Ma Yun was invited to serve as the general manager of the China International Electronic Commerce Center (hereinafter referred to as EDI) under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation under the help of a friend named Wang Jianguo from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. He was responsible for building the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and online Chinese commodity transactions. market.
Ma Yun's team rented a house in Panjiayuan, went to work during the day, and organized everyone to learn English at night. The whole team worked very hard and quickly built the website. Jack Ma later also participated in the creation of Guofutong Company of the Ministry of Commerce and served as the general manager.
During his stay at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ma Yunguang formed a good relationship, not only met many government personnel, but also became friends with Yang Zhiyuan of Yahoo, Zhang Chaoyang of Sohu and others.
Ma Yun and the team thought that this time it should be stable. Zhang Ying and Peng Lei even moved all the furniture to Beijing, planning to take root for a long time. The children of Ma Yun and Zhang Ying were also taken to Beijing to go to school.
However, Jack Ma felt the same depression again.
In government departments, the leaders have the final say on everything. Ma Yun put forward a plan to build a website based on his understanding of the market, but the leader proposed another plan, but Ma Yun had to bite the bullet and follow the leader's intention.
At the same time, Chinese Internet companies at that time had begun to develop rapidly. Jack Ma felt that the era of e-commerce in China was coming, but he was unable to seize this opportunity and realize his dream in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.
Finally one day, at night, Ma Yun called the team again and announced that he wanted to return to Hangzhou.
He told the team members that he had paved three paths for them:
The first one is to work at Yahoo, as long as he recommends it, it will be fine;
The second thing is that if you go to Sohu, you can definitely go, and the salary is not low;
The third is to go back to Hangzhou with him. The salary is only 500 yuan. I have to rent a house within a 5-minute walk of Ma Yun’s house. The work will be very tiring.
Ma Yun said, you don't have to rush to answer, think about it carefully, and reply to me in three days.
The team members walked out with a heavy heart, and within three minutes, they came back and said: We'd better go home with you. Everyone chose to go back to Hangzhou with Jack Ma.
Before leaving Beijing, Ma Yun and his team went to the Great Wall once and left this famous photo.
According to Ma Yun’s recollection in Yang Lan’s interview in the future, the scene that day was exactly the same as that of acting in a movie:
On the Great Wall, the autumn wind is strong and the weather is very cold.
One person said excitedly:
Why, why do we give up? We fought all the way from Hangzhou to Beijing. We have gone through so many hardships and hardships. We finally made it through, and we have to start from scratch again?
Ma Yun was also very emotional and said loudly:
We go back and start from scratch, from scratch, and build a company that we will never regret in our lives.