Alizila’s Julie Huang: Welcome to Alicast. I’m Julie Huang from Alizila. For this episode, we’re turning inwards and putting the spotlight on us, Alibaba. That’s because today is AliDay, an annual celebration of Alibaba employees and their families that takes place on May 10th. We like to take this day to profile people in the company whom we call “Aliren.” And we have a very special guest this year, our outgoing general counsel, Tim Steinert. Tim is a 14-year veteran of Alibaba. He joined in 2007 and has been instrumental in building the legal structure for the company, guiding Alibaba through ups and downs as it grew. Tim is retiring, but we couldn’t let him go without sharing some stories about his time at Alibaba and get some pearls of wisdom on how he navigated – and thrived – in a Chinese company. And since it is AliDay, we also get to hear his views as a former member of the Alibaba partnership on the culture that makes the company so unique.
Thank you for joining us, Tim. I have to admit, I’ve often wanted to ask you these questions about your career here at Alibaba, and I’m thrilled I get to do so now. To start, can you give us an overview of your background, your career? You’re an American…where did you grow up and how did you end up as a successful corporate lawyer in Asia?