Comment by godelmachine | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godelmachine | Hacker News Reader

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At the risk of being downvoted - I have stopped paying attention to Jack Ma. He only knows to to talk.

Edit - Since someone’s asking for an explanation as to why I stopped patting attention to Mr Ma ...

I have seen 2-3 videos where he sounds really inspirational. Like one where he breaks down a persons career timeline and what he would be doing at particular age groups. (Probably the most viral video of him)

Second video where he speaks on how we humans can stay relevant in age of AI (By changing education in his words, teaching children to paint, play sports et al which we already do anyways).

The second video was where I started doubting if he’s a clueless person and just goes around fooling people.

Final nail in the coffin was his video with Elon Musk. I couldn’t believe for a minute when Mr Ma says he has just returned from Mars. After that he said AI should be named Alibaba Intelligence (If he had only cracked open a book and read about the Dartmouth conference). And then the icing on the cake, the answer to AI is love.

I won’t deny that love may be answer to AI, but Jack was just mincing words to make another inspirational video.

In addition to him not knowing anything, he could at least start reducing hours for his workers at Alibaba:

> "At least 40 companies, including Huawei and Alibaba Group, have implemented the 996 schedule or an even more intensive alternative."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

Someone needs to post the video of him and elon musk here for those who haven’t seen it.

https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw (just the cringe)

I didn't really care for what Jack Ma had to say before seeing this video. After seeing it, I feel like he should be actively avoided as a source of wisdom.

https://youtu.be/f3lUEnMaiAU

You don't need to pay attention to him. But trust me there is a reason why he is one of the richest people in the world. It is not luck. Business in China is incredibly cutthroat.

Not sure about that... Business in China is controlled by the government. It's entirely plausibly to install an airhead frontman to appease YouTube and Western audiences.

Doesn't that still mean Jack Ma can't say anything interesting? What value is his perspective if he can't ever be trusted to share it?

You should explain why, and perhaps you wouldn't get downvoted.

I agree with almost everything you say. A few points of contention- most are from what I perceive to be a lack of cultural context.

In the Musk video, when he says he's returned from Mars, that was a self depreciating joke on the account of his facial features, which the Chinese media had called him a Martian in the past. He has sorta just owned it since.

Everything else is spot on.

Jack Ma is a good businessman, but he can be as vacuous as any of us on stuff he had no idea about.

Yep, he is just saying, and not a particular good commentary per say.

I downvoted you because that's not really a valuable contribution, just a random opinion with no backing - you should add some reasoning for it.

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