When it comes to speaking Mandarin, Uber’s CEO is no Zuckerberg

By Bloomberg News, Dec 17

“Dajia hao, wo shi Travis Kalanick.”

That bit of Mandarin, a stilted “Hi everyone, I’m Travis Kalanick,” was all the Uber chief executive and co-founder could muster in Beijing today.

So Kalanick has got nothing on Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who spoke in Chinese for 30 minutes to students of Beijing’s Tsinghua University during an October visit.

Still, even though Kalanick lacks the language, he’s got something else Zuckerberg would probably covet: backing from Baidu to expand in China.

Kalanick was at Baidu headquarters in Beijing to announce that China’s largest Internet search engine is taking an undisclosed stake in Uber as part of a strategic cooperation agreement. Baidu will connect the 500 million monthly active users of its mobile-search features and 240 million users of Baidu Map with Uber’s service, the companies said.

That support takes Uber to “a whole new level” in China, Kalanick said. The company plans to invest “deeply” in China next year and Kalanick pledged to make sure the operations are adapted to the local market.

“We are very much a global company,” Kalanick said. “Our efforts here in China are going to be unique and will continue to be more unique than anywhere else. We have to do things differently in order to succeed here.”

Zuckerberg knows that too. He just hasn’t gotten as far as Kalanick in China yet. Facebook’s service remains blocked by China’s censorship system.

Zuckerberg met this month with Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California. During the meeting, Lu found a copy of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s book “The Governance of China” on Zuckerberg’s desk, and the Facebook CEO explained that he gives it to colleagues “to let them know the characteristics of Chinese socialism,” according to a report of the visit by China.com.cn, which is under the nation’s ruling State Council.

So, if Kalanick wants to impress the Chinese with his grasp of the local market, he’s got some real competition from Zuckerberg. And better Mandarin would help.

Perhaps Zuckerberg could give Kalanick some lessons.-BLOOMBERG

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