马云全英文热血演讲：是什么让我获得今天的成就？

Jack Ma's outsize influence stems from his passion for teaching. Although he left the profession two decades ago, Jack has never really stopped being an educator. He used to joke that in his case CEO stood for "Chief Education Officer."

Fourteen years after founding the company Jack relinquished the title to become chairman. But the switch served only to heighten his authority. His chosen successor as CEO lasted barely two years in the job.

Jack is, without doubt, the face of Alibaba. Short and thin, Jack has been described in the media over the years as an "imp of a man," "a tiny figure with sunken cheekbones, tussled hair and a mischievous grin," his looks "owlish," "puckish," or "elfish."

Jack has turned his distinctive looks to his advantage. At the launch of MYbank, which aims to sign up customers exclusively through facial recognition technology, Alibaba showcased the fact that Jack "who had been unable to live off his face was now going to live off his face."

Some in China like to refer to Jack as "E.T.," after a supposed resemblance to the lead creature in the Steven Spielberg movie. Even his Zhejiang-born billionaire friend Guo Guangchang has called Jack an "alien," but only before dismissing himself as "just a normal guy ... no one is as smart as Jack Ma."

So, Jack doesn't look the part of a corporate chieftain. He possesses all the trappings, including luxury homes around the world and a Gulfstream jet, but otherwise Jack doesn't really act the part, either. One of the most circulated images of Jack on the internet is a photo of him sporting a Mohawk, nose ring, and makeup, including jet-black lipstick. On that occasion, a celebration of Alibaba's tenth anniversary, Jack sang Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" to a stadium full of 17,000 cheering employees and ten thousand other spectators.

Jack combines a love of showmanship with a relish for defying stereotypes. Where other business moguls like to talk up their connections or academic credentials, Jack enjoys talking down his own: "I don't have a rich or powerful father, not even a powerful uncle." Having never studied abroad, he likes to describe himself as "one hundred percent Made in China."

He stands out as a tech company founder with no background in technology. At Stanford University in 2013 he confessed, "Even today, I still don't understand what coding is all about, I still don't understand the technology behind the internet."

Jack has made a career out of being underestimated: "I am a very simple guy, I am not smart. Everyone thinks that Jack Ma is a very smart guy. I might have a smart face but I've got very stupid brains."

Blarney Meets Chutzpah in China

His achievements have proved otherwise — this dumbing down is of course just a feint. Jack once explained that he loves the lead character of the movie "Forrest Gump" because "people think he is dumb, but he knows what he is doing."

In his early speeches promoting Alibaba, Jack referred so often to Forrest Gump that I came to think of his stump speech as his "Gump speech." Much has changed for Alibaba, but Gump's appeal endures. On the first day of trading of Alibaba's shares, Jack was interviewed by CNBC live on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. When he was asked which person had most inspired him, Jack replied without hesitation, "Forrest Gump." His interviewer paused, then said, "You know he's a fictional character?"

Jack's ability to charm and cajole has played an important role in attracting talent and capital to the company, as well as building his own fame. Jack has a unique Chinese combination of blarney and chutzpah. One of his earliest foreign employees summed up for me his qualities in two words: "Jack Magic."

In this respect, Jack shares a characteristic with Steve Jobs, whose charisma and means of getting his way were famously described by a member of the original Apple Macintosh design team as a "Reality Distortion Field."

Central to Jack's own distortion field are his skills as a communicator. Jack's speaking style is so effective because his message is so easy to agree with, remember, and digest. Collections of his quotes circulate widely online, in English as well as in Chinese.

Most are bite-size messages of inspiration, words that wouldn't be out of place on a motivational poster, such as "Believe in your dream and believe in yourself," or "Learn from others the tactics and the skills, but don't change your dream."

Other popular quotes read more like an Aesop fable: "If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one. Change your tactics if you need to, but don't change the rabbit ... Get one first, put it in your pocket, and then catch the others."

People have even taken to inventing carpe diem–style quotes from Jack to justify, for example, the purchase of a pair of expensive shoes.

Jack always speaks without notes. His oratorical skills are so effective because his repertoire is so narrow.

Jack can dispense with notes because he already knows much of his material: a well-honed stable of stock stories, mostly tales from his childhood or Alibaba's own infancy.

A close inspection of all of his speeches reveals he has essentially been giving the same speech for the last seventeen years. Yet by subtly tweaking his message to match the mood and expectations of the crowd, he somehow manages to make each speech sound fresh.

Jack is a master at appealing to people's emotions, which is not something you'd expect from the founder of a company that started out focusing on international trade. Sometimes, as he's launched into a familiar story, I have turned around to look at the faces of the audience, trying to understand what explains his enduring appeal.

Humor is a big part of it. As a quick look at any of the hundreds of videos available on YouTube of his most popular speeches will reveal, Jack is very funny. Back in the early days, after he came offstage at an event we'd both spoken at, I joked to him that if his day job at Alibaba didn't work out he had a promising career as a stand-up comedian. Jack's set pieces, his one-liners and anecdotes, and the way he combines them are essentially the same as the "bits" that comedians use to make up their routines.

With his tales of overcoming challenges and defying the odds, Jack regularly drives some in his audience to tears, even hardened business executives. After giving a talk to a group of students in South Korea, Jack himself appeared to be consumed by emotion when asked about his biggest regrets in life, replying that he regretted not spending more time with his family. After composing himself, he added, "Normally I make other people cry."

Jack's speeches, like that one in Seoul, reach a much wider audience than speeches by many public figures in China in part because he is able to deliver them in fluent English. Other tech executives in China speak English, too, many having been educated overseas, but Jack's message has much greater resonance in both languages. Jack's long-term business partner, Joe Tsai, told me: "Jack today is still one of the only international businesspeople who is as attention-grabbing in both English and Chinese."

To build a connection to foreign audiences, Jack often peppers his speeches with pop-culture references — including citing more recent movies than "Forrest Gump," some of which Alibaba is now financing. As his company expands its presence in Hollywood, Jack now regularly enlists the support at his public appearances of famous actors like Daniel Craig, Kevin Spacey, and Tom Cruise, the star of Paramount Pictures' "Mission: Impossible" franchise — in 2015 Alibaba invested in "Rogue Nation," the franchise's latest title.

To audiences in China, Jack often draws on stories from his favorite martial arts novels, or Chinese revolutionary history. An American colleague once asked Jack about his references to Mao in his speeches in China. Jack explained, "For me to motivate you I would talk about George Washington and the cherry tree."

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