Alibaba To Split Into 6 Companies, Pursue IPOs in Major Shakeup (nikkei.com) 24
Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba Group Holding will reorganize into six business groups and pursue public listings for five of them, in the most significant governance overhaul since the company was established 24 years ago. From a report: The company announced the move on Tuesday, a day after founder Jack Ma's surprise return to China following a lengthy stint abroad. The six business groups will focus on sectors such as cloud computing, e-commerce and logistics. "This transformation will empower all our businesses to become more agile, enhance decision-making, and enable faster responses to market changes," chief executive Daniel Zhang said in a letter to employees. The six new groups will be: Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao Tmall Commerce Group, Local Service Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics, Global Digital Commerce Group and Digital Media and Entertainment Group.
Each of the groups will be run by its own CEO and board of directors, with the CEOs assuming full responsibility for company performance. Zhang will remain chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, which will follow a holding company management model. He will also serve as the CEO of the Cloud Intelligence Group, which will be responsible for the company's cloud and artificial intelligence businesses. Zhang became acting president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence after its cloud service suffered what the company described as "the longest large-scale outage in more than a decade" in Hong Kong in late December.
Each of the groups will be run by its own CEO and board of directors, with the CEOs assuming full responsibility for company performance. Zhang will remain chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, which will follow a holding company management model. He will also serve as the CEO of the Cloud Intelligence Group, which will be responsible for the company's cloud and artificial intelligence businesses. Zhang became acting president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence after its cloud service suffered what the company described as "the longest large-scale outage in more than a decade" in Hong Kong in late December.
I have to wonder (Score:2)
Jack Ma, Daniel Zhang ... are these their real names? Is it common in China now to give your kids Western first names?
Re:I have to wonder (Score:4, Informative)
Later, when visiting the west, he would earn the nickname "Jack" from a friend. The name seems to have stuck and has become one he self applies.
There are always some who are obsessive about other cultures and lean into it.
So, to answer your question, no, it is not his real name.
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Which HR head wants to be caught in a lawsuit for pronouncing the name of an applicant to his face as something that constitutes an insult in their language, or address them by the wrong name and essentially pretend they're at a first name base already?
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So, to answer your question, no, it is not his real name.
Depends what is written in his passport or on his ID card.
Just it is not the name he is born with, does not mean it is not his "real name".
Re:I have to wonder (Score:4, Informative)
Most Chinese people who deal with westerners have a second, "western" name these days. I imagine it gets very old trying to get occidentals to pronounce their Chinese name, and none of them will be able to write it down or send them an email using it.
FWIW I know the feeling. I live in Spain and I give a Spanish name whenever I can't be bothered to spell out my non-Spanish name over the phone to a waiter (or whatever). It just makes life smoother.
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Jack Ma, Daniel Zhang ... are these their real names? Is it common in China now to give your kids Western first names?
You know that in 2023 you can google that, right? Wonder no more slashdotter, use technology.
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Long version: It's complicated, and that's not their only given name (they also have a Chinese one), but still basically yes, it's pretty normal for educated Chinese parents to give their kid a Western name, which they use in international and English-speaking contexts.
Also, Jack Ma is very famous, both for being ridiculously wealthy, and also for being famously secretly held in a black jail for six months a while back (pandemic era), which nobody in China is allowed to talk about, but
Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
So this makes sense to me.
A little bit of background first, because it was really not well covered in western media. The thing that got Ma in trouble with the CCP was that Ma wanted to IPO Ant, to get finances for Huabei, his payday loan company.
The problem was that the CCP consideres finance a public utility, and getting a billion people hooked on payday loans does not play well with that idea. Ma was told repeatedly that none of this was going to fly, but his probably coked up ass thought that he was bigger than life. Well we know the rest of the story.
Now that he is coming back and the lot is getting broken up means that he has learned his place, and the CCP considers his presumed-to-be-tamed character an asset for them. Of course the corporate beast has to be tamed also, lest it birth another problem.
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It makes the company a lot easier to control for the CCP. You no longer need to "convince" 1 person with such stature that his disappearance would spell major financial disaster for China, you now have 6 or more people, you only need to control a majority and it's easier to disappear no-name CEO that doesn't play ball than it would to do this to Jack Ma.
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First, as a side note, it's not like any large companies have especially readable ownership structures, Asian or not. Can you really figure out who owns anything any more? If you look into any random large company, chances are it will be an infinite loop of Big Brother and the Holding company. It's just turtles all the way down, everywhere.
As we say where I come from, stuff's clear like soap water. But we also have to consider the question of clear to whom? Lets consider the famous Asian company Samsung for
Amazon (Score:1)
China is more capitalist than the US when it comes to the tech space.
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Government-forced breakups isn't capitalism unless those companies are owned by the government.
This is a takeover pure and simple of the AliBaba empire because Jack Ma pissed the CCP off.
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I'm not sure how you got it into your head that company breakups are capitalism in action but they arent, they are the direct opposite of that. They are the government coming in and dictating how the economy should be.
I should say that I do think they are necessary sometimes but they are absolutely not capitalism in action.
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Breaking up monopolies and oligopolies is a crucial aspect of maintaining the health of a capitalist system.
Breaking up monopolies and oligopolies is not even close to governments dictating how things should be. It's merely clearing away disease.
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No, it's Americans who skewed capitalism so far to the right to mean laissez-faire, complete non-intervention free market.
I'm sorry you dont know what the words mean that you're trying to use so let me help you.
Capitalism (from the Oxford English Dictionary so not an American definition) https://www.oxfordlearnersdict... [oxfordlear...naries.com]
an economic system in which a country’s businesses and industry are controlled and run for profit by private owners rather than by the government
No part of that definition includes the government stepping in to make things work better. Once again, that is literally the opposite of capitalism.
Breaking up monopolies and oligopolies is not even close to governments dictating how things should be. It's merely clearing away disease.
That doesnt e
Sounds Like Malfeasance (Score:2)
This is a stock split by another name. Normally, in a stock split a company will take it shares and split them into halves or thirds and the immediate value of those new shares would be half or one third the value. Here, they're looking to split off a bunch of section of the company, IPO them, and massively increase the aggregate stock value of the collective-- IN THE SHORT RUN.
Then the greater fool get stuck holding onto stock to the left pinky toe of Alibaba and the original investors sell off.
I see (Score:2)
AliBabaBoo: A company that focuses on online shopping for Halloween costumes and party supplies.
AliBabaZen: A wellness company that sells herbal remedies and relaxation products.
AliBabaDoo: A pet supply company that specializes in dog toys and accessories.
AliBabaSoothe: A skincare and beauty company that offers natural and organic products.
AliBabaGuru: A tech company that develops innovative software and apps for small businesses.
AliBabaMingle: A dating app that connects singles with similar interests and b
Not Alabama? (Score:2)
Misread this as "Alabama To Split Into 6..." and had a very different reaction, lol
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No, Alibaba is basically the Chinese knock-off version of eBay, except (somehow) way worse than that makes it sound, and also it has branched out and now owns a bunch of other data and software companies, ranging from social media apps and games, to online payment and microtransactions, to AI and cloud computing. Oh, and a shipping business. And some other stuff. So really it's the Chinese knock-off of what eBay would have been if it had been run by Jeff Bezos. But somehow way worse.
If only you could invest in those companiesâ& (Score:2)
They must be super duper amazingly successful copying Amazon and Google, and definitely not under CCP control⦠but if only you could actually invest in those companies as if it was an open market and free trade!
Instead you are limited to sending your money to some shady intermediary and enjoy exactly zero of the benefits of being an actual investor when sending investment money to WinniePoo-Land.