Asking what leads to success is misleading. You can’t copy success because there’s a million different factors (combination of luck, timing, context, etc.).

Instead you should ask: “What are the keys to failure?” Because those are always the same.

There are 3 things that will kill any company if in excess:

• Money
• Plans
• Technology

Alibaba had that internal motto: “No money, no plan, no technology”.

Money

Money makes people stupid. When problems arise, the first instinct becomes “throw money at it” instead of attacking it with creativity. And this works sometimes. But it becomes this crutch that you can never get rid of as a company.

That people are so used to solving everything with money and they lose the ability to solve problems with creativity.

“The more money you have, the more expensive everything seems to get”.

Plans

“how many of you today are doing what you planned on doing when you started? *crickets.

The plan always changes. But the mission never waivers. Sometimes you must make a plan to help guiding others, but you must adapt and follow your gut.

If you just follow the mission, you will come up with the right plan at the right time.

Technology

“We are a service company. We are here to solve customer issues and not to build new technologies. So, in order to serve as a service company, yes, we often use the best technology so we serve better.

But if it fails, we will do it manually because we are not a technology company, we are a service company.”

How do you define yourself will define what to do and what not to do.

-David Wei, Alibaba’s CEO at the time

-My First Million Podcast, MFM Mini