We competed with China Telecom for about a year. The general manager of China Telecom offered to invest$185, 000 to do a joint venture. It was the most money I had ever seen in my life. But unfortunately, China Telecom got five seats on the board. I got two seats on the board. Everything we suggested, they turned us down. It was like an elephant and an ant. I resigned. Then, I got an offer to come to Beijing and run a new government group to promote e-commerce.
我们与中国电信竞争了长达一年的时间。中国电信的老总愿意出资18.5万美元与我们建立一个合资公司。这可是我当时所见到的最大的一笔资金。但不幸的是，中国电信占了董事会的五个席位，而我们只占了两个。我们所提出的要求都被他们拒绝了。这就像是一头大象和一只蚂蚁在较量，于是我辞职了。之后，我来到北京，加入了一个政府部门的新团队来推动电子商务的建设。
My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table and that got us$60, 000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name. Alibaba is easy to spell and people everywhere associate that with "Open, Sesame," the command that Ali Baba used to open doors to hidden treasures in One Thousand and One Nights, the book of Middle Eastern folktales.
我的梦想是建立一家属于自己的电子商务公司。1999年，我召集了18个人到我家来，把我的想法跟他们讲了整整两个小时。所有人都把他们的钱放到了桌子上，就这样，我们凑了6万美元，开始了阿里巴巴的创业之路。因为我想创建一个全球化的公司，所以我为公司取了一个国际化的名字。阿里巴巴的英文拼写非常简单，而且世界各地的人会由此联想到“芝麻开门”——在中东民间故事集《一千零一夜》中“阿里巴巴”是为了藏宝物而用来叫开盗穴大门的咒语。
There were three reasons why we survived. We had no money, we had no technology, and we had no plan. Every dollar, we used very carefully. The office opened in my apartment. We expanded when we raised money from Goldman Sachs in 1999 and then Softbank Corporation in 2000.
我们没有资金、没有技术，也没有计划，但是我们仍能“活下来”有三个原因，一是每一分钱我们用得都非常仔细；二是办公室就在我的家里；三是1999年和2000年，我们分别从高盛公司和软银集团那里筹集到两笔投资，之后我们扩大了公司的规模。