999年公司刚刚成立时，他和马云曾多次在彻夜长谈对未来的雄心与计划。

“He really wanted to empower the little guys, the small companies,” said Varma.

瓦尔马说，“他真的很想促进微小企业的发展”

To use the wording of the BBC, it is a “rags-to-riches” story both for Ma and the millions who depended on the eco-system he forged in the digital age of Alibaba.

正如BBC所言，不论对于马云，还是千千万依靠着马云依托数字时代建起的阿里平台发家致富的人，这都是一个“白手起家”的神话。