Resource Constraints Drive Innovation
Share
A story about how Jack Ma intentionally limited resources to force innovation when Alibaba was competing with Google and eBay in China.
"When we were competing with Google and eBay in China, we needed to invent our version of Google AdWords. Jack Ma said we could only have 12-15 people on the project, even though Google had 2,000 people working on their version.
When we asked for office space, wanting a couple floors, Jack said 'You're going to work out of my old apartment.' We protested saying we needed a proper office, and he responded 'I started Alibaba in that apartment, I think it'll work.'
When we requested servers, saying we needed redundancy in case they went down, Jack said 'If I give you redundant servers, you're going to design a system that goes down. I'm going to give you only the servers you need. In fact, go get used servers so it can run on even shitty servers.'
They eventually pulled it off, creating their version of AdWords with these constraints."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.