In a recent interview, Cai Chongxin, chairman of Alibaba's board of directors, introduced in detail for the first time his decision-making process of joining Jack Ma's team in 1999.Tsai Chongxin recalled that when he first met Jack Ma in Hangzhou in 1999, he didn’t even have a business plan. He just talked about his vision to a group of young people in an apartment.
At that time, Tsai Chongxin was an executive at Hong Kong Investor AB, with an annual salary of US$700,000, but Jack Ma's mission of "making it easy to do business in the world" moved him.
He said that although Jack Ma did not have a detailed financial plan, he had strong personal charm and team cohesion. The 18 people in the team were crowded in a small apartment but were full of passion.
After several months of consideration, Tsai Chongxin finally decided to resign from his high-paying position and join Alibaba as CFO, with a monthly salary of only 500 yuan. His decision shocked his family, and his father was even worried about his mental state.
As for leaving Alibaba's daily management position in 2013, Tsai Chongxin said that this was a strategy jointly agreed upon by him and Jack Ma. At that time, Alibaba's business had covered multiple sectors such as B2B, Taobao, Alipay, and cloud computing. They realized that they needed to give opportunities to younger generations such as Lu Zhaoxi and Zhang Yong.
