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Jack Ma Biography
By Mohamed Jalloh | August 25, 2015 9:40 AM EDT

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The man known in the West as Jack Ma was born Ma Yun in 1964 in Hangzhou during Chinas
Cultural Revolution, during which his family was persecuted because of his grandparents, who
were members of the Nationalist party that opposed the Communist party. If few things can
characterize Jack Ma's background, education and path to success, they are failure, rejection,
fighting, resolve, hard work, agility and vision. All throughout Jack Ma's life, from childhood till
building a multibillion-dollar global ecommerce technology giant, he has failed many times,
been rejected and called crazy, even by his father who warned him about his unique dangerous
ideas that could have resulted in his imprisonment in an earlier generation.

Jack Ma has learned more from his and others' failures than through the traditional channels of
education. Ma, a man of incredible resolve, has learned to fail better and fail forward. As he
declared in an interview with Charlie Rose in Davos, "I failed a key primary school test 2 times,
I failed the middle school test 3 times, I failed the college entrance exam 2 times and when I
graduated, I was rejected for most jobs I applied for out of college. (Ma was the only one out of 5
applicants to the police force to be rejected and the only one of 24 applicants to be a KFC
manager to be rejected. "I applied for Harvard ten times, got rejected ten times and I told myself
that Someday I should go teach there." In the late 1990s after starting Alibaba, Ma tried to get
venture capital funding in Silicon Valley for Alibaba and got rejected for running an unprofitable
business model. He eventually went back to China without funding. (See also: Top 10 Chinese
Entrepreneurs.)

Unlike many idolized college drop-out successful entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill
Gates or Steve Jobs, Jack Ma earned his MBA from Cheung Kong University while already
building Alibaba in the early 2000s. Though critical of traditional teaching practices, especially
at business schools, Ma is fond of academics. He was a university English teacher himself, and
he talks about teaching again someday in the future.

Like many brilliant innovative minds, both past and present, Ma struggled academically,
especially throughout his early years in primary and secondary schools, where he failed
repeatedly. However, he excelled in the things that he was passionate about, for example,
teaching himself English. During these formative years, Ma thought that, as long as he kept his
resolve and worked to achieve his objectives, he had a chance to succeed. Ma said, "If you never
tried, how do you know there's no chance?" Ma successfully failed forward academically into
Hangzhou Teacher's college and thereafter, in his career and business. (See also: What's Next For
Alibaba?)

When one listens objectively to Ma's speeches about his early, formative years, one can observe
that Ma learned most by experimenting, observing and questioning the status quo. As an
adolescent, he taught himself English and polished it by becoming an unofficial tour guide to
foreign tourists. Through those tourists, pen pal relationships he cultivated with some of his
tourist clients and his interaction with some relatives in Australia, Ma learned much about the
outside world (especially the Western world). More importantly, he learned to question (not
necessarily disbelieve) everything he thought or was told before, a practice he applies to this day.

That ability to question and reexamine issues helps him to look at situations from various angles
and see opportunities where most see only problems. For example, when most people feared
conducting e-commerce in China due to an unreliable and untrustworthy payment system, Ma
got Alibaba to build Alipay without the Chinese banking authorities approval at the risk of his
personal freedom. Now Alipay facilitates more business globally than PayPal, as measured in
U.S. dollars. (For more, see: How Counterfeiting Affects Alibaba's Business.)

Ma could be said to have graduated from both formal and informal education systems. If
informal education is thought of as "the School of Hard-Knocks," Ma has earned a doctoral
degree with honors in addition to his MBA from Cheung Kong University. Ma is also heavily
influenced by martial art teachings, especially Thai-Chi, which he claims helps him to find
balance that he applies to both his personal and business life.

Jack Ma: Success Story

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Jack Ma: Success Story

By Mohamed Jalloh

Share

1. Jack
Ma:
Earl
y
Life
and
Edu
catio
n
2. Jack
Ma:
Succ
ess
Stor
y
3. Jack
Ma:
Mos
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Influ
entia
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Quo
tes
Jack Ma intends to use the internet and Alibabas influence to facilitate more globalized trade
across borders beyond China and to help SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) across the
world. Ma vows that helping SMEs to succeed is much like a religious calling for him.

Frustrated with his lack solid employment opportunities after graduation in the early 1990s, Ma
relied on his English to teach at the local university he had attended a few years prior and to start
a translation service business. Upon his first visit to the United States in the 1995 as a translator,
Ma got introduced to the Internet, and to his shock after looking up beer from various countries,
he learned that there was none from China (a country of about a Billion people) on the World
Wide Web. Ma immediately saw the potential business opportunities of the internet and how it
could facilitate the way small and medium Chinese enterprises could do business with the rest of
the world. Then, he and his friends decided to lunch a site about China and Chinese products
online, known as Chinapage, that listed Chinese businesses and their products. Within the
same day, he began to receive emails from people around the world requesting that they partner
up. That experience taught Ma about the incredible power of connectivity, especially how the
internet can greatly impact global trade, especially for SMEs.
Later, believing that "Chinapage" will get better funding, Ma partnered with a government entity
that had majority control. Unfortunately, that entity brought along the rigid bureaucracy that
stifled away many of Ma's visionary projects and frustrated him; which led to Mas eventual
departure. Thereafter, Ma took up a government job for a short period at the ministry of foreign
trade and economic cooperation in the latter half of the 1990s. There, he also built important
connections with influential people that would later impact Mas life and business venture; one
of whom is the founding member of Yahoo, Jerry Yang. Jerry would eventually get yahoo to
invest USD 1 Billion in Alibaba in 2005.

Thanks to his experience there and his failed partnership with the government entity, Ma learned
much about government inefficiencies and why not to be in business with the government. As he
addressed his relationship with the governments in interview Charlie Rose in Davos, found on
YouTube, Ma said "Be in love with the governments, but do not marry them. For example,
when government officials approached Alibaba to help solve a habitual crash of its ticket
vending system during the annual spring festival in China, Ma and his young team from Alibaba
helped to fix the problem 'Free of charge' with the promise of being left alone by the
government.

In 1999, after leaving the government job, Ma took a second bite at internet-based business
ventures by grouping 18 people (including himself and his wife) at his home and sold them a
dream to found Alibaba with the goal of facilitating international trade for small and medium
ventures based in China. Alibaba was born out of Mas unfulfilled dream of using the internet to
facilitate business activities for Chinese SMEs and frustration with the bureaucrats he worked
with in the preceding joint venture (Chinapage), where his suggestions to use the internet to
facilitate trade of Chinese made products in the international market were repeatedly rejected.

In the early stages of the Alibaba, Ma tried to raise funds in Silicon Valley, the tech hub in the
United States and was met with denials, and his business model was criticized to be unprofitable
and unsustainable by many at the time. Eventually, Ma succeeded in getting Goldman Sachs and
Softbank to invest USD 5 Million and USD 20 Million in Alibaba, respectively.
In 2003, still unprofitable with Alibaba, Ma and his team lunched an online auction site named
Taobao.com, charging zero commission, and took on a multinational e-commerce giant, eBay,
which already had the lion share of the Chinese online auction market. Determined to win
against eBay, Taobao remained a commission-free marketplace for millions of online traders,
and that did put Alibaba under significant financial strain. To stay afloat while maintaining the
platform's commission-free policy, Ma and his team began offering peripheral value-added
support services (e.g. custom webpages to online merchants) for small fees. Ma and his team
won the Chinese market in less than five years, and eBay subsequently withdrew from China.
Jack Mack reflected on this challenging period on a YouTube video of his interview with Charlie
Rose, stating If eBay are the sharks in the Ocean, We (Alibaba and Taobao) are the crocodiles
in the Yangtze River. Since then, Alibaba has created many subsidiaries through organic growth
(such as Tmall and AliExpress) and acquisitions.

As the "dot com" boom period came to an end after 2000, Alibaba faced serious challenges due
to its aggressive expansion into international markets (which Ma admitted to be a mistake). Jack
Ma successfully reorganized the company's operations, including closing many international
branches and focusing on strengthening Alibaba's position in the Chinese market. Thereafter, Ma
expanded the services of Alibaba and reengaged its international expansion strategy.

After Ma and Alibaba reorganized their operations and made their Mark by driving eBay out of
China after just few years in business, with the help of Jerry Young of Yahoo, Ma succeed in
getting Yahoo to invest a sizable USD 1 Billion for a 40% stake in Alibaba in 2005. Besides
getting crucial funds to help Alibaba to execute its international growth strategy, that Investment
earned Alibaba (a six years old company) a valuation of USD 2.5 Billion.
In 2014, in what turned out to be the largest initial public offering to date, Ma and his team
successfully raised in excess of USD 20 Billion for Alibaba by listing it in the NYSE stock
exchange in the United States. That made Alibaba, a 15 years old e-commerce company that has
its origins outside of the United States, one of world's largest companies as measured by its
market capitalization that was approximately USD 200 Billion. Ma and his team are turning
Alibaba holding group into a massive conglomerate by acquiring many smaller companies from
technology related to logistics and beyond.

Jack Ma: Most Influential Quotes

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Jack Ma: Most Influential Quotes

By Mohamed Jalloh

Share

1. Jack
Ma:
Earl
y
Life
and
Edu
catio
n
2. Jack
Ma:
Succ
ess
Stor
y
3. Jack
Ma:
Mos
t
Influ
entia
l
Quo
tes

Jack Ma is very insightful, forthright and flamboyant, and at times professorial. His speeches are
rich with quotable comments and advice. Some of his notable quotes, most of which are found
on YouTube, are listed below.

When Ma reflected on his team's credo when they challenged eBay Inc. in the early years of his
business, it was: "We will make it because we are young and we never ever give up!"

On his relationship with Alibaba Groups stakeholders, Ma stressed the following fundamental
belief: Put the customers first, the employees second, and the shareholders third.
In regards to this generations responsibility to grow, Jack Ma said, If Alibaba doesnt get
bigger and more successful than Walmart or Microsoft, I will regret it for the rest of my life. Our
predecessors invested in us, it is therefore our (this generations) responsibilities to do better than
them.

Ma criticized companies that rely on governments subsidies: If the company always thinks of
picking money out from the governments pocket, that company is rubbish! It should think about
how to make money from customers and the market, and to help customers succeed."

Ma questioned the current business school model with the following: The business schools
teach a lot of skills about how to make money and how to run a business. But I want to tell
people that if you want to run a business, you have to run the value first, to serve the others, to
help the others thats the key.

Ma responded to being called Crazy Jack by Time magazine in the early 2000s, saying, I
think crazy is good! We are crazy but not stupid! If everyone agrees with me and if everybody
believes in our idea is good we will have no chance.

Ma said about taking action and risk: If you dont do it, nothing is possible. If you do it, at least,
you have the hope that there's a chance.

Ma talked about the value of meditation: I use Thai Chi philosophy in business: Calm down,
Theres always a way out and keep yourself balanced, and meanwhile, dont try to kill your
competitors.

Ma asserted the idea and value of empowering people: In this world, if you want to win in the
21st century, you have to be making sure that making other people become powerful, empower
others; making sure the other people are better than you are, then you will be successful.

Ma addressed what money means to him as a wealthy person: I believe when you have $1
million, thats your money when you have $20 million, you start to have a problem. When you
have $1 billion, thats not your money, thats the trust society gave you. They believe you can
manage the money better than the government and others.

Ma said the following about the value of taking personal responsibility: I find that when a
person makes a mistake or fails, if he or she always complains or blames others, that person will
never come back from the failure. But if the person checks inside, this person has hope.

On his views about working with governments, Ma said, "My relationship with the government
is: Be in love with the governments, but do not marry them.

Ma noted on competition, If eBay are the Sharks in the Ocean We (Alibaba) are the
Crocodiles in the Yangtze River. Never fight in the Ocean, lets fight in the Yangtze River.

Ma commented on Alibabas celebrated journey to success: Today, people write about the
successful stories of Alibaba. And I really dont think we were so smart, we made so many
mistakes and we were so stupid at times. So, someday, the book I personally really will want to
write about is Alibabas 1001 mistakes. These are the things people should remember and people
should learn.

Ma responded to criticism that China is a difficult place to launch a business: Going anywhere,
doing business, takes time. No market welcomes gamblers You go there, create value for local
people, have time it will have chance.

In response to Alipay being called stupid by banks and others, Ma said: A stupid thing if
you improve it every day, it is going to be very smart.

In regard to perseverance, Ma said, "Never give up! Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but
the day after tomorrow will be sunshine. If you give up tomorrow, you will never see the
sunshine."

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 Jack Ma Biography

Jack Ma is not tech savvy and is far from a traditional tech genius like his predecessors
who founded and grew ecommerce and technology companies like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs
or Bill Gates.

2.

Investing

Alibaba's Ma Warns of Tech's Darker Side

Alibaba chief Jack Ma warned about the negative impacts to society from AI and other
tech advances.

3.

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to small and medium businesses.

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Jack Ma: US Govt. to Blame for Economic Woes

 In response to Trump, the Alibaba boss gives his two cents on real cause of U.S. job
problems.

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M&A Report: Will These 5 Trends Carry into 2016?

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2015 and whether the trend will continue in 2016.

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 8.

Investing

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China.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the difference between a buy-side analyst and a sell-side analyst?

2. Halloween's Effect on the Economy
3. Did the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing add to M1?
4. What is GDP and why is it so important to economists and investors?

Trading Center

Partner Links
Search Inv

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