Life Story : 01 : Jack Maa Founder of Alibaba.com of China Origin _ The Business Leader of Asia (杰克马阿)
Born September 10,
1964), known professionally as Jack Ma , is a Chinese
business Magnate who is the founder and Executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a family of
successful Internet-based businesses. He is the first mainland Chinese
entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes.
Early Life :
Ma was born in Hangzhou , Zhejiang Province , China . Ma started to
study English at a young age and practiced English daily by conversing with
English-speakers at a hotel near his home. He would give them tours around the city
for free to improve his English. He
did this for nine years. He became pen pals with one of these
foreigners, who nicknamed him "Jack", because his
Chinese name was too difficult to pronounce.
Later in his youth,
Ma failed the Chinese university entrance exam three times. Eventually, Ma attended Hangzhou
Teacher's Institute (currently
known as Hangzhou Normal
University) and graduated in
1988 with a B.A. in English. While at school, Ma was the head of student
council. After graduation, he became a
lecturer of English and International Trade at Hangzhou Dianzi
University. He later enrolled
at Beijing-based Cheung Kong Graduate
School of Business (CKGSB) and graduated in
2006.
Career:
After graduation, Ma
applied for 30 different jobs and got rejected by all. " I went for a job
with the police; they said, 'you're no good,'" Ma told Rose. "I even
went to KFC when it came to my
city. Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted. I was
the only guy ..."
In 1994, Ma heard
about the Internet. In early 1995, he went to the US and with his friends' help
he got introduced to the Internet. During his first encounter he searched the
word "beer". Although he found information related to beer from many countries,
he was surprised to find none from China. Further, he tried to search for
general information about China and again was surprised to find none. So he and
his friend created an "ugly" website related to China.[8] Within five hours of
creating the website he had received emails from some Chinese wishing to know
about him. This is when Ma realized that the Internet had something great to
offer. In April 1995, Ma, his wife and a friend collected $20,000 and started
an Internet company. Their company was dedicated to creating websites for
companies. He named their company "China Yellow Pages." Within three
years, his company had made 5,000,000 Chinese Yuan which was equivalent to US$800,000.
Ma began building
websites for Chinese companies with the help of friends in the US. He has said
that "the day we got connected to the Web, I invited friends and TV people
over to my house," and on a very slow dial-up connection, "we waited
three and a half hours and got half a page.... We drank, watched TV and played
cards, waiting. But I was so proud. I proved (to my house guests that) the
Internet existed."[9] (At a conference in
2010, Ma revealed that he has never actually written a line of code nor made
one sale to a customer. He acquired a computer for the first time at the age of
33.
From 1998 to 1999,
Ma headed an information technology company established by the China International
Electronic Commerce Center, a department of
the Ministry of Foreign
Trade and Economic Cooperation. In 1999, he quit
and returned to Hangzhou with his team to found Alibaba, a China-based
business-to-business marketplace site in his apartment with a group of 17
friends. He started a new round
of venture development with 500,000 yuan.
In October 1999 and
January 2000, Alibaba twice
won a total of a $25 million international venture capital investment. The
program was expected to improve the domestic e-commerce market and perfect an
e-commerce platform for Chinese enterprises, especially small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to address World Trade
Organization(WTO) challenges. Ma
wanted to improve the global e-commerce system and from 2003 he founded Taobao Marketplace, Alipay,
Ali Mama and Lynx. After the rapid rise of Taobao, eBay offered to purchase
the company. However, Ma rejected their offer, instead garnering support from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang with a $1 billion
investment.
In September 2014 it
was reported Alibaba was raising over $25 billion in an initial public
offering (IPO) on the New York Stock
Exchange. Alibaba became one of the most
valuable tech companies in the world after raising $25 billion, the largest
initial public offering in US financial history. Ma now serves as executive
chairman of Alibaba Group, which is a holding company with nine major
subsidiaries: Alibaba.com, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall,
eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Juhuasuan, 1688.com, AliExpress.com and Alipay.
In November 2012,
Alibaba's online transaction volume exceeded one trillion yuan. Ma was thus
labeled "trillion Hou", meaning literally "Trillion Yuan
Marquis" in Chinese.
Ma has often been
invited to lecture at universities such as the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Peking University.
As of 2016, Jack Ma
is the owner of Château de Sours in Bordeaux, Chateau Guerry in Côtes de Bourg
and Château Perenne in Blaye, Côtes de Bordeaux.
Net worth
|
US$ 27.9 billion (September 2016)
|
Accomplishments :
In 2004, Ma was
chosen by China Central
Television and its viewers as
one of the "Top 10 Business Leaders of the Year".
In 2005, Ma was
selected by the World Economic Forum as a "Young
Global Leader" and was named
one of the "25 Most Powerful Business people in Asia" by Fortune magazine. He was selected by Businessweek as a "Businessperson of the
Year" in 2007 and one of the
30 "World’s Best CEOs" by Barron's in 2008.
In May 2009, Ma was
listed by Time in its Time 100 list
of the world’s 100 most influential people. In reporting Ma’s accomplishments,
Adi Ignatius, former Time senior editor and editor-in-chief of
the Harvard Business
Review, noted that
"the Chinese Internet entrepreneur is soft-spoken and elflike — and he
speaks really good English" and remarked that "Alibaba and Ma's
consumer-auction website, Taobao.com, did so well that in 2006, eBay shut down
its own site in China." In
2014, he was again included in the list. He
was also chosen as one of China's Most Powerful People by BusinessWeek, and one of the Top 10 Most Respected
Entrepreneurs in China by Forbes
China in 2009. Ma received
the 2009 CCTV Economic Person of the Year: Business Leaders of the Decade
Award.
In 2010, Ma was
selected by Forbes Asia as one of Asia’s
Heroes of Philanthropy for his contribution to disaster relief and poverty.
In 2011 it was
announced that one of his companies had gained control of Alipay, formerly a
subsidiary of Alibaba Group, so as to "comply with Chinese law governing
payment companies in order to secure a license to continue operating Alipay.
Numerous analysts reported
that Ma sold Alipay to himself below market value without notifying
the board of Alibaba Group or the other major owners Yahoo and Softbank, while Ma stated
that Alibaba Group's board of directors were aware of the transaction. The
ownership dispute was resolved by Alibaba Group, Yahoo! and Softbank in July
2011.
Ma was awarded an
honorary doctoral degree by the Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology in November 2013.
Ma is a board member
of Japan’s SoftBank and
China’s Huayi Brothers Media Corporation. He became a trustee
of The Nature
Conservancy’s China program in
2009 and joined its global board of directors in April 2010. In 2013, he became
chairman of the board for The Nature Conservancy's China Program; this was one
day after he stepped down from Alibaba as company CEO. Ma is the first Chinese citizen to
serve on The Nature Conservancy’s board.
In 2014 he was
ranked as the 30th most powerful person in the world in an annual ranking
published by Forbes.
Views:
In 2007, in response
to worldwide criticism of the practice of killing sharks for their fins, Ma
announced that he and his family had "sworn off shark fin soup now and
forever." Ma has stated that moment created a newfound interest in
environmentalism that would shape his future ethos. In January 2009, Alibaba
Group revised its listing policy and banned the sale of shark fin products on
all of its e-commerce platforms.
At the Alibaba.com
annual shareholders meeting in May 2009, Ma encouraged those in attendance to
take action by starting businesses to cope with the economic downturn rather
than waiting for government or business to help them. He reminded everyone that
the great fortunes of the world were made by people who saw opportunities that
others didn't, and he noted that the aftermath of the recent global recession
would be no different in terms of exposing new ways of doing business.
At the annual
general meeting of shareholders for Alibaba.com in May 2010, Ma announced
Alibaba Group would begin in 2010 to earmark 0.3% of annual revenue to
environmental protection, particularly on water and air quality improvement
projects. Of the future of Alibaba, he has said that "our challenge is to
help more people to make healthy money, 'sustainable money,' money that is not
only good for themselves but also good for the society. That's the
transformation we are aiming to make."
In 2015 Ma made his
first purchase of conservation land outside China when he bought a 28,100-acre
property named Brandon Park in Paul Smiths, New
York, in Adirondack Park for $23 million.
Personal Life
:
Jack Ma is married
to Zhang Ying. They have a son and
a daughter.
Ma met his wife when
they were studying at Hangzhou Normal University. They married shortly after graduating in the
late 1980s. Both began working as teachers.
According to Ma and
his assistant, Ma had been studying and practicing Chen-style Tai Chi Chuan in Hangzhou for some time when
in 2009 he began studying with Wáng Xī'an. In 2011, Ma hired several
tournament-winning Tai Chi players to teach at Alibaba. Wang, Jet Li, and Ma teach
regular classes at Alibaba, at which attendance by employees is mandatory. Ma's
vision, according to his assistant, is that one day people will remember him
above all as a Tai Chi master, rather than solely as the founder of China's
largest internet company and online shopping website.
Alibaba CEO Jack Ma : Interviewed at World Economic Forum by Charlie Rose: I was rejected from Harvard 10 times! Maybe I should go teach there in the future. Amazing interview and amazing insights for entrepreneurs and startup founders. His vision is genuine and ground. Truly inspiring!
Jack Ma talks about rejections by KFC and Harvard. My startup is to use DNA gene sequencing to personalized skincare formulation just for your skin.
Jack Ma talks about rejections by KFC and Harvard. My startup is to use DNA gene sequencing to personalized skincare formulation just for your skin.
References:
3. Tausche, Kayla (10 September 2014). "Alibaba's Jack Ma gets special gift for
50th birthday". CNBC.com. Retrieved 5
January 2016.
4. Fannin, Rebecca (2008-01-01). "How I Did It: Jack Ma, Alibaba.com". Inc. Magazine.
Retrieved 2010-04-12.
5. Rose, Charlie (2015-01-29). "Alibaba's Jack Ma on Early Obstacles, His
Ambitions".Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
8. Miaopai.com. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
9. Barboza, David (August 15,
2005). "New Partner for Yahoo Is a Master at
Selling". The New York Times.
10. Mellor,
William (10 November 2014). "Ma 和Says Alibaba
Shareholders Should Feel Love, Not No. 3". Bloomberg. Bloomberg. Retrieved 10
November 2014.
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