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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.
我們與中國電信競爭了長達一年的時間。中國電信的老總愿意出資18.5萬美元與我們建立一個合資公司。這可是我當時所見到的最大的一筆資金。但不幸的是，中國電信占了董事會的五個席位，而我們只占了兩個。我們所提出的要求都被他們拒絕了。這就像是一頭大象和一只螞蟻在較量，于是我辭職了。之后，我來到北京，加入了一個政府部門的新團隊來推動電子商務的建設。
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.
我的夢想是建立一家屬于自己的電子商務公司。1999年，我召集了18個人到我家來，把我的想法跟他們講了整整兩個小時。所有人都把他們的錢放到了桌子上，就這樣，我們湊了6萬美元，開始了阿里巴巴的創業之路。因為我想創建一個全球化的公司，所以我為公司取了一個國際化的名字。阿里巴巴的英文拼寫非常簡單，而且世界各地的人會由此聯想到“芝麻開門”——在中東民間故事集《一千零一夜》中“阿里巴巴”是為了藏寶物而用來叫開盜穴大門的咒語。
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.
我們沒有資金、沒有技術，也沒有計劃，但是我們仍能“活下來”有三個原因，一是每一分錢我們用得都非常仔細；二是辦公室就在我的家里；三是1999年和2000年，我們分別從高盛公司和軟銀集團那里籌集到兩筆投資，之后我們擴大了公司的規模。
