RISE 2015. Day Two. Centre Stage. Jean Liu in conversation with Susan Li.

Sure, sure. Thank you. Yes, this is a room with a lot of heat, I couldn't tell. Well, first of all, as many of you who have traveled to China know, Chinese people's living conditions have improved significantly. Technology transforms the way you shop, communicate, and search for information. But there's one thing that a hundred million urban people still suffer from on a daily basis: commuting. Anyone who has been to Beijing knows how hard it is. Last week, two people stepped into my office: one to get a job, the other to resign. The one seeking a job because his company relocated to another place where he had to travel two hours; the one resigning because she got pregnant and could no longer endure the multi-transfer commute. That's a very typical example. The public transportation system was built decades ago and can't support the megacity layout. I never dare to take the subway after once because I feel like I just finished a gym workout. And drivers suffer from 'angry driver syndrome' after two hours in traffic. Additionally, hundreds of millions of people wear masks to work due to heavy pollution. What our company wants to do is provide a service to maximize the utilization of existing resources. Waste is massive: people spend years of income to buy a car but park it 95% of the time. Gas fees are also high. There are 200,000 buses in China running under low efficiency. Didi Kuaidi aims to organize these resources. We provide a one-stop service platform for everyone. Our mission is to use ride sharing, service sharing, resource sharing. We can share a driver, private jets—many private jet companies suffer because they can't access users; they fly one way but return empty. With our super entrance, you get access to hundreds of millions of users. In the past few weeks, we've been the number one free download app. We define ride sharing as maximizing utilization and making comfortable commuting available to everyone at minimal cost. It also helps the government manage traffic and pollution, and helps taxi drivers and bus drivers earn more. That's what we believe in and we're working toward that.

Yeah, okay. So there are two things this company believes in. Number one is innovation. We have a lot of very interesting and cool products. The next thing is our philosophy: we do not believe in disruptive termination. What does that mean? When it concerns millions of people's jobs, we do not believe in terminating that. There are 2.6 million taxi drivers in China, each with a family—tens of millions of people. We believe in collaborative reform from within, working with the government, taxi drivers, and taxi companies to serve our users better. We spend a lot of effort to improve technology and transform the taxi industry. We also do private cars and carpooling. Regarding regulation, I feel encouraged. When we talk to Shanghai government officials, they are open-minded and forward-thinking. They are afraid their city will lag behind as mobile internet services sweep the world. They want to attract top talent and digitalize transportation. But they also don't want protests. So they say 'help me help you'—let's work together to make taxi people's lives better while providing more rides. We have come to an agreement with Shanghai government to bring private car services into a regulatory regime. We see similar issues in Paris and UK. If we can make it work in China, the world can make it work.

Right, right. That's some other philosophy we want to share. When it comes to competition, we welcome competition and we're thankful for it. It keeps the company motivated and improving. We were born in China's mobile internet, the most competitive market worldwide, so we are a pretty good player ourselves. We provide a unique business model to our customers and drivers. Regarding the three million number, I'll share another number: our hitch product. Hitch is a carpooling service, a social carpooling, like a match.com. We see a lot of people who only use private car once a week because their license plate is restricted by government, but the other six days they drive themselves. That's a huge waste. We match people going from the same starting point to the same destination, based on hobbies and interests. It's extremely environmental friendly and helps build trust in a trust-crisis society. The networking effect is strong: when we launched taxi, it took eight months to reach 10,000 trips a day; for private car service, it took one month; for hitch, it took one month to reach one million rides. That's due to operational efficiency. When you reach critical mass, users enjoy the service; otherwise, you have to subsidize heavily. We differentiate by being a very local team, fast in responding to market needs. Hitch is a great example. Also, we have a chauffeur service.

Yes, so there are two types of people who need this service. First, people who go out parking and drinking a lot. When you drive your own Ferrari, you show up at the party, have a few shots, then can't drive back. You can't park your Ferrari on the street in the rain. So on our chauffeur service, you request a driver. These drivers come from our existing taxi or private car drivers, so there's synergy. The driver will ride a bicycle to meet you or take a bus. He drives you home and then goes home himself. Also, it's helpful for women drivers. For example, I am a very bad driver myself and my husband is worse. So when I need to send my kids to the hospital or go shopping, I can use a chauffeur. I don't need to waste time stressing about parking; a professional driver handles it. And my husband enjoys the ride sharing together.

Right, right. Well, from my only experience, the key is about the team. It's really to have someone you feel strong chemistry with. If you can stay with these people 24/7 without getting bored, and you are all very open-minded. I think Didi is a great example. I landed in this company a year ago. I struggled at the beginning whether I could fit in, but I figured out this is such a young and dynamic company, just like the crowd here. The average age is 26. So as far as you have an open mind and you're really focused on execution, you can have a good winning chance when it comes to O2O.