Chapter 529

Jack Ma first berated Lei Bus, then Li Yanhong, then Liu Qiangdong—he was utterly dominant, with no one able to stand against him.

But he met resistance here from the Principal, and was left humiliated.

The Principal directly crushed Jack Ma with revolutionary tradition—those words were heavy indeed.

It was as if Jack Ma were the landlord who drove the people to desperation, so they rose up, beat him, and divided his land.

To some in capital, this was a taboo topic; several were already drenched in sweat—only the Principal dared speak so boldly.

Aside from Zhang Chaoyang, everyone else's expression changed to varying degrees, for they were effectively part of the landlord class.

Only Liu Qiangdong's expression was slightly better, showing a touch of sentiment.

Jack Ma's face was grim too; those words struck him hard, for he knew exactly what kind of person he was.

But he did not interrupt the Principal as he continued speaking.

"Jack Ma constantly talks about how his duty is to help others, how he must cultivate more JDs, how he solves future problems, how he has resolved trust between people—as if he were so great."

"In my view, it's all a castle in the air, utterly illusory—he opens his mouth and pretends he has risen above the world, while everyone else is drunk and only he is awake."

Fang Hong's last remark was mocking Jack Ma—mocking how he had gone after everyone one by one, as if he had seized the high ground, when in truth he had accomplished nothing.

Everyone in the room chuckled; this remark was much lighter, after the previous words had been so terrifying.

Fang Hong knew those words were frightening, so he switched tactics: "But some have forgotten—we agreed over thirty years ago that the first to get rich should lead the rest to prosperity, toward common wealth."

Should we honor that agreement? Is this not a matter of credibility? Should we not strive to achieve this goal?

For some, opportunity is a burden; for others, wealth is a nuisance—why not try to solve today's problems? Today's problems are already countless; why worry about the future? Let the future solve its own problems—we need not concern ourselves.

I've always said enterprises must not lose their conscience. Baidu alone has made people suffer terribly, with the public pointing fingers and cursing them—why can't we entrepreneurs improve our own image and repair our reputations?

Must we wait until we become outcasts, hunted by all, before we're satisfied? Must we become cold-blooded capitalists?

Fang Hong's words directly berated Li Yanhong and Jack Ma, accusing them of being capitalists who destroyed the reputation of entrepreneurs.

Even the others present were wounded—no one's reputation remained clean.

Li Yanhong's inner monologue screamed "Cao Ni Ma"—the Principal had repeatedly dragged him out for public flogging; it was enough.

Why not talk about others, like Zhang Chaoyang? He's slacking off too.

He slacks off without harming anyone, yet his reputation is utterly rotten, stinking to high heaven. The Principal's reputation isn't great either, but the grassroots feel nothing.

Because he has never harmed the grassroots.

Those who curse him are competitors—Huayi, Bonar, Alibaba, Tencent—people of that tier.

But Baidu? That's genuine loathing—everyone shouts to beat it.

"Today I finally understand why everyone calls him Principal," Jack Ma slouched, casual in posture, as if unaffected by the Principal's earlier words.

He had already adjusted his mindset.

"Why?" asked the host.

"A Principal, after all, must care about school affairs, care about students' growth—that's good. But Principals never handle concrete matters; they like sitting in their offices scribbling, signing documents, looking so lofty."

"They don't know the real situation of students—their grades, their struggles. Who, then, is the one who actually does the work?"

Jack Ma placed his hand on his chest, gazing at the audience below: "It's teachers like us."

The audience understood his meaning in that final line.

It was simple to grasp: Jack Ma was the teacher; Fang Hong was the Principal.

The "Principal" likes sitting in his office giving orders, mouthing empty words—he knows nothing of the real situation of the "students."

The "teacher" teaches and nurtures—he is closest to the students, and knows exactly what they're going through.

Here, "students" specifically refers to the grassroots.

This rebutted Fang Hong's accusation that Jack Ma was all talk—actually, Fang Hong himself was the one who only spoke, only played with words, and did nothing.

Jack Ma was quick-witted and clear-thinking—he used their roles to counter Fang Hong's arguments.

Fang Hong said nothing; others had let him finish, so he would let them finish too.

"Poverty alleviation and poverty eradication are two things, but poverty eradication and wealth creation are one and the same. Poverty alleviation is the government's responsibility; wealth creation is the entrepreneur's responsibility. Only with a wealth-creation mindset can true poverty eradication be achieved."

"Poverty eradication is not about eliminating the poor—it's about eliminating poverty. The poor will always exist, but poverty can be eradicated."

Jack Ma launched into another grand speech, absolving himself of responsibility for poverty alleviation, claiming the poor must embrace a wealth-creation mindset to achieve true poverty eradication.

It sounded reasonable—yet said nothing at all.

"We often say: give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, and you feed him for life. Poverty alleviation is giving fish; poverty eradication is teaching fishing; wealth creation is building fish ponds, raising fish."

"Just now, the Principal told me to donate money for poverty alleviation. I say this: money runs out. You give it today, he spends it tomorrow—such poverty alleviation is meaningless; poverty returns, and the cycle begins again."

"If poverty eradication isn't sustainable or stable, we'd rather not do it at all. If we do it, we must find better ways—to teach them to fish, to raise fish."

Jack Ma delivered another lofty theory.

It made sense—very sensible—but it could truly be interpreted as: Why should I help you escape poverty?

This man says many things that sound reasonable, making him seem grand in vision—but ask him for concrete action, and there's none.

When you demand he fulfill his responsibility, he dodges: "What is a wealth-creation mindset? Who in this world doesn't want to make money and live well? People aren't born to suffer—they need opportunities to earn, and they need us to create opportunities for them—don't block all the chances."

"Just as I said: you take jobs that should belong to ordinary people and hand them to those with more education, who understand your rules better—those who master conversion rates, click-through rates, earn more. What about those who don't understand them? What happens to them?"

"Others say Taobao is 'real estate'—it just sells storefronts. Even real estate requires a threshold—what about those with low thresholds?"

"If I'm not mistaken, Taobao has now started selling traffic. Won't sellers who can't buy traffic be even less able to sell their goods?"

"Isn't this exactly: those who make money get richer, and the poor get poorer? Do I need to say more?"

"What about helping more JDs? You've helped more JDs—but behind them lie countless small sellers' corpses. You claim seven million sellers—but if ten thousand make money on your platform, you're lucky, and many of those are big sellers who've sucked up the share that should've gone to small and medium sellers."

Fang Hong was deeply curious—this man truly could confuse the issue. Wealth-creation mindset? In simple terms, isn't this just evading responsibility? Who doesn't have a wealth-creation mindset? Who doesn't want to make money?

He becomes the rule-maker—the poor grow poorer, the rich grow richer—and Alibaba has evolved this way.

This struck a chord with Liu Qiangdong, who gave Fang Hong an approving glance—yes, the Principal was powerful, facing Jack Ma without a trace of doubt.

Lei Bus also smiled, nodding—only the Principal could say these things; they couldn't.

Others watched with great interest; Jack Ma had finally met his match, who not only overturned his previous data.

He also refuted every word Jack Ma said, claiming Taobao would never suit ordinary people's survival; future Taobao would be this way: if you wanted to start a business on it, you had to buy traffic.

Without money to buy traffic, your chance of success is harder than climbing to heaven.

"Although Chang'e Technology is still in development, we never play pretend. Our distribution advantage comes from user sharing—no matter what you share, there are always some people who like to watch, and it genuinely brings benefits to some people."

Take Bilibili as an example: a few days ago, my finance team ran the numbers for me and said Bilibili's revenue this year is $131 million, but it's losing $273 million.

Even after counting all revenue, it's still losing this much—meaning Bilibili's total revenue plus loss this year amounts to $404 million.

That means we've paid creators at least $2.8 billion, not even counting those who earn money through live streaming on the platform—they can make money in all kinds of ways there; this is how ordinary people earn.

"Please, Mr. Jack Ma, find me one 'Principal' like me—who only sits in an office, never interacts with 'students'."

Fang Hong spoke with growing enthusiasm; Jack Ma remained expressionless—he truly had no rebuttal.

Of course, he knew internally that the Principal had actually done something, otherwise traffic wouldn't have gathered so fast, and content wouldn't have increased daily.

"Perhaps some companies and professional producers will dominate large shares of traffic, but we will always leave an upward path for the most ordinary people—we will never abandon them."

This was my original intention in founding Chang'e Technology: to create opportunities for ordinary people. We never say we support anyone, nor do we help anyone—we simply give them opportunities, a chance to earn money.

This opportunity has no high barrier, but it's reliable."

Fang Hong stopped speaking here; he had said everything he needed to say.

When Jack Ma heard the last sentence, he quietly drank water, as if lost in thought.

He knew internally that further debate was pointless—no matter how either side argued, both had counterpoints, and neither could convince the other.

One loved empty words; the other was practical!

The audience relaxed; it seemed the Principal had won by a margin—not because of anything else, but because the Principal was genuine, unlike Jack Ma's lofty, hollow rhetoric.

Jack Ma countered from the height of humanity; the Principal countered from the ground level of ordinary people.

Anyway, watching the Principal not flinch before Jack Ma, everyone else still seemed nervous.

"This discussion was incredibly brilliant. We don't know who ultimately won or lost, but it doesn't matter—our Wuzhen Internet Conference is permanently established; we'll settle this in five or ten years."

The host concluded, looking out at the audience: "I see someone down there has brought something?"

A girl in the audience held flowers, wearing a white T-shirt that read: I Love Li Yanhong!

She wasn't very pretty—clearly a mindless fan, a body fan, utterly indifferent to what the man had done, blindly devoted; Fang Hong had just argued for half an hour for nothing.

The girl walked onstage and embraced Li Yanhong.

"Thank you to the nine participants from different countries and cultural backgrounds who joined today's high-level dialogue, discussing an internet world relevant to everyone's future—I believe this itself is a victory of the information age."

The host delivered his closing remarks, and the discussion ended.

The nine participants shook hands; when shaking hands with Lei Bus, he wore a beaming smile.

Zhang Chaoyang still looked as grim and expressionless as ever.

Liu Qiangdong's handshake was firm—he patted Fang Hong on the shoulder.

When shaking hands with Jack Ma, both remained expressionless, serious, like two strangers.

It was normal—their fields of entertainment and video content had always been competitive, and they'd previously had unpleasant conflicts; no one expected a friendly face.

Fang Hong had no competition with the others—he didn't make phones or run e-commerce.

This high-level dialogue would be released as a full video, without copyright, available on all major video platforms; normally, full videos get little viewership, and soon creators would cut clips.

After watching the video, Wangyi discussed it passionately.

"Ma Baba's vision is truly immense."

"The Principal is genuine; what he said was substantive; Jack Ma has grand vision, but most of what he said was empty words."

"Lei Bus is so adorable."

"I feel Jack Ma spoke well—his vision is far-reaching; the Principal seemed average."

Jack Ma's reputation was still good now; the later events hadn't happened yet—he'd only started showing off in the past one or two years; before that, he was still relatively low-key.

In the past one or two years, Alibaba had been too dominant—even Tencent had to avoid its sharp edge; this was why Tencent had supported Fang Hong during the earlier conflict.

After this high-level forum, there was a separate interview.

(End of Chapter)