Many Years Ago,

a successful jeweller made a speech,

in which he made a number of derogatory remarks about the products he sold, "We do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say how can you sell this for such a low price? I say because it is total crap." Then another: "We even sell a pair of gold earrings for under £1, which is cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks & Spencer. But I have to say that the sandwich will probably last longer than the earrings." as you might expect customers in his empire of 2,500 shops deserted him in droves, for the full story have a look here, so what has that got to do with the founder of the Alibaba Group, Jack Ma? pictured above, well do not make a speech about your products or in Jack Ma's case your boss, he made an infamous speech on October 24th at the Bund Summit in Shanghai that allegedly cost him 3 billion dollars, for twenty minutes, he launched into a not so subtle attack of the Chinese government, in the speech, Ma criticized “outdated supervision” of financial regulation for stifling innovation and said its global banking rules were like an “old people’s club.” He called for urgent change and said that Chinese banks had a “pawnshop mentality (that) is severe, and it also affects many entrepreneurs.” Ma called the people who run the banks “old men” and inferred they were out of touch, a week after the speech officials issued stricter rules for online micro-lending companies, and on November 3rd the Shanghai Stock Exchange cancelled the Ant Group IPO. Alibaba, which owns part of the the Aunt Group, immediately lost 3 billion dollars, Jack Ma hasn't been seen since, and has even been removed from his own television shows promotional materials & website, rumours are that he may have been detained, note to those in charge of companies, do not knock your product, or the boss!