[Music]

For people who don't know who he is,

please give us an introduction to Joe

Sat. He's the owner of the Nets and he's

now chairman of Alibaba. We like

innovation from the bottom up.

>> Alibaba just dropped their secret

weapon, Quinn 2.5 max. Alibaba surged 14

1.5% overnight, beat estimates on nearly

every metric. A massive rally alone this

year, adding about 100 billion to the

stock's value. You have to have a growth

mindset when you compete.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Joe

Sai.

[Music]

>> Hey, my man. Good to see you.

>> Good to see you, brother.

>> How are you?

>> Good to see you.

>> Good to see you,

>> David. How are you?

>> The Brooklyn Nets.

>> Brooklyn Nets.

>> Nets and the New York Liberty.

>> And the New York Liberty. Exactly. It's

not easy running a team, is it?

>> It's uh not easy at all.

>> Not easy at all

>> because

uh a basketball any professional team is

uh both a uh business and also it's an

institution. You need to keep the fan

base happy. So there's sort of this

church and state element.

>> Yeah.

>> It's almost like running a news

organization.

>> Yeah, there it is. Can we uh maybe start

with the WNBA and we can shift to

business and we can shift to basketball,

but I think Caitlin Kark is out for the

season and there's just been a lot of

controversy and attention that the WNBA

is getting. What has it done right? What

has it done wrong? Did the has the

league been doing enough to protect her

as a as a star in the face of the

league? It's been a almost a microcosm

for just a social discussion. Do you

want to just talk about that as what you

see?

>> Clayton Clark definitely had an effect

on uh the WNBA. All the metrics went up.

So, this was last season, right, when

she first came into the league from

college. And uh uh we've seen all of our

metrics from viewership, ticket sales,

sponsorship, everything went up like

almost 4x 4x.

>> 4x,

>> right?

>> I mean, that's incredible.

>> That's incredible. So, so the so the

economic impact that she's made to the

league is is extraordinary.

>> Undeniable.

>> Undeniable. But because of who she is,

um, you know, she's a a little bit of a

different, uh, kind of player. You know,

she is a she's a point guard. She's

she's a smaller player. Uh, the knock on

her was was she going to be able to

withstand all the physicality of the

league, and she's proven that she's able

to do to do that. Um, unfortunately,

there's been uh I think I think it's

always good to have rivalries, right? uh

you know she she has this rivalry with

Angel Ree that dated back to college.

But some people would like to pit it as

uh a kind of a racial thing or is it uh

you know this or that. I um I think we

need to look past that uh and just look

at the skill set that's being brought

into the league now. We have so many

great college players. I mean uh the the

the rookie of the year potential

candidate uh is Sonia Citron. Have you

ever heard of her before she came into

the league? I mean, no, she I think she

just uh broke the record for the highest

three-point uh shooting percentage in

the league. Uh so, you know, you you see

tremendous amount of talent and I think

uh you you ask what have what have they

done, right? I I don't I think it's a

matter of just uh a confluence of good

things coming into the league.

>> And what about the NBA? So you guys did

just an enormous

>> Yeah. Just let me let me just But but

the one thing that's really changed that

is prior to the Kaylin Clark uh season

uh your average fan base that watches

ESPN basically you guys are not watching

women's basketball. Maybe some some of

them follow college but certainly not

the WNBA. But now your average ESPN fan

base, they are watching the mainstream

sports fan base are watching the

>> I think she's a I I have an observation

about this and you and I are old school

basketball heads, you know, watching

having watched the 80s and 90s and

Patrick Euing and Charles Barkley. It's

more physical. They're tougher in the

WNBA. And every time LeBron goes up and

he gets fouled and he's just and he's

flopping all the time.

>> How does he do it? You know, it's a

foul. It's a foul. So maybe you could

comment on LeBron being like

>> or just generally the NBA product

actually.

>> Yeah. The I mean the NBA and then

they're so tough and they're throwing

each other around. It's a better game.

>> The NBA product is great.

>> Um I I I don't think it's fair to

compare whether uh the men's league is

more less physical than the women's

league or more one the other the I mean

they're both very physical. I mean if

you are sitting there on the floor you

are watching physicality.

>> Sure. uh and and also athleticism,

right? But the game has, you know, the

NBA has this uh uh committee called the

competition committee. So I I got put on

the competition committee. They call me

and they say, "Joe Joe, we want, you

know, want to be on the competition

committee, you know, it's about rules

about, you know, like what is this

transition, take foul?" So the committee

is every season they're they make these

tweak changes. They make changes to

refing to make the product better. I

mean, when I got the call, I'm like, you

want me to sit on the committee with

Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, and uh Coach K?

Like, what do I know about basketball

that can, you know, really

>> be smarter than them? But, uh, but what

I've seen is uh I've said to ads so the

competition committee should be called

the product committee because that is

the product the fans see on the floor.

If you change, let's say if you change

the three-point line,

>> that is a product decision. sound

competition.

>> Should they?

>> Is it too?

>> I I don't think so. I don't think so.

>> When you watch the the Boston Celtics

throw up 43 threes in a game, you think

it's a good product?

>> I think it's a great product because

there are 18 different ways you can

throw up 43 threes in a game.

>> Okay, let's uh transition to Alibaba for

a second. It's an incredible journey you

and Jack Ma and the whole story has it's

I mean it's written in books and there's

just tremendous lore but can you take us

back to your mindset? I mean I think

we've heard it's well documented Jack's

mindset but how you got involved what

you were thinking in that moment the

risk you were taking. I was just

mesmerized by Jack's personality. uh

every people see the public side of Jack

which is very charismatic but what I saw

was he was able to instill faith in

people. I mean, he had a when I walked

into his apartment, there were like 12

to 15 sort of very young people roughly,

you know, uh, students that were just

coming out of college and Jack was kind

of the teacher that's 10 years older and

he's able to communicate. He's able to

paint a a very strong vision. Uh, that

was the part that I really signed on to.

His ability to lead is an amazing

ability and you know he's a teacher uh

by training he taught at Zojang

University he taught English actually

you know teachers in a way make natural

leaders uh because a you have to

communicate well and b you can identify

talent I think a lot of teachers love to

see their students and say oh this kid

is gonna do really well so they write a

recommendation they do whatever And also

teachers are have enough humility that

they're willing, they're very happy if

their students go off and then they come

back and become more successful than

they are. And in a comp in building a

company, you need to be able to

accommodate all sorts of people that are

smarter than you are. And that's that's

really important. There was a phase I

guess in the maybe the early 2010s where

it was a lot of it felt like tremendous

freewheeling capitalism in China where

there was just a just a Cambrian

explosion of incredible entrepreneurs

yourself and Jack and all these others

pony and then I think almost starting

with the antipo it things changed a

little bit. Can you walk us through the

dynamics of how that changed and then I

think it all kind of leads to you know

the lot of foreign direct investment

into the Chinese ecosystem has changed

pretty dramatically. Just give us a

sense of what has happened over that arc

that you've been in it working in it

observing it.

>> Alibaba has been around for 26 years. I

would say the first 15 years were it was

a complete free market kind of you know

way of growth and uh uh we built a lot

of business organically and then you we

went into a phase where there was

extreme competition uh everybody wanted

to do e-commerce why it's because if you

have traffic online e-commerce was the

best way to monetize your traffic and

and today in today's market we have five

or very very strong competitors

including the parent company of Tik Tok

bite dance they are doing e-commerce

they're not known as an e-commerce

company but they are one of our fiercest

competitors so there's a you go through

a a a period of extreme competition and

then the government felt that this

sector has gotten out of line a little

bit first there's too much competition

and then there are some uh platforms

that have exhibited monopolistic

behavior

So then there was a uh you know people

may call it a crackdown whatever more

regulations came in regulations some of

the regulations are very good actually

they protected privacy uh uh anti-

monopoly type uh regulation and uh uh

now we kind of are in a new normal where

uh we are we believe that the regulatory

environment is more predictable. We know

what the red lines are uh and we we know

where to go and where not to go and it's

actually made uh a a a better operating

environment because of the predict

predictability of it. On a geopolitical

level, it seems to be the rhetoric in

the United States. What they keep

drilling into Americans is to look at

China as an existential threat to

America that we're rivals that we cannot

operate and lead the world to

prosperity.

What do you think?

>> I I I

don't agree with that view of uh the

world. I'd be interested in your view,

David.

>> I mean, I don't believe in that either.

I mean, I'm I don't know why this has to

be the only dialogue we have is that we

are bitter rivals.

>> Yeah. I mean, look at this. the I I

think I I I could understand why sitting

here in America you look at the rise of

China over the last 20 years 25 years uh

China has become strong in terms of um

manufacturing that's why it's such an

export juggernaut it has become because

of the economic development it's uh you

know China has become a technology

juggernaut as well and the fear is well

all that stuff economic strength and

technology strength is going to flow

into military strength and that becomes

kind of a national security issue. I I

understand that. I I get it. Uh but I

think it's um uh it uh I these are the

two largest economies in the world and I

think you just need to take a step back

and say well yeah on the one hand we

should compete with China right that's

fine we our comp the hyperscalers

companies compete with the Chinese

internet companies globally um but then

on the other hand there there is just so

many trouble spots in the world uh that

what did President Trump say that he

stopped Seven wars, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Well, China has didn't start any

of them. China has not started a war in

the last how many years? You know, 30

years, 40 years. Um I think uh China was

part of the uh Korean war. Uh maybe the

Vietnam war, but that was uh a long time

ago in history. Uh so in a way China you

know if you observe the behavior of the

the Chinese people and the Chinese state

it's a very peaceful nation. China cares

about econ its own economic development.

They care about uh the well-being of its

citizens and uh I think there's a lot of

friction in in the in the course of

competition where China feels that the

United States is trying to contain China

and and stop the rise of China

economically. Just speaking about the

the welfare of its citizens. Um you

mentioned bite dance. I think there was

reported bite 10's revenue just passed

meta's revenue. I mean it's a

juggernaut.

>> It's a private company so I don't know.

You were telling Yeah.

>> Yeah. They actually released it but

>> um

>> one of the core products Tik Tok it's a

fundamentally different product here

than in than in China. And because of

that regulation and a focus on the

welfare of its citizens, there's like

strict rules in terms of the content and

the curation and the algorithms. Whereas

here, you know, it's like cat videos and

like, you know, all kinds of nonsense.

Although now I noticed that Tik Tok put

a STEM section inside of Tik Tok in the

American product for whatever reason.

There's a wherewithal that China has to

think about its citizenry like that. And

I'm just curious, how do we embrace more

of that principle because that sort of

gets lost in this?

>> Such a good question. Yeah. What can we

learn from China? Yeah.

>> Yeah. What should we be doing more of

that China does? Well, first education.

I mean, you have a extremely highly

educated population. And you know, you

talk to every Chinese parent, they want

their kids to take the ent college

entrance exam and get into the best

universities.

you know, if they want to send their

kids away to school, they want to go to

the Ivy League or Stanford or, you know,

all of that. So, I I think I think the

emphasis on education, I think there are

some structural issues here in the

United States, like the teachers union

that is getting in the way, but uh

uh but there are no teachers unions in

China. So, David, what's your David? I'm

curious looking at this um not in any

official capacity but kind of the same

question Chimath and I are sort of um

probing about here. What is your take on

America and China succeeding together?

And are we destined to be in conflict

with this country forever or is there a

path forward with our incredible amazing

dynamic President Trump?

Well, I think you know, Professor

Mirshimer explained it at all in some of

the last year that the US and China are

in a high-tech competition. They're in a

security competition, economic

competition. And the the reason is

because China's become rich and

powerful. And the United States does not

tolerate pure competitors. We want to be

the number one country. We want to be

the most powerful country. The balance

of power is to some degree a zero- sum

game. Economics are not, but power is.

And the the history of the United States

is we want to be number one and we don't

we don't like having pure competitors.

And I mean that's the bottom line. Now I

mean there are good reasons for this. We

live in a an Arctic world meaning

there's no higher authority. If you get

in trouble in the global system you

can't call 911. And so countries

privilege their survival over all their

considerations. And the way to survive

in the international system is to be

powerful. and you measure your power

based on the gap between you and the

next most powerful country. And I think

that 20 years ago, China wasn't seen as

a threat because it wasn't rich and

powerful, but now it is. And I think

that's what's led to a much more hawkish

environment in Washington. And I, you

know, I can't disagree with all of it

because I think it's very important that

the United States win the AI race. We

don't want China, for example, to

dominate in AI or or in chips. We want

the as Americans, we want the United

States to be the most powerful country.

Now, if I were Chinese, I would want

China to be the most powerful country.

And I don't have any resentment towards

Chinese people who want their country

the most powerful country. So, um

there's no animosity in saying this, but

I want the US to be the most powerful

country. And you know, in my little part

of the world, that means winning the AI

race.

>> Can I respond to that?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Uh I I think it's really important

that the uh as an you you know you as a

patriotic American, you want America to

win. Uh but I think when it comes to AI,

there's no such thing as winning the

race. I think it's a long marathon. And

you know, you could just see by these

model companies, uh every week there's a

model that's leading, but then the next

week another model overtakes them,

right? So uh and the other thing is it's

um AI is one of those uh we haven't

figured out what is the business model

is but in our business in e-commerce we

have a marketplace model with network

dynamics but I'm not sure if the

development of models has those uh

network effects that means winner take

all right so I don't think AI is a

winner take all uh field I think what My

definition of winning,

you know, is not who comes up with the

strongest AI model, but who can adopt it

faster. And I think uh uh people here in

the United States uh a lot of resources

should go into adoption and diffusion of

the technology as opposed to just

plowing you know bill I mean literally

each of the hyperscaler companies is in

each of them is investing something like

$80 billion a year. But you know I I

think if you look at China a couple

things are going on. Number one, China

has espoused open- source. Um, and and

second, uh, a lot of the companies

including ourselves have launched models

that are smaller. You know, not the

trillion parameter models, but you know,

we have a model that's 1.7 billion

parameters, another that's four, another

that's 8 billion for like mobile devices

and laptops. So, so with these types of

uh uh development uh I think it's more

conducive to faster adoption. Uh you

want AI to proliferate.

>> So, so now you know you look at China ch

you know I'm not saying China

technologically is winning in the model

war. Uh but in terms of the actual

application and also people benefiting

from AI, it is uh has made a lot of uh

uh development. Uh I I've seen a survey

uh of Chinese firms last year only 8%

have are using AI were were using AI in

their business. Uh now that number is

approaching half 50%. So so the adoption

rate has been fairly uh fast and I think

that the two countries AI is such an

important element of life. It's almost

like air.

>> Right.

>> Right. And uh why would any one country

say we have a sole claim to to air? We

we we should uh there's so many things

that AI can do that that that could you

know in medicine in in biology uh that

you know we we I think there's a lot of

room for cooperation. Joe, one of the

key questions that everybody asks when

we talk about AI and whether you spin

your own models, which you do, which

you've done a good job, and some people

just take them off the shelf, is the

actual net impact in the operations of

the business. Does it change the number

of people you hire? At what level does

it change it? Does it change the

efficiency? Does it change the way you

think about certain jobs? What's the

practical

application that it's doing for you guys

on the ground inside of Alibaba?

>> Yeah. Um the uh I I would definitely

made our uh operations more more

efficient. So we we actually can don't

have to hire as many people. Um I'm

still I'm on on this sort of uh mission

to uh write our quarterly earnings

release with AI uh and and maybe just

have a model, right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Put Yeah. And and also put

uh AI on the on the analyst conference

call. See if people can, you know, tell

the difference. Uh but anyway then then

they'll get rid of everybody in the

finance department. Um but uh the the

most the biggest impact AI has made is

with our uh we incorporate AI into all

of our uh consumerf facing apps. So

we're in e-commerce, we're in maps, uh

we have a food food delivery business,

uh and uh once once you infuse AI, uh

the consumer have a massively better

experience and that generate more user

base for us. So so we're seeing the

impact uh from the uh sort of the the

uplift on the on the revenue side.

>> Is is the workforce then naturally

attritting as more and more of the

workload is done? Yeah, it we haven't

you know announced any layoffs because

of AI but I think um uh you know I keep

asking our our engineering leads about

how uh how much of the code is written

by AI today. I think the answer I get is

all over the map depending on which

department you make you you ask but I

think it's maybe 30%. at this point

>> already.

>> Yeah,

>> already

>> I'm doing kind of a weighted average of

the different

>> Yeah,

>> Alibaba is an enormous business. Uh it's

in so many countries around the world.

>> How do you build a culture? How do you

manage like just the insanity of having

so many employees, so many needs, so

many issues? How do you deal with it?

>> Uh focus. Uh so I came into the chair,

you know, I was sort of kind of phasing

out. I was focused on the Brooklyn Nets.

Then about a year and a half ago, I came

back into the chairmanship of the

company. Uh the first thing I said is we

we can't talk about our company as being

in six different businesses. It's just

too confusing. Uh we're in two

businesses, e-commerce and cloud

computing, you know, with an AI element

in it. Those are our two businesses,

core business and and so having that

focus was absolutely crucial to get our

people, our teams to focus and uh and

execute. Maybe end with just

forecast for the season,

>> the whole league or just the Brooklyn

Nets.

>> Maybe just the Nets.

>> Well, I have to say we're in a we're in

a we're in a rebuilding year. Um we

>> You have a lot of picks.

>> We've spent all of our picks. We picked

We have five for draft picks this past

summer. Uh we have one pick uh in 2026

and we hope to get a good pick. So you

can uh you can predict uh what kind of

strategy we will use uh uh for the

season. But we have a we have a very

young team. So

>> we were talking to Dar on the last panel

on

how China is a bit different in how it

looks at autonomy, self-driving. There

are tests going on there, but they want

to also make sure that there is

tranquility and peace in the country and

people don't lose those jobs, those

driver jobs. And so what's the climate

in China? What do the Chinese working

class think when they see self-driving

cars and they see tens of millions of

people employed as drivers? There have

been protests already in Wuhan and

protests in China are a very rare thing.

Um based on what I know, I could be

wrong. I have a superficial knowledge.

Obviously, you have a deep knowledge.

What can you tell us a little bit about

how you know the the government and the

people of China think of this incredible

revolution and the impact on jobs? I

think the government is all in um

embracing it and uh in fact the

government just a few weeks ago launched

a kind of a AI plus policy uh and they

say in 2030 which is 5 years from now

they want to see 90% penetration of AI

agents and devices and things like that

in in society. That's what the

government has publicly officially said.

just an all-in just

>> just just all in. Um there's really not

a lot of talk about uh uh people AI

replacing human jobs. Uh maybe there's

isolated

incidents. Uh but in general there is an

anxiety about jobs. Uh uh China

graduates about 10 million uh college

graduates every year. uh and today if

you look at the youth unemployment rate

uh which is age between 16 and 24

including graduates

it's 18%.

It's actually quite high. Uh so there's

a lot of anxiety about about that. uh it

partly it's because the economy uh is

even though the overall uh conditions of

the uh of the Chinese economy is is

pretty good in terms of infrastructure

access to energy and all those things

but there is still a malaise right now

because China has gone through the last

four or five years of a property slump

uh everybody's uh average uh home prices

are down like 30% so there's a very

negative neative wealth effect and

that's uh still lingering.

>> Just quickly, is there any fear of AGI

in China? You know what I mean by that?

That out of control super intelligence.

Is that is that a fear or is that just

an American thing? I um we

people in government don't um talk about

it too much because they believe that uh

they could control it uh better maybe

better than in a you know society here

in in the US. Um but there's some some

some lingering fears. Um but you know I

was just listening to Denny's uh about

you know he's predicting 5 to 10 years

but if he's saying 5 to 10 years I think

AGI is probably 20 years from now and uh

uh and and it's because the the emphasis

is on the word general. You have to be

able to your AI has to be able to

generalize uh and apply uh principles to

scenarios that you've never seen before.

Right,

>> Joe? Thank you very very much.

>> Great to see you.

[Applause]

[Music]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Pleasure. Thank you.

Fantastic. Thank you, brother.