Engine of ingenuity

Alibaba has grown into China's largest e-commerce platform, and its behind-the-scenes story is revealed in a new book.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Former Alibaba executive finds plenty of homegrown creativity in the rise of China's Internet giant, Yang Yang reports.

Internet entrepreneurs in China are just as innovative and creative as those in Silicon Valley, and this is not something to be feared, but to be embraced, says Porter Erisman, former vice-president of China's Internet giant Alibaba and the author of Alibaba's World.

The book's Chinese edition was recently released after the English edition came out in the United States in May.

He dismisses the stereotype that "China's businesses are good imitators, but not good innovators, and people in China are not very creative".

"The entrepreneurs in both China and Silicon Valley have the same hopes and dreams," he says. "They are innovative and have different ways to do things."

Erisman says that last year, Americans turned on the TV and suddenly saw Alibaba reporting the biggest IPO in history (the market value at the time bigger than Amazon and eBay combined).

A lot of people in the US hadn't heard about Alibaba and its CEO, Jack Ma, a celebrity in China. "The first reaction about Alibaba in the US was fear: Is Alibaba going to take over the world?" Erisman says.