Repairing the Roof on a Sunny Day: Jack Ma’s Survival Guide for Executives in the AI Era

Recently, Chinese media reported on an internal sharing session held by Jack Ma. He was blunt: "The AI era is here, and humanity is not ready. In the next 3 to 5 years, we may face even greater shocks." Regarding how to handle the uncertainty of this era, Ma offered a solution in one phrase: Repair the roof while it’s still sunny.

What exactly does "repairing the roof on a sunny day" mean?

• "Sunny Day" refers to the time when you still have a buffer. Your business is profitable, your team is stable, and you still hold your place in the market. This is when you have the capital to experiment and the time to adjust.
• "Repairing the Roof" means building your core competitiveness and a foundation for survival before the crisis hits, rather than scrambling for an exit once the storm arrives.

Every company that has survived business cycles throughout history repaired its roof during the sunny days. Alibaba has a strategic instinct for this. Years ago, when Taobao owned over 80% of the market and was generating massive profits, Jack Ma ignored industry-wide ridicule and insisted on investing 1 billion RMB annually into Alibaba Cloud. Today, Alibaba Cloud is a market leader and a vital growth engine as e-commerce enters a period of stagnation. This momentum continues in 2026: Alibaba recently established the Alibaba Token Hub (ATH) group, led personally by CEO Wu Yongming, and launched "Wukong," the world’s first enterprise-grade AI-native workspace. They aren't just doing e-commerce and cloud anymore; they are building an AI empire—repairing the roof before the "rainy days" of the AI era.