Page 26 - Forbes India (December 2015)

powerful people jack ma

however, is an unacknowledged truth: The world’s
The Alibaba juggernaut has been
constructed to a significant degree
on illegal, counterfeit products. mosT
The scale of the fakery is
enormous—at any given time, Taobao powerful
offers millions of suspect goods for
sale, from handbags to auto parts,
sportswear to jewellery. When Forbes people EditEd By dAVid M EwALt
searched for listings on Taobao with ANd KAthryN diLL
the word ‘Gucci’ and set the preferred
price range under 300 yuan, or less Forget about the 1 percent. The 73 men and women who are
than $50, well below the price of real featured on our annual ranking of the World’s Most Powerful
Gucci products, 30,000 results popped People are the 0.00000001 percent—the global elite whose
up. The sellers of four of the items actions move the planet. To compile the list, we consider
on the first page confirmed in online hundreds of candidates and measure their power along four
chatting that they hire factories to dimensions: How many people do they have power over?
produce these wares using the original How much money do they control? Does their influence
design. A large number of the rest are extend across multiple regions, industries or aspects of life?
of designs similar to those of Gucci How actively do they wield their power? A panel of Forbes
products, with slight alterations, editors then vote on each candidate to make the final cut:
such as the replacement of the letter One member for every 100 million people on earth.
‘G’ in a handbag’s pattern with ‘D’.
NetNames, a firm that helps brands
fight online counterfeits, says that its
clients believe as much as 80 percent
of the merchandise sold as theirs
on Taobao is fake. That’s backed up
by Dan McKinnon, head of global
brand protection at sneakermaker
New Balance. Since the Boston
company has no authorised dealers
on Taobao, McKinnon figures that at
least 80 percent of the supposed New
Balance products sold over the site
are counterfeit or suspicious. Alibaba, 1. Vladimir puTin 2.
anGela merkel
for its part, won’t hazard an estimate. President, russia ChanCellor, Germany
In some ways, it can’t afford to. AGE 63 AGE 61
Ma pulled off the world’s biggest Russia geRmany
IPO last year on the New York
Stock Exchange, raising $25 billion.
Alibaba’s revenue more than
doubled over its last two fiscal years
to $12.3 billion, while net income
nearly tripled, to $3.9 billion. Ma is
personally worth $21.8 billion. What
would happen if Alibaba eradicated
fake goods from its shopping sites—
if that were even possible? Harley
Lewin, a veteran intellectual property
lawyer at McCarter & English, has
an opinion: “They’d go broke.” 3. 4.
Barack oBama
pope francis
Ma has no interest in that President, us PoPe, roman CatholiC ChurCh
outcome. But he also has incentive AGE 54 AGE 78
Vatican city state
us
26 | FORBES INDIA DECEMBER 11, 2015