Life's lessons alike for Bryant, Ma

South China Morning Post

14 September 2009

By Bien Perez

They may look very different, but Chinese internet entrepreneur Jack Ma Yun and American professional athlete Kobe Bryant say they are very much alike.
 
Ma is a former English teacher who set up Alibaba Group, which started as a modest bulletin board service for buyers and sellers on the mainland and turned into the world's largest business-to-business e-commerce platform with more than 42 million users.

Bryant is the star player of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball club, which won the National Basketball Association (NBA) championship in June. It was Bryant's fourth title with the Lakers, an achievement that followed his efforts in leading the United States men's basketball team to the gold medal in the Beijing Olympic Games last year.
Both men are proven winners in their respective fields and an inspiration to many people across the globe. They also enjoy discussing together each other's philosophy.

"We just hit it off," said Bryant, who is about 1.98 metres tall, compared with Ma, who is 1.52 metres.
At the opening of the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation's Business Advisory Council SME Summit in Hangzhou on Friday, event host Ma and special guest Bryant talked about the similar lessons they have learned on the job and from life in general before an audience of small business owners.

Their lessons for small entrepreneurs: be determined, motivate colleagues, enjoy the competition, and learn from animals (both the real and make-believe kinds).

There are plenty of young basketball players who want to someday be part of the NBA, but very few get the opportunity.
"I was younger and skinnier than everybody else on court when I started playing basketball, so I relied on hard work to learn and get better. I kept the same attitude when I grew up," said Bryant, who made it to the NBA at 18.

Many businesses are born and die each day. Ma, who started Alibaba in his cramped apartment with 17 colleagues and pooled their money for capital because no bank would lend to them, said: "We had a belief of how the internet would develop in China and how e-commerce would develop."

The group has since grown to 17,000 employees and established leading enterprises such as business-to-business e-commerce provider Alibaba.com and online retail platform Taobao. It also runs Yahoo China, after the US internet company invested US$1 billion for a stake in Alibaba in 2005.

Bryant, a co-captain on the Lakers team, said establishing a bond with each player was important so he would know what could help motivate each one during the NBA's long 82-game regular season and the play-offs.
At Alibaba, Ma said there was constant encouragement in the group. "We want our employees to be rich, not just monetarily but also spiritually," he said.

Both Ma and Bryant said competition in their respective fields had only made their teams learn more and become stronger, whether they lost or won.

"Business should be about having fun, just like playing basketball," Ma added.

As for learning from animals, Bryant has given himself the nickname "Black Mamba", the fastest land snake and one of most venomous of its kind, to signify what kind of threat he is in basketball.

Ma said he loved watching the hit Hollywood animated movie Kung Fu Panda, in which the lesson was, there was no "secret ingredient" that made a difference between one's success or failure.

"You make the difference," Ma said.