Lessons for Jack Ma on doing the Party’s business, from Rong Yiren.
It was the spring of 1949, and Rong Yiren had reason to worry. Reportedly one of China’s 10 richest individuals, he hid with his wife and five children in a downstairs corridor of his mansion as the People’s Liberation Army swept through Shanghai and claimed it for the Chinese Communist Party. As a scion of China’s wealthiest industrial dynasty, Rong was at the mercy of Mao Zedong’s new regime, which promised to end capitalism.
But as the sun rose on May 25, the 33-year-old found hims
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