Engine of ingenuity

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Instead of being afraid, Erisman says, people should look for opportunities from the things they initially fear.

"It's dangerous for people in the US to think that there is no innovation in China because it's not true," Erisman says, adding that he wrote the book to show people the real situation in China.

Erisman arrived in China for the first time in 1994. In 2000, he left a multinational public-relations company and joined the Hangzhou-based Alibaba that had launched one year earlier. After leaving China in 2002 to travel around the world, he rejoined Alibaba and worked there until 2008.

In the years from 2000 to 2008, Alibaba grew from nothing to become China's largest e-commerce platform, taking on eBay and developing an unsuccessful partnership with Yahoo.

With his perspectives as an insider and a foreigner, Erisman uses his book to narrate tales of success but also of mistakes Ma and his company made during the company's formative years.

Erisman says Ma is a very creative entrepreneur, a key reason Alibaba beat eBay in China.

"I tried to give Ma a book about eBay and also a book about Google. He said, 'I don't want to read these books because maybe I will end up copying their models in China.' So he just looks at the China model," Erisman says.

The book tells inside stories about the business "war" between Alibaba and eBay, such as how eBay tried to discourage former US president Bill Clinton from attending the 2005 China Internet Summit in Hangzhou organized by Alibaba.

"Some people still believe that maybe the only reason that Alibaba won was because the government blocked eBay," Erisman says. "I think that was insulting to entrepreneurs in China, including Alibaba. Because I saw Taobao and Tmall (both e-commerce platforms under Alibaba Group) are so innovative. They built the platforms that so fit the China market."