A food safety factory shutdown has Americans hunting for baby formula. Readying themselves for a covid-19 lockdown, Chinese in Beijing emptied store shelves. Emerging from lockdown, some in Shanghai are visiting well-provisioned markets. U.S.-China agricultural trade is booming, but many are still being left hungry. Food security, sustainability and safety remain issues.
Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built
[video of the talk available, see link below] The USC U.S.-China Institute presents a book talk by Duncan Clark, whose new book chronicles Jack Ma's rise from an English teacher to the founder of one of the world's biggest companies, Alibaba.
When:
September 15, 2016 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Where
About the Book
An engrossing, insider’s account of how a teacher built one of the world’s most valuable companies—rivaling Walmart & Amazon—and forever reshaped the global economy.
In just a decade and half Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded and built Alibaba into one of the world’s largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba’s $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and Presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China’s booming private sector and the gatekeeper to hundreds of millions of middle class consumers.
Duncan Clark first met Jack in 1999 in the small apartment where Jack founded Alibaba. Granted unprecedented access to a wealth of new material including exclusive interviews, Clark draws on his own experience as an early advisor to Alibaba and two decades in China chronicling the Internet’s impact on the country to create an authoritative, compelling narrative account of Alibaba’s rise.
How did Jack overcome his humble origins and early failures to achieve massive success with Alibaba? How did he outsmart rival entrepreneurs from China and Silicon Valley? Can Alibaba maintain its 80% market share? As it forges ahead into finance and entertainment, are there limits to Alibaba’s ambitions? How does the Chinese government view its rise? Will Alibaba expand further overseas, including in the U.S.?
Clark tells Alibaba’s tale in the context of China’s momentous economic and social changes, illuminating an unlikely corporate titan as never before.
About the Author
Duncan Clark is a recognized expert on the Internet and entrepreneurship in China, where he has lived and worked for more than 20 years. Duncan is chairman of BDA China, which he founded in 1994 after working as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley in London and Hong Kong. BDA China is an advisory firm serving investors in China's technology and consumer sectors, employing over 100 mainland Chinese professionals in Beijing. An early advisor to leading China Internet entrepreneurs, Duncan is author of Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built, the definitive work on China’s e-commerce and technology giant, its founder Jack Ma, and the forces and people that propelled its rise.
Avoid traffic and get to USC by taking the Metro's Expo Line
Get off at the Expo Park/USC stop for a short walk to campus. Click here for more information.
Driving Directions to Campus
For maps and directions to campus, visit the University Park Campus Map & Driving Directions page.
Suggested Parking
Parking Structure X (PSX) - $12/day
Enter at the Figueroa Street Entrance at 35th Street (Entrance 3)
Cost:
Free, please RSVP below.
Phone Number:
213-821-4382
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