Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20170623 : vimarsana.com

And i told the people at that time that say if you miss the opportunity of selling your product to the world, to the u. S. A. , to the europe, you may miss the chance. And today i want to tell the people that if you miss the opportunity of selling your product to china, you will miss the opportunity, you will miss the future. Glor health care and Alibabas Jack Ma when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. Bank of america, life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Good evening, charlie is away, im jeff glor of cbs news. We begin this evening with health care. Senate Republican Leaders released 142 page bill this morning detailing plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act or obama care. The legislation crafted in secret makes significant cuts to medicaid and ends the current mandate that requires most americans to have health insurance. It is considered more moderate than last months house bill which President Trump has called mean. A vote is likely to come to the senate floor next week. Joining me now from washington is vann newkirk of the atlantic, also Kevin Whitelaw of Bloomberg News and here in new york philip bump of the washington post. Im pleased to welcome all of them to this program. Philip, what stands out to the most. I think the thing that stands out to me is that while republicans were trying to put together something which they feel confident can pass both the husband and senate in final form and can get the general support of the american public, this bill isnt substantially different enough from the house bill to actually change i think the minds of a lot of americans. A lot of the parts of the bill particularly around medicaid and cutting taxes for healthy americans remain. And i think those are probably the most problematic parts of that. Glor that is an interesting point. There was some talk that the senate bill might be completely different. They would throw everything out and start over again. That wasnt the case or isnt the case. Yeah, thats not the case. It looks like its pretty of the Broad Strokes are about the same as the house bill. There are a few changes to the premium tax credit and to medicaid, but i think when we see the cbo score maybe next week, it wont be that different from the house bill. Glor kevin, when we do see that cbo score, how Many Americans are we anticipating will be losing, what was the number before t was 23 . Yeah, 23 million, and the last version of the house bill, the one that was passed, its a little unclear as to where it is going to be, Senate Leaders are hoping it comes in lower so they can show it is a bill that doesnt actually, that will keep more americans insured over time it is hard to see with the funding choices they made that it will be all that substantially different, however, particularly given the way the medicaid phaseout works, a little longer but it is still phased out. They are probably not going to see an enormous improvement. Glor lets talk about the main points am we mentioned the individual pan date, that would be gone. The employer mandate would also be gone and then the medicaid cuts. Right. And a lot of that is all the same there is a slightly longer transition period, one or two places so you are seeing a little softening which is aimed at bringing moderates on but you are also seeing changes in the bill aimed at keeping conservatives on board including changes changes that would slow the growth rate for medicaid. So far obviously hasnt been enough to bring people on board. We have four republican senators, conservatives who have come ot saying they are not ready to support this and they will negotiate as a team to try to bring it closer to a fuller repeal of obamacare. Glor philip, to you, this is paul, lee, cruz and johnson. Thats right. So several of the most conservative members of the Senate Republican caucus there. So one can anticipate what their objections are going to be. Sort of vague at this point why they oppose the bill. I think part of this is, is this is a bill that will be very contentious bill. I think that having, putting your foot out there at this point and saying that you oppose the bill as it stands now gives you a lot of leverage with Mitch Mcconnell, the Senate Majority leader to make changes to the bill but also gives you cover politically. This will be a tough, tough fight. Mcconnell has very little wigel room to get this passed and that is why these four senators came out as soon as they could to say hey, you need to negotiate with us to get something done. Glor vann, so he wants this vote to happen next week. We thoughts it t was interesting, Sarah Huckabee sanders in this unusual press briefing hear this afternoon, there was audio only said that the president was more concerned about getting it done than the actual timing. Yeah, i think that sends a signal and President Trump has been sending signals that he thought the bill was too mean, that it doesnt cover enough people. I do think it is sending some signal that maybe the senate should work some of these things. Now these objections from the four senators. Im not sure it will likely drag the process on. As we saw in the process through the house, we had some pretty strong objections early and they were solved by some pretty, the amendments werent substantial in the outcome. And the overall score of that bill. Glor philip, tactically what is Mitch Mcconnell thinking right now . You know, hes playing his cards very close to his chest which we saw in the drafting of this bill. My hunch is that they want to be able to say we have a new bill, this is different than that thing that everyone in america hates, polling continuing, showing that less than 20 approved of that house bill. They say this is a different bill. I think they are hoping to move this fast enough before people can get a good sense of what is in this bill and how it is similar to the house bill. It will have different names, very fast time line. I think that that alone is one reason why they may nod heed President Trumps advice to take your time with it. They dont want necessarily to give people a lot of time to get ginned up and active gengs this. Glor its not just the four, kevin, to you, it is not just the four republicans who made this Statement Today though. Its other senators who have already taken at least some issue with it including folks like dean heller of nevada. Right so dean heller of nevada says he has serious concerns. He obviously is in a state that leans democratic. He is in a difficult position. Weve seen other moderate republicans like susan colins of maine and lisa murcowsky of alas ska. They have problems with some of the planned parenthood language and with some of the medicaid prosignificantses, rob portman of ohio has had some concerns. We know there are a number of people. Keep in mind, this was a bill drafted in secret. And it was kept secret even from the members of the Health Care Working group that mcconnell formed to draft it, even those members, which included ted cruz and mike lee said they didnt see it, really, until today. Glor kevin, you mentioned planned parenthood. So they are taking this approach of defunding it for just a year. Yes, that is the same approach as the house bill. And some of that is just for budgetary reasons and for mechanical reasons for the bill. But there are other provisions in there that what also be aimed at trying to deny any kind of funding for abortions. There might be parliamentary problems with some of those provisions. One of the main cautions is this this is is a discussion draft, this will change, some things will change for parliamentary reasons and others for nshting reasons. I would say look out for this too. There is probably some strategic omissions here so that members can be seen winning provisions and give them an excuse to get on board in a final vote. Glor the, Mitch Mcconnell tack tition part of it comes in there. Susan collins is the one without got so much talk as this whole process has played out where. Does she figure now. Shes expressed reservations as you mentioned earlier. She comes from the state of maine, seen as a moderate and sort of in the middle. Quite honestly i think the two most interesting senators at this point are dean heller and jeff with are up next year. This will be weighed at the polls how people lack at this health care legislation, Susan Collins doesnt have to worry about that, heller and flake do. Glor what should we be looking for as we lead up to july 4th here. And do you think the current time line that Mitch Mcconnell is on is realistic . Well, i think we have to wait for the cbo score. The cbo announced they were hoping to get a score back next weekment and that i think will determine the speed of the rest of the process. Folks like collins, those moderate wings are looking for the number of uninsured folks to go down below, i think 20 million, by 2026 increase over obama care. If that number comes out under 20 million i think the process will be pretty quick. I think some of those more conservative republicans will be swayed by minor amendments like increases in the state grant for reinsurance. And so i think it all depends on that score. If the score comes out and it looks pretty similar to the house version, i think it might take a little longer than theyre aiming for before july 4th. Glor mitch mb could be el is really trying to thread the needle here. Oh yeah, hes really i think now theyre already protesting on the hill, when people going back to the districts. And it is going to, i think, gum up the works a little bit more than he expects. Glor so what happens, if they dont vote, philip, before the holiday, senators go back to their districts, go to the townhalls, to whatever else. Exactly. We saw that actually this spring with house members when the bill was first introduced in the house. They went back and there were all these video clips of people standing up and yelling at our republican representatives. And that is the sort of thing that Mitch Mcconnell was hoping to avoid, having his members go back home and get yelled back over the course of the august break. There has been some talk, i dont think it is real about skipping the august break to push through. I think that plays a part of the rule. They dont want to have to have people go and deal with the voters who will be unhappy with what this bill looks like. Glor is the secretary resee part of the debate now and the pressure with building, is that part of over obviously theyve released it. This approach got criticism but it has worked in the past. And both sides have done it. How do you, your estimation how does that part of it, the way this bill was developed, play into how it gets debated now next week. I mean i have to say the secretary resee is kind of amazing. Im not sure weve ever seen anything quite like this to take something again from total secretary resee to passage for something this major, something this significant in this short of time. So i think its clearly going to give senators pause. You can tell in the reactions theyve been very tent tiff, that they dont want to say anything, they dont know what is in it. One after the text was released didnt realize there was text today. There is a lot of confusion, there is a lot of deficit in trying to process all this information. Theyre not going to have a lot to work on. They will have a cbo score though and unlike the house the senate actually has to wait for that cbo score so they will at least have that one piece of information. If you recall, when the house took its vote on the earlier version, they actually didnt have a cbo sor in the final text when they took that vote. Then the score came out later, and was some what difficult for a lot of them politically. So i do think that theyre going to be at least having some information. But there is also always that concern that Something Else will come out late thary people didnt realize they were voting for. Glor senator schumer called this a wolf in sheeps clothing. So what he is trying to say there is that he thinks it might not be so bad to begin with but it gets even worse. Yeah, so i think he was referring to the medicaid provision. So its similar to the hows medicaid provision where they roll back some of the medicaid expansion, they phase out that funding. And they change the way its funded. The pace program is funded over the next ten years. So they change it from an openended funding structure to what is called a per capita cap. That is all the same as the house bill but what the senate bill does is really after 2025, it changes the inflationary index on that per capita cap which basically means it grows less over time than what we expected under the house bill. That means i think you get a couple hundred billion dollars less funding over the following ten years, which would mean a lot fewer people get covered and there are fewer covered services. Glor philip, talk a little bit about who then, who stands to lose and who stands to win from this bill. All right, i think in the broadest stroke this bill looks a lot like the house bill in the sense that those people who rely on medicaid coverage, there are going to be cutting over the longterm. That tends to be mostly for americans, disabled americans as well. The people who benefit, the taxes that were part of obamacare that helps keep costs down for everybody else, that was the whole point, tax wealthier people so less wealthy people can afford insurance. Those wealthy people will see those taxes remove so they will benefit from this as well. And its really not clear where folks in the middle, and there are a lot of folks in the middle, how this will affect over the longterm people who have employer coverage, there is conflicting reports about people who get coverage through their work, how it will affect them. And in Broad Strokes i think the complaints that existed prior to today still exist today. And i think that from a political standpoint that is problematic. Glor kevin, the president has said that he thinks some negotiation is necessary here which did an understatement. But that something will get done. Well, i mean hes obviously maintained that all along. And he was able to keep, he and his people were able to keep that negotiation going in the house. And a lot of people thought the bill was basically dead and they were able to push something through. And so i think they have some faith in their ability to push something through in the senate, im not sure they have quite the same pull in the senate but what you do have here is senators are feeling a ton of pressure from their constituents, as unpopular as this bill is they have been promising to repeal this obamacare law for seven years. So when it comes right down to it, i think Mitch Mcconnells calculation is you put a bill on the floor, a final passage vote and you say i dare to you vote against something you have been running on for seven years. And then to that point, it dominated every election or at least been a huge part of every election since at least 2010, it seems assured to be part of one in 2018. Glor oh, definitely. I think you are going to have senators who are, they are walking a tight rope between being judged for not passing the Obamacare Repeal they promised and between being judged for something too mean. I think what that means is, as this bill has done over the house bill, there is going to be more support for reforming the tax credits, the private pieces of this, and making them lack a little more like the aca. But i think there is still broad Political Support especially among the Republican Base for reforming medicaid, for making it more of a bloc grant per capita structure and con stricting it over the next ten years, that is likely to happen. Glor at this point it is await for the cbo. At this point wait for the cbo but also keap an eye on those more moderate republicans who their base are not the ones clammerring for repeal of obamacare to the extent that a lot of the much more conservative republicans, house members, their base is the one thing, we need to repeal this thing and leaves the moderate people in the middle it will be fascinating to see where they end up. Glor philip bump, vann newkirk and fill Kevin Whitelaw, thank you. Jack ma is the executive chairman of the alibaba group. It is the largest Ecommerce Company in china and ranked this year by forbes as the sixth largest retailer in the world. In january ma met with then president elect trump and promised to create one million american jobs over the next five years through his ecommerce platform. Charlie sat down with jack ma in detroit this week at a conference called gateway 17. The alibaba sponsored event was an opportunity for u. S. Small re is their conversation. What brings you to detroit . The Small Business, the entrepreneurs. I i have been expecting this day for a long long time. When i start my business, i tried to sell my products ideas to the outside world, especially i have a lot of friends who did import export. They are all Small Business, ten years ago, they could not have. They dont have base, money, they dont have this, dont have that. And i said some day i hope alibaba can build up a platform that all the Small Business can sell across the world easily, efficiently and cheaply. So after ten years, things like that were just started. So you hope that they take away from this medium, an idea that there is this huge market in china. Yeah. Glor and people who want to buy what they sell. Yep. Glor . I hope as i in the past ten years u. S. A. Domestic consumption verse es the engine of Alibabas Jack Ma<\/a> when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. Bank of america, life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services<\/a> worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications<\/a> from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Good evening, charlie is away, im jeff glor of cbs news. We begin this evening with health care. Senate Republican Leaders<\/a> released 142 page bill this morning detailing plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care<\/a> act or obama care. The legislation crafted in secret makes significant cuts to medicaid and ends the current mandate that requires most americans to have health insurance. It is considered more moderate than last months house bill which President Trump<\/a> has called mean. A vote is likely to come to the senate floor next week. Joining me now from washington is vann newkirk of the atlantic, also Kevin Whitelaw<\/a> of Bloomberg News<\/a> and here in new york philip bump of the washington post. Im pleased to welcome all of them to this program. Philip, what stands out to the most. I think the thing that stands out to me is that while republicans were trying to put together something which they feel confident can pass both the husband and senate in final form and can get the general support of the american public, this bill isnt substantially different enough from the house bill to actually change i think the minds of a lot of americans. A lot of the parts of the bill particularly around medicaid and cutting taxes for healthy americans remain. And i think those are probably the most problematic parts of that. Glor that is an interesting point. There was some talk that the senate bill might be completely different. They would throw everything out and start over again. That wasnt the case or isnt the case. Yeah, thats not the case. It looks like its pretty of the Broad Strokes<\/a> are about the same as the house bill. There are a few changes to the premium tax credit and to medicaid, but i think when we see the cbo score maybe next week, it wont be that different from the house bill. Glor kevin, when we do see that cbo score, how Many Americans<\/a> are we anticipating will be losing, what was the number before t was 23 . Yeah, 23 million, and the last version of the house bill, the one that was passed, its a little unclear as to where it is going to be, Senate Leaders<\/a> are hoping it comes in lower so they can show it is a bill that doesnt actually, that will keep more americans insured over time it is hard to see with the funding choices they made that it will be all that substantially different, however, particularly given the way the medicaid phaseout works, a little longer but it is still phased out. They are probably not going to see an enormous improvement. Glor lets talk about the main points am we mentioned the individual pan date, that would be gone. The employer mandate would also be gone and then the medicaid cuts. Right. And a lot of that is all the same there is a slightly longer transition period, one or two places so you are seeing a little softening which is aimed at bringing moderates on but you are also seeing changes in the bill aimed at keeping conservatives on board including changes changes that would slow the growth rate for medicaid. So far obviously hasnt been enough to bring people on board. We have four republican senators, conservatives who have come ot saying they are not ready to support this and they will negotiate as a team to try to bring it closer to a fuller repeal of obamacare. Glor philip, to you, this is paul, lee, cruz and johnson. Thats right. So several of the most conservative members of the Senate Republican<\/a> caucus there. So one can anticipate what their objections are going to be. Sort of vague at this point why they oppose the bill. I think part of this is, is this is a bill that will be very contentious bill. I think that having, putting your foot out there at this point and saying that you oppose the bill as it stands now gives you a lot of leverage with Mitch Mcconnell<\/a>, the Senate Majority<\/a> leader to make changes to the bill but also gives you cover politically. This will be a tough, tough fight. Mcconnell has very little wigel room to get this passed and that is why these four senators came out as soon as they could to say hey, you need to negotiate with us to get something done. Glor vann, so he wants this vote to happen next week. We thoughts it t was interesting, Sarah Huckabee<\/a> sanders in this unusual press briefing hear this afternoon, there was audio only said that the president was more concerned about getting it done than the actual timing. Yeah, i think that sends a signal and President Trump<\/a> has been sending signals that he thought the bill was too mean, that it doesnt cover enough people. I do think it is sending some signal that maybe the senate should work some of these things. Now these objections from the four senators. Im not sure it will likely drag the process on. As we saw in the process through the house, we had some pretty strong objections early and they were solved by some pretty, the amendments werent substantial in the outcome. And the overall score of that bill. Glor philip, tactically what is Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> thinking right now . You know, hes playing his cards very close to his chest which we saw in the drafting of this bill. My hunch is that they want to be able to say we have a new bill, this is different than that thing that everyone in america hates, polling continuing, showing that less than 20 approved of that house bill. They say this is a different bill. I think they are hoping to move this fast enough before people can get a good sense of what is in this bill and how it is similar to the house bill. It will have different names, very fast time line. I think that that alone is one reason why they may nod heed President Trump<\/a>s advice to take your time with it. They dont want necessarily to give people a lot of time to get ginned up and active gengs this. Glor its not just the four, kevin, to you, it is not just the four republicans who made this Statement Today<\/a> though. Its other senators who have already taken at least some issue with it including folks like dean heller of nevada. Right so dean heller of nevada says he has serious concerns. He obviously is in a state that leans democratic. He is in a difficult position. Weve seen other moderate republicans like susan colins of maine and lisa murcowsky of alas ska. They have problems with some of the planned parenthood language and with some of the medicaid prosignificantses, rob portman of ohio has had some concerns. We know there are a number of people. Keep in mind, this was a bill drafted in secret. And it was kept secret even from the members of the Health Care Working<\/a> group that mcconnell formed to draft it, even those members, which included ted cruz and mike lee said they didnt see it, really, until today. Glor kevin, you mentioned planned parenthood. So they are taking this approach of defunding it for just a year. Yes, that is the same approach as the house bill. And some of that is just for budgetary reasons and for mechanical reasons for the bill. But there are other provisions in there that what also be aimed at trying to deny any kind of funding for abortions. There might be parliamentary problems with some of those provisions. One of the main cautions is this this is is a discussion draft, this will change, some things will change for parliamentary reasons and others for nshting reasons. I would say look out for this too. There is probably some strategic omissions here so that members can be seen winning provisions and give them an excuse to get on board in a final vote. Glor the, Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> tack tition part of it comes in there. Susan collins is the one without got so much talk as this whole process has played out where. Does she figure now. Shes expressed reservations as you mentioned earlier. She comes from the state of maine, seen as a moderate and sort of in the middle. Quite honestly i think the two most interesting senators at this point are dean heller and jeff with are up next year. This will be weighed at the polls how people lack at this health care legislation, Susan Collins<\/a> doesnt have to worry about that, heller and flake do. Glor what should we be looking for as we lead up to july 4th here. And do you think the current time line that Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> is on is realistic . Well, i think we have to wait for the cbo score. The cbo announced they were hoping to get a score back next weekment and that i think will determine the speed of the rest of the process. Folks like collins, those moderate wings are looking for the number of uninsured folks to go down below, i think 20 million, by 2026 increase over obama care. If that number comes out under 20 million i think the process will be pretty quick. I think some of those more conservative republicans will be swayed by minor amendments like increases in the state grant for reinsurance. And so i think it all depends on that score. If the score comes out and it looks pretty similar to the house version, i think it might take a little longer than theyre aiming for before july 4th. Glor mitch mb could be el is really trying to thread the needle here. Oh yeah, hes really i think now theyre already protesting on the hill, when people going back to the districts. And it is going to, i think, gum up the works a little bit more than he expects. Glor so what happens, if they dont vote, philip, before the holiday, senators go back to their districts, go to the townhalls, to whatever else. Exactly. We saw that actually this spring with house members when the bill was first introduced in the house. They went back and there were all these video clips of people standing up and yelling at our republican representatives. And that is the sort of thing that Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> was hoping to avoid, having his members go back home and get yelled back over the course of the august break. There has been some talk, i dont think it is real about skipping the august break to push through. I think that plays a part of the rule. They dont want to have to have people go and deal with the voters who will be unhappy with what this bill looks like. Glor is the secretary resee part of the debate now and the pressure with building, is that part of over obviously theyve released it. This approach got criticism but it has worked in the past. And both sides have done it. How do you, your estimation how does that part of it, the way this bill was developed, play into how it gets debated now next week. I mean i have to say the secretary resee is kind of amazing. Im not sure weve ever seen anything quite like this to take something again from total secretary resee to passage for something this major, something this significant in this short of time. So i think its clearly going to give senators pause. You can tell in the reactions theyve been very tent tiff, that they dont want to say anything, they dont know what is in it. One after the text was released didnt realize there was text today. There is a lot of confusion, there is a lot of deficit in trying to process all this information. Theyre not going to have a lot to work on. They will have a cbo score though and unlike the house the senate actually has to wait for that cbo score so they will at least have that one piece of information. If you recall, when the house took its vote on the earlier version, they actually didnt have a cbo sor in the final text when they took that vote. Then the score came out later, and was some what difficult for a lot of them politically. So i do think that theyre going to be at least having some information. But there is also always that concern that Something Else<\/a> will come out late thary people didnt realize they were voting for. Glor senator schumer called this a wolf in sheeps clothing. So what he is trying to say there is that he thinks it might not be so bad to begin with but it gets even worse. Yeah, so i think he was referring to the medicaid provision. So its similar to the hows medicaid provision where they roll back some of the medicaid expansion, they phase out that funding. And they change the way its funded. The pace program is funded over the next ten years. So they change it from an openended funding structure to what is called a per capita cap. That is all the same as the house bill but what the senate bill does is really after 2025, it changes the inflationary index on that per capita cap which basically means it grows less over time than what we expected under the house bill. That means i think you get a couple hundred billion dollars less funding over the following ten years, which would mean a lot fewer people get covered and there are fewer covered services. Glor philip, talk a little bit about who then, who stands to lose and who stands to win from this bill. All right, i think in the broadest stroke this bill looks a lot like the house bill in the sense that those people who rely on medicaid coverage, there are going to be cutting over the longterm. That tends to be mostly for americans, disabled americans as well. The people who benefit, the taxes that were part of obamacare that helps keep costs down for everybody else, that was the whole point, tax wealthier people so less wealthy people can afford insurance. Those wealthy people will see those taxes remove so they will benefit from this as well. And its really not clear where folks in the middle, and there are a lot of folks in the middle, how this will affect over the longterm people who have employer coverage, there is conflicting reports about people who get coverage through their work, how it will affect them. And in Broad Strokes<\/a> i think the complaints that existed prior to today still exist today. And i think that from a political standpoint that is problematic. Glor kevin, the president has said that he thinks some negotiation is necessary here which did an understatement. But that something will get done. Well, i mean hes obviously maintained that all along. And he was able to keep, he and his people were able to keep that negotiation going in the house. And a lot of people thought the bill was basically dead and they were able to push something through. And so i think they have some faith in their ability to push something through in the senate, im not sure they have quite the same pull in the senate but what you do have here is senators are feeling a ton of pressure from their constituents, as unpopular as this bill is they have been promising to repeal this obamacare law for seven years. So when it comes right down to it, i think Mitch Mcconnell<\/a>s calculation is you put a bill on the floor, a final passage vote and you say i dare to you vote against something you have been running on for seven years. And then to that point, it dominated every election or at least been a huge part of every election since at least 2010, it seems assured to be part of one in 2018. Glor oh, definitely. I think you are going to have senators who are, they are walking a tight rope between being judged for not passing the Obamacare Repeal<\/a> they promised and between being judged for something too mean. I think what that means is, as this bill has done over the house bill, there is going to be more support for reforming the tax credits, the private pieces of this, and making them lack a little more like the aca. But i think there is still broad Political Support<\/a> especially among the Republican Base<\/a> for reforming medicaid, for making it more of a bloc grant per capita structure and con stricting it over the next ten years, that is likely to happen. Glor at this point it is await for the cbo. At this point wait for the cbo but also keap an eye on those more moderate republicans who their base are not the ones clammerring for repeal of obamacare to the extent that a lot of the much more conservative republicans, house members, their base is the one thing, we need to repeal this thing and leaves the moderate people in the middle it will be fascinating to see where they end up. Glor philip bump, vann newkirk and fill Kevin Whitelaw<\/a>, thank you. Jack ma is the executive chairman of the alibaba group. It is the largest Ecommerce Company<\/a> in china and ranked this year by forbes as the sixth largest retailer in the world. In january ma met with then president elect trump and promised to create one million american jobs over the next five years through his ecommerce platform. Charlie sat down with jack ma in detroit this week at a conference called gateway 17. The alibaba sponsored event was an opportunity for u. S. Small re is their conversation. What brings you to detroit . The Small Business<\/a>, the entrepreneurs. I i have been expecting this day for a long long time. When i start my business, i tried to sell my products ideas to the outside world, especially i have a lot of friends who did import export. They are all Small Business<\/a>, ten years ago, they could not have. They dont have base, money, they dont have this, dont have that. And i said some day i hope alibaba can build up a platform that all the Small Business<\/a> can sell across the world easily, efficiently and cheaply. So after ten years, things like that were just started. So you hope that they take away from this medium, an idea that there is this huge market in china. Yeah. Glor and people who want to buy what they sell. Yep. Glor . I hope as i in the past ten years u. S. A. Domestic consumption verse es the engine of Global Economy<\/a> and i told the people at that time to say if you miss the opportunity of selling the products to the world, to the u. S. A. , to the europe, you may miss the chance. And today i want to tell the people that if you miss the opportunity of selling your products to china, you will miss the comeunt, you will miss the future. Tell me about the encounter. I went to seattle, he had a small office like four or five computers. I never touched computer in my life, before because computer was so expensive to me. And so complicated. But my friend said this is the internet. Just type in whatever word you want to type in. I dont know which one to do. Even now i dont know how a computer works. He said jack, its not a bomb, just type whatever. So the first word i type in was bier. I dont know why, i dont drink beer, i find german beer, american beer, no china beer, so i type the word china. There is no information about china. So i said hmmmm, what if we can make some china information on the internet. That people know about china. So that was the idea. So i came back to china and say i want to resign from my school. Glor. You were a teacher. I was a teacher. I have been teaching in the university for six years. So i said i want to do it. I invited 24 of my friends to my apartment. After two hours of explaining what i am going to do internet, and 23 of them say forget it. They say this thing never work because there is no such thing called internet in the world. You know nothing about a computer. So why you want to do this. And only one people said jack, if you want to try this, just to try it, but if it is something wrong, just come back. And after a whole night thinking, i say i still want to do it. Because most of the people they have a fancy ideas in the evening but in the day when they wake up in the evening, or in the morning they go back to do the same job. We have to do something different. So from there i set my business borrowing 2,000 u. S. Dollars for the relative and friends. That was for my trip. I called myself like a blind man riding on the back of blind tigers. And those people who are expert of riding horses, they all fall down and im still surviving. Was that the beginning of alibaba. That is the beginning of china pages. Alibaba was 1999, since 1995, i started business, i almost fulfill every project shall did shall fail every project, never survive. So 1995 i got an idea if china is going to join wto a lot of chinese products is going to sell across the world. So if i can make a site that can help chinas products selling outside, and it helping the Small Business<\/a> in the other country sell to the other part of the world, that was the concept. So 1999, i start alibaba in my apartment. You have said to me before also that in your mind one, two, three is customer. Yeah. Employer. And shareholder. Yeah. So when you try to borrow that 2,000, you didnt tell that person that he was number three. Well, the 2,000 was from my relatives, my parents and all the all of the friends i got, i got 2,000. But when i raised my money for ipo, even for the, when alibaba in the New York Stock Exchange<\/a> were raised 20 billion, i told the investors, we have been believing customer number one, number two, shareholder number three. And people say this is against our american investor philosophy. I remember one of the investors said hey, jack, you know, if i know you are a shareholder number three, i would not buy, i would not have bought your stocks. I say sir, please sell it. Because i believe there are so much money in the world, there is too much money in the world. But, we only need the money who believing in our vision and mission. Because i believe if the customer happy, employees are happy, the shareholders will be happy. But if the shareholders are happy, not nesesly customer happy, and may not necessarily employee will be happy. When you look applause how important, two things, trust, and culture been . Well, trust is the most important thing, as we discussed a few minutes ago. If people give me, when i had no money because when alibaba started 18 founders in my apartment, i told everybody, say, put all your money savings on the table. Leaving the money for food and room, you know, rent, just that. The money you have, put on the table, i want to gather the money and nobody should borrow the money from parents. Nobody should borrow money from friends because i dont want to make your parents and friends bankrupt because doing alibaba. So 18 people. We gathered 50,000 u. S. Dollars, we started alibaba in my apartment. And those people actually, none of us have money. If somebody say i give you 1 million u. S. Dollars and i give you trust, which one i would choose. I would choose those people who give me the trust 6789 because it is the trust that make us be united. Its the trust. I think 18 founders, they trusted me. Because they trusted me, i have to be very loyal to them. And loyal to the mission that we have. I think a lot of entrepreneurs know that i hate people work for me. I want people work for the mission that we agree together. Because you dont want people to work for me. Because people like me, when you look further, this guy everybody in its world is saying, you should not get closer. Further is good. So you think oh, jack is bate but if you get closer, not necessarily. I will be angry, im happy, i got but when people trusting you, that is the most valuable thing. I think later when we got a lot of venture capitalists invested in us, the thing they noticed is that because my team trusts me, and i trust my team. So this is the trust. The other is about a culture. I think the knowledgebased purist, if you want to have smart people work for you, the smart people need to be managed by culture, not by rules and laws. So in our company, we spent most of the time about the culture. And the base of the culture is the trust. So this is what we believe. China has changed. I think back in 1995 when you were in seattle, 1999. How has it changed between 1999 when you started alibaba and today in 2017 . Well, when i went back to china in 1995 with an idea of internet was very strange, china was not connected to the internet. So i tried my friends what is internet. They say this thing never work, this thing never exist. Because true, because people even say jack is a liar because hes trying to steal money from people, telling us there is an internet. So when i go to, when i go to the China Company<\/a> registration office, i said i want to Register Company<\/a> called hounds of hope internet company. The guy looked at me and say this is the english dictionary, tell me, there is no word called the internet. Why you want to register called the internet. So i cannot Register Company<\/a> name. But in 1995, late august china was connected to the internet. I was number seven person connected to the china internet. In order to prove i was not lying i invited my friend who was a tv man. Take the tv camera. They all stay in my home and they just try to take the picture. I die from shanghai to the america to connect to the internet. It took us three hours and a and a half to download the first page. At that time there is no called the mosaic. So i have toik lake a hundred starts to keep my journalist friends to stay and wait because to prove that i am not telling a lie. So how big is alibaba today . Today from 1999 we have 18 founders, to now we have close to 60,000 people. Our sales, called gmv last year is over 550 billion u. S. Dollars. And it just the beginning. We will probably go across one trillion u. S. Dollars in three years. In three years. Inly years. So that is 2020. applause within no, i would say in three years, yeah, 2020, that is our 20 Year Anniversary<\/a> of alibaba. This is, this thing does not happen in 18 days or 20 days. When we started, year 2003 when i launched the we got seven founders for i said everybody go home. Pick up a looking for four things that list on the website. So we see who will come to buy, how much things we can sell. So we went home. We cannot find, everybody cannot find four things in the home we can sell because were too poor. So we gather 21 products, we list it on the website. We waited for three days. Nobody comes to buy. And then the next week we got, we start to buy and sell ourselves. For the first week all the sales was among ourselves. And then another week later, somebody started sell, for almost 30 days, everything people sell we are all buy them. So we have a whole house of rubbish we bought online. Trying to making sure, that so those guys who were able to sell, oh well, this thing really can sell things. Then more people started to come to sell and then it served better and it come. So from there to now, 550 billion. Market cap is what . Market cap like 350 billion, yeah, billion something, yeah. Some people when they think about getting on the internet and trying to reach foreign markets whether its china or endsia or somewhere else, worry about counterfeiting. They worry about Fake Products<\/a> underselling them when they are not the real thing. How do you deal with that . How do you reassure them . Like any entrepreneur, when you start a business you start to worry. And people around you worry much more than you do. When i start alibaba my parents worry, my wife worry, my friends worry, my tea we started the al, we have a lot of things people worry. You know, when we start all i babs, hey, you dont have a payment. You dont have a trust. People do not believe online. They believe does not support internet, nobody support ecommerce. How could you do it . I think as an entrepreneur, if everything is ready, that does not need you. Because nothings ready. That needs entrepreneurship. To think of course, their loss, at the beginning. But you have to fix it. So in the past 15 years we spent a lot of time. Because you have to make sure the customer feels safe, happy its brand feels happy. The reputation is the best. Otherwise the people say i sell on the site and my things were copied and stolen. So we using a lot of ways to do that. Today more than 100,000 brands partner with us. And i think we have today, i assure all the here, we are the Company Online<\/a> today the leader of couldnter fit and it protection. We they there are three things that will make our sited die, three things that will be the cancer of our business, counterfeit, ip and cheating. So a lot of things to worry about doing business. We also worry about people cannot receive money. If you sell things, nobody will, if you cannot receive the money, you will be cheated. So we are using ali pay, all the ways we do to try to making sure that smes can easily sell, either receive the money and Customer Service<\/a> is good. When you created alibaba there were three things you said about it. I want to talk about the comparison with amazon. You said it will be asset light, a platform not a retailer, difference from amazon, and you said it will play on the world stage. Why did you decide to go that direction . The transactional company. Okay. I think the difference, amazon is a great company. They did fantastic job in aerica and the world. But they are Ecommerce Company<\/a>. Were not an Ecommerce Company<\/a>. We help others to become ecommerce. We believe every company can be amazon. We tried to empower the Small Business<\/a>, that can reach their customers. We tried to empower the companies with logistics so they can deliver things quickly, cost effectively. We tried to empower every Small Business<\/a>, they do ecommerce they can easily receive and the money. And this is all about, and we know that we, this company was we made so much money in the past years. But we think this is all because of Small Business<\/a>. And the money we made we want to assure that we want to build our infrastructure of commerce. So going global is so important. We should help not only chinas company, we should help the global company. So today ali all irbaba comes to america. We go to our c. E. O. Today, is in europe. We also have a lot of colleagues in southeast asia. We think we are not, we are not global like alibaba. We are globalized ecommerce. We tried to making sure ecommerce infrastructure, the payment, the market polices, and the logistics can making sure everybody today can compete with amazon, microsoft, ibm, this is what we want. Where do you see alibaba going over the next ten years, are you already in hollywood. You are in the cloud. I mean are you doing things that are beyond the transactional basis of your business. We doing business, we go from market places to payment, to logistic and to cloud, not because they which there is money there. We believe, when we do the market places, if we dont have the payment solutions, our customers can not do transactions in we dont have the payment f we dont have logistics, they cannot finish the transactions. And when we have a lot of transaks we say if we dont have cloud computing, the cost of it for our customers is too expensive. So we do all these things, in the because we think theres money there, because we know if we dont do it, our customers can not finish their jobs. Their work. Our mission is to help them doing business easier, so our company must be mission an vision driven. We hollywood entertainment, we think ten, 20 years later we have to know one thing. The world and everybody, no matter how rich with you how successful are you or unsuccessful are, the most important is healthy and happy which is double h strategy. Healthy and happy. Yeah, so in the next ten years we are very confident about everything we are doing. Our market place, our ecommerce will keep on growing. Our finances will keep on growing, logistic will keep on growing. Cloud compute letter keep growing when we have that much money, how do we help their business are happier and healthier. So we do not think we are a company we think we are economy. Alibaba is economy. Alibaba is the economy. The size of argentina economy. Our gmv, last year, 550 billion dollars, almost like argentina. We are ranking number 21, 22 countries gdpwise. The next three years will go across 1 trillion. And we hope in 20 years by year 2036 we will be the fiftd largest economy of the world that is america, china, europe, japan, and we believe that economy there will be an economy that every Small Business<\/a> of the world can leverage their economy, they can sell their products across the world every consumer of every country, they can buy things through their mobile home to all of the world everything they put on the line within 72 hours, they will receive it. So this is our vision of course alibaba does not own that economy we want to join the force with all the populars to build that economy. So it has never crossed your mind that maybe we should own a lot of assets . That we should have an inventory that we should engage show beyonds what we do, in terms of making things. No, i think whether we depends on whether our customer need it. If our customers say jack, you should build more warehouses, well build warehouses if the customers, if our partners dont have the capabilities of doing things that our business needed, we do it. We do it not because we do it not because there is money. We do it because it is necessary. Do your competitors primarily come from china . No, i think who do you see as your competitor. I dont know i dont know. Yeah, we have competed with amazon there, but to me it is too early, next 30 years, internet, ecommerce will change the world. Ive been saying this to my team, when we were in the apartment when we were in the apartment i say guys, in the next ten years or in the future, alibaba will be the top ten websites of the world and my founders say what is number ten mine. Today we are like 500 million back. You have to believe it. And then i told the team that internet is like 10,000 meters running, racing. We just finished the first 100 meters yet. There are things besides you that are competitor. Running for another 3,000 meters, then you know who is the competitor. We are good today. We may not be good if we lose our hope if we lose our vision. If you lose your culture. If we lose our culture and team. We are nothing. Most of the companies are so good, when netscape was so good, we never thought it would disappear. Yahoo was good, we never felt like it today. Dont believe youll be good all the time. Be paranoid was it andy grove said . Only the paranoid survive so i think as the entrepreneurs, do not think your neighbor tommy is a competitor. Look at the the thing you do, do not focus your eyes on the competitor. Are you too small to focus yourself on the neighbor or competitors. Focus your customers, make your customer happy. Most of the Big Companies<\/a> when they talk, my suggestion one day giving you guys when he goes to become bigger, when he comes to china, most of the american company, Internet Companies<\/a> in china, were not the reason, they spend too much time making their boss happy, rather than their customer happy. They spend too much time on competing, not longterm strategy. So as the entrepreneurs, they always number one, number one priority is customers, and employees. What is your role with the company, you have given up the c. E. O. Position to michael evan. Are you still the face of alibaba. You are traveling the globe all the time, preparing the alibaba story. You are the visionary, you are the one who thinks about where alibaba might be. How do you define your role today . I have three things to do. When i retire from c. E. O. Position, i told my c. E. O. And teams, i promise when i am a chairman, im learn learning, im still learning to be a chairman. I thought it i would be a chairman where company is big, i should have more free time to play golf, on the beaches but i find oh my gosh, i fly 870 hours in the air last year. And this year 1,000 hours in the air. Three things. The first thing i will do is making sure our company is the Mission Driven<\/a> company, mission and vision driven company. We are making sure the whole company believing we are doing everything to empower every Small Business<\/a>, young people, women, they can easily do business through internet. This is number one so i am talking to everybody, everybody in the company i meet. I remember there is a guy called early days when i come to america, talk about internet, about a Valley Mission<\/a> of the company, this guy sitting there, he was working for a fortune 500 company. He said jack is a crazy guy. How could you a company has no business model, no money, and talk about the Mission Vision<\/a> of valley, i say talk to my company. I came to china, spent three days in my company, when they leave he said jack, i find you are crazy. Now i find 100 crazy guys in your company, they all talk like you. We do not think, we are crazy. We think the outside world is crazy. Yeah. So this is very, very important. And also i think the for the first three years of alibaba, we had no revenue, no business model. And i told the team forget about the money, revenue today. If you want to be a longterm company, the only thing to think about is customers. The best revenue for our first one or two years. The best revenue is what . It is the email of thanks. That is the best revenue. If the customer send you email saying you are great, i was so happy early day when i went to small restaurant, people will pay my bill. I was a small note that say jack, thank you very much. I know you do not make money, but we made a lot of money through your website. Yeah. I like that even now today i have a lot of customers they pay me something, you know t is not a bribe, just there is a boy in a hotel. He opened door for me, he say jack, thank you so much. My wife makes more money than me on your site so this is the best and i want to keep this to keep on going. The secretary thing is culture. The people, and the theirs to builds up a healthy environment for alibaba. So jack ma doesnt worry about a damn thing. Oh, i have a lot of things to worry about. What do you worry about. I worry about the company, we have a big vision but we may disappear in three, four years. Because are you disrupted by something you cant imagine today we do. The world that changes so fast oy worry a lot of the Artificial Intelligence<\/a> may take a lot of jobs away if we do not move fast enough, if we do not innovate enough and spend enough time giving simple, easy Products Technology<\/a> for Small Business<\/a> the business cannot survive the next 2e7b years. If the Small Business<\/a> cannot survive, we cannot survive. What does Small Business<\/a> need to survive . Today i would say the next 10, 20 years, the Small Business<\/a> no matter where you are, if you do not try to globalize your business through internet, you may not have a business opportunity. The local business in the future is going to be more and more competitive. Think about it, how can you sell products acrosstheboard. Your product, your chocolate, people in your village already know about it, but the people in china never know. They love these things think how can you sell your product acrosstheboard. This is i think. You gave a speech in which you talked about the warning for decades of pain unless you recognize the coming advent of Artificial Intelligence<\/a>, robots and the whole range of things that could challenge how you have been doing business notice past. Yeah. You also have mentioned retirement. Yeah jack ma at what at 50 something within think being retirement. Yeah, im preparing. You said you have been preparing since were you 40. Yeah. To think about retiring. When i leaving university i was 30 years old. And my president of my University Said<\/a> jack, one day you want to come back, any time you are welcome. I said president , i would not come back in ten years. So i thought when im 40 i can go back to teach. But when im 340, oh my gosh, life was so tough. So tough my Company Almost<\/a> in big trouble, i said i should not leave. And when im 45, i should retire. When im 45, i cannot stop it and then i start to prepare, i say, people say jack, are you the next bill gates. I say can i not compete with bill gates but can i compete with bill gates who can retire earlier. And can i compete with the who empowers more Small Business<\/a>, so year 2012 i retired from the c. E. O. An i have my own goals that i will retire from chairman some day and i am going to be preparing that, year 20126789 the thing is i dont want to die in my office. I want to die on the beaches. How much time do you applause wait, no, wait. How much time do you spend on the beaches now . I dont have time to spend on the beaches, that is why i always dream one day i will be on the beaches. Because remember, when we were young, nobody give us chance. Now we are big, we should give young people a chance. Young people do much better job than we do. applause this is what i think. And i think the world can be great, can be prosperous without you. When you die, people cry for three days, maybe less than three days, they forget you. So you need to have a good system for your team, giving chance for them. It strikes me tonight and since ive known you, that part of you is always a teacher. I mean youre teaching tonight. Youre telling about my experiences, and what you can learn from the journey i have taken. Yeah. The idea of sharing experiences, is part of teaching to you. Yes. I am i was trained to be a teacher. And i benefit because i dont know anything about technology, computing, i do puzzle about what is how it can work. And i do not accounting, marketing, i know very little about that. But the thing i learned from being teacher, that a teacher always wants his students to be more successful and better than you are. So this is, i learned to be a good c. E. O. When i hire people, i always want to hide hire those people who are smarter than i am. And i, today i give a lot of advice to my colleagues. When they hire people there is one judge. Look at the young men. If you think he will be your boss, he will be pie boss in five years, hire him. Do not think, do not hire people who will follow you all the time. So as a teacher, you want this student to become a banker, this student a scientist, you dnt want this student a bankrupt, that is in jail, you know. So this is the way that i benefit, and then when it becomes c. E. O. , i call may self chief education officer. And i love to talk, i love to share cuz when i, as a teacher you may not know a lot of things. The only things you learn and you share. People may not like the way i talk. And im not my job is not to make people happy. My job is to make people think, this is the way we give. If it is helpful for you, take it. If is not helpful for you, just forget it. So this is, i love to be with the entrepreneurs. Cuz you guys reminded me that years that weve got. And i believe one thing, i give advice to all of you, as entrepreneur, today is very difficult and tomorrow is even more difficult, but tomorrow is very beautiful, most people die tomorrow evening. You have to work hard, you have to learn, you have to rely on your team. An thras the business. I like to be a teacher. I was going to ask you about legacy. But im not going to ask you about legacy because i think you just summed it up yourself. Its a great pleasure to be here with you, jack ma, thank you. Thank you. applause for more about this prasm and earlier episodes visit online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications<\/a> captioned by Media Access Group<\/a> at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services<\/a> worldwide. Youre watching pbs. New tech leaders, the hottest sector this year has been led by the best known megacap, but now, there are new names leading the way. Record highs. Newly built homes are more ek pensive, but there may be a solution. Diving in. Why private insurers are getting into the Flood Insurance<\/a> market. After a 50year absence. Those stories and a lot more on nightly Business Report<\/a> for june 23rd. Good evening. Tyler and sue are off tonight. Technology is back on","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia800604.us.archive.org\/4\/items\/KQED_20170623_070000_Charlie_Rose\/KQED_20170623_070000_Charlie_Rose.thumbs\/KQED_20170623_070000_Charlie_Rose_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240628T12:35:10+00:00"}