6 ms·

Jack Ma Says: If You’re Poor at 35, You Deserve It

40 points by sayemm 12y ago

themoonbus 12y ago
I don't know what it is that often makes successful people seem to lack basic empathy. I assume once you've succeeded following a certain path, you think the options that were available to you are available to anyone – if only they were good / smart / strong enough to make the most of them. Such smart people seem to lack a basic understanding that the world is a complex place, and social, cultural, and economic forces can have as much a role in shaping life trajectories as one's abilities and ambition. Or perhaps to put it another way, not all hardships are created equal.
- threatofrain 12y ago
  I think the issue is that even if we have some kind of magical wand to wave away all unmeritous structural conditions in society, wave away all life accidents and lotteries, we would still be left in a world of skewed wealth and opportunity due to natural biological variation and its accumulative effect in an economy with memory. Any empathy based primarily on an understanding of structural constraints and injustice will fall short in soothing the natural and irrevocable cruelty of meritocracy. We have left a difficult question unanswered: do stronger or more productive humans warrant a bigger piece of the world pie?
- eterm 12y ago
  They also seem to suddenly forget about survivorship bias. Because they've ended up on a good outcome they assume that all their choices along the way were the correct ones.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- sopooneo 12y ago
  Many such people have had irrational beliefs. It's like a guy that has "system" for winning the lottery, and then does.
- MCRed 12y ago
  That's true, but at least in the USA-- where I've worked with two people who were in poverty when we met-- you can turn your life around. In my experience, with hard work on their part and a little bit of guidance it took them about 2-3 years to get into well paying (e.g.: well above minimum wage) jobs. The biggest thing inhibiting them before we worked together was growing up in a situation that seemed hopeless to the point where they couldn't see the path or the opportunity that was there for them.
  - themoonbus 12y ago
    Well in that case, they were lucky to have you as a resource. Please don't think I'm saying hard work isn't important, but it definitely is not the only factor in succeeding.
    - MCRed 12y ago
      I agree. I was trying to say that what was obvious to me were things they didn't think of. That part of the problem is that people get conditioned to see their horizon as narrow. It cost me nothing to help these people (Really, I did give them loans and stuff like that over time, but the real help was not money.) Unfortunately, our society is focused on the welfare system, but the welfare system never illuminated the path for these people. Of course, this is based on my experience so it's anecdote.
  - Retric 12y ago
    I suspect that both of them where working age, sane, healthy, without major addictions, reasonably intelligent, and had an acceptably clean background. Remove some or all of the above and even low levels of success become far less likely. That said, a friend of mine got a middle class job despite health issues, addiction, and with a somewhat shady past it's just much harder. However, he also had a fairly strong network to fall back on when things where tough which helps.
    - MCRed 12y ago
      One person lacked two of those factors, the other lacked one. In both cases they perceived those, and other factors as making the possibility of success unlikely. I managed to convince them otherwise, because in part, I have a similar background, and because they saw results.
- jusssi 12y ago
  Having basic empathy (i.e. not being a psycopath) might be an obstacle in getting rich quick. A wider range of options is available if you don't have to care what your actions cause to others.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    That's an interesting hypothesis. Can you give some examples, that an individual in poverty, could use to get rich quick-- but only if they lacked empathy? I'm assuming these are things that would not land them in jail (because otherwise you'd need to argue that they won't get caught, which I think is a harder argument.) I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious if there is opportunity to become rich quickly, without ending up in jail, that I can't think of simply because I have empathy.
    - davesque 12y ago
      Starting an online gambling website, for one.
      - Crito 12y ago
        What do online gambling websites have to do with empathy, or lack of it? I mean, I guess in some jurisdictions it is illegal, so it would be a risky move, but what does that have to do with empathy? Lack of empathy for your future, potentially jailed, self I guess?
      - jfoster 12y ago
        I don't think that would be much easier than most startups. The same mechanics still apply. In fact, it's potentially harder due to being heavily regulated or illegal in lots of places. It also has lots of fraud risk.
    - bakareika 12y ago
      Whether you end up in jail depends on something else entirely. Let's say that our individual in question needs to lack empathy and be more able than an average cop in that location.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  "I don't know what it is that often makes successful people seem to lack basic empathy" Or lack a basic understanding of economics.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    What economics is he lacking? Are you arguing that the economy is zero sum?
    - deeviant 12y ago
      Regardless of whether the economy is zero sum or not, it is trivial to see that not everybody can be rich. So even if everybody did the "right" thing, not everybody would be rich, or even wealthy. See: the world GDP divided by world population.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - yellow_and_gray 12y ago
        That's not exactly true. The world GDP divided by world population is a snapshot of the current state of the world today. It's not a snapshot of everybody doing the "right" thing. It's also not a snapshot of everybody doing the "right" thing in 1000 years from now. You are excluding possibilities.
      - Crito 12y ago
        But this conversation isn't about being rich. It is about not being poor. There is a world of difference between the two.
- deeviant 12y ago
  I think that the general lack of empathy in rich people is mainly related to the fact that to succeed, you generally do have to try hard, work diligently towards a goal, and generally be reasonably smart, however, these things are necessary but not sufficient. So rich people work their asses off and tend to assume that anybody who works their asses off will have the same result as they do, not realizing that you have to work you ass off, be in the right place in the right time, know the right people, grow up or have experience in the right environment and in general have all sorts of things fall into place in order to achieve a truly meteoric success.
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago
  How did you infer Jack Ma, a former school teacher, lacks basic empathy? And why so much hatred towards him in this thread? According to him, one of the reasons people lose is: Lacking understanding I'm not sure people in this thread are understanding enough. It's a little presumptuous to interpret that advice only as "not knowing things" but not as "not being understanding with people". Or are you saying Jack Ma didn't go through hardship? Lacking understanding the world is a complex place tends to be found in less smart people than the other way around. So what's your point? Or are you saying someone who tells the truth, and the truth turns out to be uncomfortable, is interpreted as lacking empathy?
  - yellow_and_gray 12y ago
    The biggest thing I learned from all this downvoting is you can't guide people too fast. You have to tease them with questions. You have to first let them fall into their own traps. They learn better that way. Too high a dosage of anything can be harmful.
- jrs99 12y ago
  i wouldn't take it too seriously. It sounds more like a pep talk to me. it's the beginning of a motivational book in the making.
- incision 12y ago
  >'I assume once you've succeeded following a certain path, you think the options that were available to you are available to anyone – if only they were good / smart / strong enough to make the most of them.' I think this is actually worse than that. Strength, smarts and expertise are positives that are generally implied as possible to build or at least quantify. This is more an absolute negative judgement, shaming even "You have chosen to fail." as if success is as simple as flipping an intangible switch inside. I think it's hard in general to see the world through another's lens. I expect the very successful are particulary prone to this as they have both a strong, but narrow 'proof' of their own authority on the matter and an endless supply of people seeking their approval - not the sort to give criticism.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- melling 12y ago
  You haven't established that Jack Ma is smart, or at least any smarter than average. Why do people always assume that rich people are smart? From what I've read, he worked very hard and took a few chances.
- ghodith 12y ago
  The opinion that rich people lack empathy feels like a very attractive answer for this question, be wary. Note: It is generally bad practice to assume negative attributes about someone just so they are easier to disagree with. It is practically attempting to disqualify an argument without actually having to addressing it. With that said I do not think it held much water in the first place, but I find it better off just saying that instead of trying to find some fault with the person who wrote it.
- thathonkey 12y ago
  It's a combination of being intellectually lazy+familial influence+narcissism+lack of perspective. Not really that complicated once you realize that all of this is reinforced and forms a feedback loop throughout these individuals' lives because they tend to congregate and be friends (thus, more likely to show their true feathers) with others who are just like them.
mud_dauber 12y ago
Fuck Jack Ma. There. I said it.
- davesque 12y ago
  Hold your horses. The Guardian claims that Alibaba says this is a hoax. If so, then don't fuck Jack Ma :).
  - Sanddancer 12y ago
    Even if it is true, I wouldn't fuck Jack Ma. I'd probably end up getting affluenza or some other social disease rendering me incapable of basic empathy and understanding of situations beyond the most simplistic ones.
MCRed 12y ago
I think this depends a lot on the country and how much economic opportunity there is. In some countries- like china in the past, for instance- you couldn't start a business without favor from political elites. If you live in the USA, made $10 an hour (just a proxy for "minimum wage"), you net about $18,000 after taxes, or $1473 a month. IF you can find a room to rent for $400 a month and spend $300 a month on food etc, that leaves you about $750 a month to save. That's $9,000 a year or $153,000 over 17 years (the time it takes to go from 18 years old to 35 years old.) That's assuming no growth in your income or returns on your savings over that period. What's worked well for me personally is, whatever my income, I've tried to live like I had half of that income. This is easy in some places, harder in others. Impossible in New York City (I think.) This is also why I think that Remote work is a huge opportunity-- people could live in cheap places while earning an income from companies in expensive places with high value businesses. EG: Programmers moving to Butte Montana and working for Bay Area Startups.
- epicureanideal 12y ago
  Assuming you don't need a car (payment, insurance, gas), don't need to take a bus (costs money each time you take it or monthly). Assuming you don't have any medical problems. Assuming you don't have a cell phone (becoming a necessity) or an internet connection at home. No laptop (becoming a necessity).
- jsaxton86 12y ago
  I'm sure lots of poor people would find wisdom in what you're saying, including single mothers, people with health issues, people making a lot less than $10/hr, students, and a lot of others I'm sure I'm forgetting.
nisa 12y ago
The Guardian says the piece is not from Jack Ma: http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/26/rich-work-harder-ceos-jack-ma http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/26/r...
- msie 12y ago
  It's too bad that I had to read most of the comments to get to this bit of information. Do comments rise to the top due to votes? Not obvious anymore without the point totals being displayed.
7Figures2Commas 12y ago
If you're poor at 35, it's because you haven't curried enough favor with the government.
throwaway2121 12y ago
Yup, Mozart, Abel and van Gogh sure got what they deserved.
Patrick_Devine 12y ago
Am I missing something? In the article it said "If you're poor at 35, no one will pity you.", not that you "deserve it". The headline seems like click-bait. At any rate, even the statement he did say is demonstrably not true as there are certainly some people who will have pity. But so what? Someone feeling sorry for you I suppose is nice, but being broke sucks.
gexla 12y ago
Odd title. I don't see anywhere in this article where Jack Ma is actually quoted as saying this. The closest I found was towards the bottom of the article. And since this article covers two different people, it's not clear who this statement should be attributed to. Or maybe the statements are from the author of the article. "When you have not accomplished anything by the time you are 35, no one will pity you." This quote could have a much different meaning than the title. This seems to be a fluffy article stuffed with motivational statements from the author with some short biographies thrown in. It was originally written in Chinese and translated into English. Maybe it didn't carry the message as well in English.
brudgers 12y ago
Had Jack Ma been born a generation earlier, he might well been swept up in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and sent "Down to the Countryside". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent-down_youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent-down_youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_to_the_Countryside_Movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_to_the_Countryside_Movemen... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
- hackerboos 12y ago
  If it wasn't for Deng Xiaoping's reforms then China would not be the economic powerhouse it is today.
- n09n 12y ago
  Had your father pulled out a second earlier, we might not have had to read your stupid comment.
joelthelion 12y ago
Making money is not the only worthwhile goal in life. Some people have different objectives.
bakareika 12y ago
It's not "you deserve it" (which has a bad connotation, as if not being rich is derogatory). More like, if you seem to be unable to amass cash, then you are probably unable; do something else instead. Being rich or poor is overrated, this is just another condition like being healthy, or able to read Chinese. Everything can be fixed to an extent, and depends on whichever characteristic is perceived as more valuable to have.
ThePhysicist 12y ago
That's an odd quote because apparently Ma himself was already over 35 when he started Alibaba: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma
- n09n 12y ago
  It's not a quote.
bayesianhorse 12y ago
Wealth often causes a certain entitlement effect...
msie 12y ago
Please read ALL of the comments here before you form a knee-jerk opinion about Jack Ma.
_greim_ 12y ago
The successful gravitate toward the view that each individual emerges from previous circumstance onto a basically level playing field and that the best ones win. The unsuccessful similarly gravitate toward the view that each person is a product of factors utterly beyond their control and that success is basically down to which vagina you came out of. I think that Jack Ma is erring to the former extreme here.
neilni 12y ago
It seems like a lot of people are confused about the wording 'deserve' in the title. The word is not mentioned in the post, but is a direct translation from the original post. (Yes, I speak Chinese.) Just to add, the original post has been around for months, and I have not yet seen the actual reference to the speech that he was giving in either video or audio, so it seems like a fake post to me. And the wordings are made to be really strong to catch attentions.
Ceneka 12y ago
Looks like someone skipped out on the works of Flannery O'Connor and Shakespeare while at University.

40 points by sayemm 12y ago

I don't know what it is that often makes successful people seem to lack basic empathy. I assume once you've succeeded following a certain path, you think the options that were available to you are available to anyone – if only they were good / smart / strong enough to make the most of them. Such smart people seem to lack a basic understanding that the world is a complex place, and social, cultural, and economic forces can have as much a role in shaping life trajectories as one's abilities and ambition. Or perhaps to put it another way, not all hardships are created equal.

threatofrain 12y ago
I think the issue is that even if we have some kind of magical wand to wave away all unmeritous structural conditions in society, wave away all life accidents and lotteries, we would still be left in a world of skewed wealth and opportunity due to natural biological variation and its accumulative effect in an economy with memory. Any empathy based primarily on an understanding of structural constraints and injustice will fall short in soothing the natural and irrevocable cruelty of meritocracy. We have left a difficult question unanswered: do stronger or more productive humans warrant a bigger piece of the world pie?
eterm 12y ago
They also seem to suddenly forget about survivorship bias. Because they've ended up on a good outcome they assume that all their choices along the way were the correct ones.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
sopooneo 12y ago
Many such people have had irrational beliefs. It's like a guy that has "system" for winning the lottery, and then does.
MCRed 12y ago
That's true, but at least in the USA-- where I've worked with two people who were in poverty when we met-- you can turn your life around. In my experience, with hard work on their part and a little bit of guidance it took them about 2-3 years to get into well paying (e.g.: well above minimum wage) jobs. The biggest thing inhibiting them before we worked together was growing up in a situation that seemed hopeless to the point where they couldn't see the path or the opportunity that was there for them.
- themoonbus 12y ago
  Well in that case, they were lucky to have you as a resource. Please don't think I'm saying hard work isn't important, but it definitely is not the only factor in succeeding.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    I agree. I was trying to say that what was obvious to me were things they didn't think of. That part of the problem is that people get conditioned to see their horizon as narrow. It cost me nothing to help these people (Really, I did give them loans and stuff like that over time, but the real help was not money.) Unfortunately, our society is focused on the welfare system, but the welfare system never illuminated the path for these people. Of course, this is based on my experience so it's anecdote.
- Retric 12y ago
  I suspect that both of them where working age, sane, healthy, without major addictions, reasonably intelligent, and had an acceptably clean background. Remove some or all of the above and even low levels of success become far less likely. That said, a friend of mine got a middle class job despite health issues, addiction, and with a somewhat shady past it's just much harder. However, he also had a fairly strong network to fall back on when things where tough which helps.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    One person lacked two of those factors, the other lacked one. In both cases they perceived those, and other factors as making the possibility of success unlikely. I managed to convince them otherwise, because in part, I have a similar background, and because they saw results.
jusssi 12y ago
Having basic empathy (i.e. not being a psycopath) might be an obstacle in getting rich quick. A wider range of options is available if you don't have to care what your actions cause to others.
- MCRed 12y ago
  That's an interesting hypothesis. Can you give some examples, that an individual in poverty, could use to get rich quick-- but only if they lacked empathy? I'm assuming these are things that would not land them in jail (because otherwise you'd need to argue that they won't get caught, which I think is a harder argument.) I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious if there is opportunity to become rich quickly, without ending up in jail, that I can't think of simply because I have empathy.
  - davesque 12y ago
    Starting an online gambling website, for one.
    - Crito 12y ago
      What do online gambling websites have to do with empathy, or lack of it? I mean, I guess in some jurisdictions it is illegal, so it would be a risky move, but what does that have to do with empathy? Lack of empathy for your future, potentially jailed, self I guess?
    - jfoster 12y ago
      I don't think that would be much easier than most startups. The same mechanics still apply. In fact, it's potentially harder due to being heavily regulated or illegal in lots of places. It also has lots of fraud risk.
  - bakareika 12y ago
    Whether you end up in jail depends on something else entirely. Let's say that our individual in question needs to lack empathy and be more able than an average cop in that location.
keithpeter 12y ago
"I don't know what it is that often makes successful people seem to lack basic empathy" Or lack a basic understanding of economics.
- MCRed 12y ago
  What economics is he lacking? Are you arguing that the economy is zero sum?
  - deeviant 12y ago
    Regardless of whether the economy is zero sum or not, it is trivial to see that not everybody can be rich. So even if everybody did the "right" thing, not everybody would be rich, or even wealthy. See: the world GDP divided by world population.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - yellow_and_gray 12y ago
      That's not exactly true. The world GDP divided by world population is a snapshot of the current state of the world today. It's not a snapshot of everybody doing the "right" thing. It's also not a snapshot of everybody doing the "right" thing in 1000 years from now. You are excluding possibilities.
    - Crito 12y ago
      But this conversation isn't about being rich. It is about not being poor. There is a world of difference between the two.
deeviant 12y ago
I think that the general lack of empathy in rich people is mainly related to the fact that to succeed, you generally do have to try hard, work diligently towards a goal, and generally be reasonably smart, however, these things are necessary but not sufficient. So rich people work their asses off and tend to assume that anybody who works their asses off will have the same result as they do, not realizing that you have to work you ass off, be in the right place in the right time, know the right people, grow up or have experience in the right environment and in general have all sorts of things fall into place in order to achieve a truly meteoric success.
yellow_and_gray 12y ago
How did you infer Jack Ma, a former school teacher, lacks basic empathy? And why so much hatred towards him in this thread? According to him, one of the reasons people lose is: Lacking understanding I'm not sure people in this thread are understanding enough. It's a little presumptuous to interpret that advice only as "not knowing things" but not as "not being understanding with people". Or are you saying Jack Ma didn't go through hardship? Lacking understanding the world is a complex place tends to be found in less smart people than the other way around. So what's your point? Or are you saying someone who tells the truth, and the truth turns out to be uncomfortable, is interpreted as lacking empathy?
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago
  The biggest thing I learned from all this downvoting is you can't guide people too fast. You have to tease them with questions. You have to first let them fall into their own traps. They learn better that way. Too high a dosage of anything can be harmful.
jrs99 12y ago
i wouldn't take it too seriously. It sounds more like a pep talk to me. it's the beginning of a motivational book in the making.
incision 12y ago
>'I assume once you've succeeded following a certain path, you think the options that were available to you are available to anyone – if only they were good / smart / strong enough to make the most of them.' I think this is actually worse than that. Strength, smarts and expertise are positives that are generally implied as possible to build or at least quantify. This is more an absolute negative judgement, shaming even "You have chosen to fail." as if success is as simple as flipping an intangible switch inside. I think it's hard in general to see the world through another's lens. I expect the very successful are particulary prone to this as they have both a strong, but narrow 'proof' of their own authority on the matter and an endless supply of people seeking their approval - not the sort to give criticism.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
melling 12y ago
You haven't established that Jack Ma is smart, or at least any smarter than average. Why do people always assume that rich people are smart? From what I've read, he worked very hard and took a few chances.
ghodith 12y ago
The opinion that rich people lack empathy feels like a very attractive answer for this question, be wary. Note: It is generally bad practice to assume negative attributes about someone just so they are easier to disagree with. It is practically attempting to disqualify an argument without actually having to addressing it. With that said I do not think it held much water in the first place, but I find it better off just saying that instead of trying to find some fault with the person who wrote it.
thathonkey 12y ago
It's a combination of being intellectually lazy+familial influence+narcissism+lack of perspective. Not really that complicated once you realize that all of this is reinforced and forms a feedback loop throughout these individuals' lives because they tend to congregate and be friends (thus, more likely to show their true feathers) with others who are just like them.

mud_dauber 12y ago

Fuck Jack Ma. There. I said it.

davesque 12y ago
Hold your horses. The Guardian claims that Alibaba says this is a hoax. If so, then don't fuck Jack Ma :).
- Sanddancer 12y ago
  Even if it is true, I wouldn't fuck Jack Ma. I'd probably end up getting affluenza or some other social disease rendering me incapable of basic empathy and understanding of situations beyond the most simplistic ones.

MCRed 12y ago

I think this depends a lot on the country and how much economic opportunity there is. In some countries- like china in the past, for instance- you couldn't start a business without favor from political elites. If you live in the USA, made $10 an hour (just a proxy for "minimum wage"), you net about $18,000 after taxes, or $1473 a month. IF you can find a room to rent for $400 a month and spend $300 a month on food etc, that leaves you about $750 a month to save. That's $9,000 a year or $153,000 over 17 years (the time it takes to go from 18 years old to 35 years old.) That's assuming no growth in your income or returns on your savings over that period. What's worked well for me personally is, whatever my income, I've tried to live like I had half of that income. This is easy in some places, harder in others. Impossible in New York City (I think.) This is also why I think that Remote work is a huge opportunity-- people could live in cheap places while earning an income from companies in expensive places with high value businesses. EG: Programmers moving to Butte Montana and working for Bay Area Startups.

epicureanideal 12y ago
Assuming you don't need a car (payment, insurance, gas), don't need to take a bus (costs money each time you take it or monthly). Assuming you don't have any medical problems. Assuming you don't have a cell phone (becoming a necessity) or an internet connection at home. No laptop (becoming a necessity).
jsaxton86 12y ago
I'm sure lots of poor people would find wisdom in what you're saying, including single mothers, people with health issues, people making a lot less than $10/hr, students, and a lot of others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

nisa 12y ago

The Guardian says the piece is not from Jack Ma: http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/26/rich-work-harder-ceos-jack-ma http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/26/r...

msie 12y ago
It's too bad that I had to read most of the comments to get to this bit of information. Do comments rise to the top due to votes? Not obvious anymore without the point totals being displayed.

7Figures2Commas 12y ago

If you're poor at 35, it's because you haven't curried enough favor with the government.

throwaway2121 12y ago

Yup, Mozart, Abel and van Gogh sure got what they deserved.

Patrick_Devine 12y ago

Am I missing something? In the article it said "If you're poor at 35, no one will pity you.", not that you "deserve it". The headline seems like click-bait. At any rate, even the statement he did say is demonstrably not true as there are certainly some people who will have pity. But so what? Someone feeling sorry for you I suppose is nice, but being broke sucks.

gexla 12y ago

Odd title. I don't see anywhere in this article where Jack Ma is actually quoted as saying this. The closest I found was towards the bottom of the article. And since this article covers two different people, it's not clear who this statement should be attributed to. Or maybe the statements are from the author of the article. "When you have not accomplished anything by the time you are 35, no one will pity you." This quote could have a much different meaning than the title. This seems to be a fluffy article stuffed with motivational statements from the author with some short biographies thrown in. It was originally written in Chinese and translated into English. Maybe it didn't carry the message as well in English.

brudgers 12y ago

Had Jack Ma been born a generation earlier, he might well been swept up in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and sent "Down to the Countryside". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent-down_youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent-down_youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_to_the_Countryside_Movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_to_the_Countryside_Movemen... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

hackerboos 12y ago
If it wasn't for Deng Xiaoping's reforms then China would not be the economic powerhouse it is today.
n09n 12y ago
Had your father pulled out a second earlier, we might not have had to read your stupid comment.

joelthelion 12y ago

Making money is not the only worthwhile goal in life. Some people have different objectives.

bakareika 12y ago

It's not "you deserve it" (which has a bad connotation, as if not being rich is derogatory). More like, if you seem to be unable to amass cash, then you are probably unable; do something else instead. Being rich or poor is overrated, this is just another condition like being healthy, or able to read Chinese. Everything can be fixed to an extent, and depends on whichever characteristic is perceived as more valuable to have.

ThePhysicist 12y ago

That's an odd quote because apparently Ma himself was already over 35 when he started Alibaba: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma

n09n 12y ago
It's not a quote.

bayesianhorse 12y ago

Wealth often causes a certain entitlement effect...

msie 12y ago

Please read ALL of the comments here before you form a knee-jerk opinion about Jack Ma.

_greim_ 12y ago

The successful gravitate toward the view that each individual emerges from previous circumstance onto a basically level playing field and that the best ones win. The unsuccessful similarly gravitate toward the view that each person is a product of factors utterly beyond their control and that success is basically down to which vagina you came out of. I think that Jack Ma is erring to the former extreme here.

neilni 12y ago

It seems like a lot of people are confused about the wording 'deserve' in the title. The word is not mentioned in the post, but is a direct translation from the original post. (Yes, I speak Chinese.) Just to add, the original post has been around for months, and I have not yet seen the actual reference to the speech that he was giving in either video or audio, so it seems like a fake post to me. And the wordings are made to be really strong to catch attentions.

Ceneka 12y ago

Looks like someone skipped out on the works of Flannery O'Connor and Shakespeare while at University.