Only on the Muddiest Path Can We Leave the Shiniest Mark

Nantian, Head of Product and Technology, Alibaba Entertainment

My fellow tech workers of the Alibaba economy,

This Spring Festival was extremely unusual. The sudden COVID-19 outbreak swept across the entire country, presenting the Alibaba economy and the whole society with enormous challenges.

We know that 17 years ago, Alibaba in its infancy went through an even harder time. Amid the SARS pandemic, we Aliren fought together to deliver value to customers. From then on, “Customers First” has been written into our genes. Today Alibaba has grown into a corporate giant that can shoulder a lot more responsibilities. We are now doing our best for the good of the whole nation.

As with other teams in the Alibaba economy, this year’s Spring Festival also made an indelible impression on us at the 3-year-old entertainment segment. The pandemic brought all forms of offline entertainment to an abrupt halt. What was supposed to be a record-breakingly fierce battle for box office supremacy turned out to be a massive emergency refund operation that involved every ticket operator at Taopiaopiao and Damai. Instead of spending the holiday with their own families, almost everyone at our online video streaming platform Youku committed themselves to delivering quality contents, premium experience, and diversified entertainment offerings to other families and users. An all-encompassing program about the pandemic was released in two days. It offered up-to-date and authoritative information about COVID-19 from various perspectives. A homeschool project, made available online within only 15 days, introduced the flagship courses of hundreds of education institutions to tens of thousands of families. We also presented new live streaming and short video programs and new program lists almost every single day.

During the Spring Festival, I received your plans, design drafts and daily work reports in the wee hours every day. I saw you work against the clock to optimize each and every feature. All you did best interprets our definition of “Customers First”. No matter what difficulty we may face, we don’t put limits on ourselves. We only look for ways to success.

I believe that “only on the muddiest path can we leave the shiniest mark”. We at the 20-year-old Alibaba will emerge from the pandemic with much greater faith in our mission!

Alibaba Tech

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