Alibaba: A Giant Among Giants - [Business Breakdowns, EP. 03]

Today we'll be breaking down the world's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba. In this episode, we discuss the staggering scale of Alibaba's business, how Alibaba went from copycat to innovator, the looming threat to Alibaba from the next generation of Chinese juggernauts, and how competition is viewed differently in China versus the West. 
 
For this episode, I'm joined by a special guest host, Claire Cormier Thielke. To help us break down Alibaba, we're joined by Ram Parameswaran, the founder and managing partner of investment firm Octahedron Capital.
 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/59340911/parameswaran-alibaba-a-giant-among-giants
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Show Notes
[00:00:00] - Introduction
[00:03:13] - [First question] - What Alibaba is
[00:04:29] - Tmall and Taobao
[00:06:48] - The many faces of Alibaba as a country-scale business
[00:09:58] - What defines a company as being country-scale
[00:11:29] - Adaptive business models for cities of multiple tiers and mimetic behavior of other large-scale companies
[00:18:15] - Alibaba’s ability influence the physical infrastructure of cities and China as a whole
[00:19:01] - Full stack solution company JD Global
[00:21:03] - Tencent
[00:21:47] - Key players in the monetization of commerce in China: JD, Pinduoduo, Meituan [00:26:35] - Reducing friction may be the number one reason for internet businesses to scale
[00:31:15] - Is it worth it for Alibaba to explore the social media space?
[00:34:05] - Why Chinese companies are naturally more competitive and aggressive than North American ones 
[00:38:46] - How China perceives and adopts language such as the Seven Powers framework
[00:40:23] - What the West can learn from China and Alibaba
[00:43:28] - Adopting Chinese practices for Western brick and mortar stores
[00:45:35] - Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
[00:45:51] - Learning more about Alibaba; The House That Jack Ma Built

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