姜小白对《Alibaba》的笔记(1)

Growing Pains

“It was a nightmare for Shi and his family. For Yahoo it was a black eye. For Alibaba, although it now ran the China business, the case had happened on Yahoo’s watch. Jack was asked to comment on the case and said, “As a business, if you can cannot change the law, follow the law. . . . Respect the local government. We’re not interested in politics. We’re just focused on e-commerce.”
On September 10, 2005, I attended Alibaba’s Alifest in Hangzhou. The partylike atmosphere was heightened that year by the newly minted $1 billion deal with Yahoo and the growing sense that Taobao would prevail over eBay. Jerry Yang was to appear onstage with Jack as part of the celebrations. The icing on the cake was Jack’s invited keynote speaker that year: former U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Clinton had accepted the invitation to speak in July, but news of the Yahoo connection to Shi Tao’s case emerged only days before the summit, putting Clinton33 in an awkward position. Clinton did not refer to Shi’s case but discussed more generally the economic cost of censorship and the need for China to develop greater tolerance for dissent.”