Student Exchange Program Information Sessions

Eri­sman star­ted wor­king at Ali­ba­ba right after the tech bub­ble burst, and stay­ed the­re for more than eight years. He asked for Ma’s bles­sing befo­re embar­king on his jour­ney to make the film, with the sti­pu­la­tion that the film would tell Ali­ba­ba­’s sto­ry total­ly from his point of view, with no invo­lve­ment from the com­pa­ny, high­li­gh­ting not just its suc­ces­ses, but all the mista­kes as well.

Ma gave him the gre­en-light and over the next three years Eri­sman tra­ve­led aro­und the world trac­king down more than 200 hours of foota­ge from 35 dif­fe­rent sour­ces and stit­ching it toge­ther. When he even­tu­al­ly sho­wed Ma the fini­shed pro­duct, his old boss was hard to read.

„I real­ly couldn’t tell what his reac­tion was,” Eri­sman said. „I felt like he didn’t love it but that he didn’t hate it. I think that he tho­ught it was fair.” Abo­ut a year later, Ma cal­led him up and asked if he would be wil­ling to show it at the 10th anni­ver­sa­ry of Tao­bao, Ali­ba­ba­’s eBay-esque e‑commerce site.