Jack Ma: China’s richest man
Tech-billionaire Jack Ma has become China's richest man after floating company Alibaba on the New York Stock Exchange.
China’s richest person, Jack Ma, is about more than money. Source: AFP
HE’S just been named China’s richest man. But who is Jack Ma, the man who took a Chinese eCommerce company to the biggest IPO in US history?
Alibaba, the eCommerce company Mr Ma founded in 1999, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last week, raising $24.5 billion, which valued the business at $247.24 billion. Alibaba surpassed the worth of several high profile Silicon Valley technology companies that day, including Facebook, Amazon and IBM. It was also the biggest initial public offering in US history.
As the newly minted richest person in China, Mr Ma’s personal wealth has been pegged at $28.1 billion, just ahead of property developer Wang Jianlin. It’s a big achievement for the Hangzhou-born former English teacher.
Unlike his tech compatriots Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, Mr Ma confesses he knows very little about computers beyond how to send and receive emails. He’s not a tech nerd who obsesses over every line of code. He’s just a very good businessman.
Alibaba employees celebrate as the company debuts on the NYSE. Source: AFP
According to a profile in the Wall Street Journal, Mr Ma honed his English skills as a youngster by talking to tourists at hotels in his hometown. He failed his college entrance exam twice, which led him to enrol at a teachers college. He also once got rejected for a secretarial position for a manager of a KFC joint. Clearly, that was KFC’s loss.
His first foray into the online world was the first time Mr Ma punched in an internet search in 1995. He typed in ‘China’ and ‘Beer’ and came up empty. Soon after, he borrowed $2000 to start one of China’s first internet company, China Pages, a business index website. He left two years later to work for the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.
In 1999, he persuaded 18 friends to stump up $60,000 to help him start Alibaba from his Beijing apartment. Within six months, he had a $5 million investment from Goldman Sachs. Mr Ma is renowned for his skills as a strategist and what made Alibaba work was that he went after the small and medium business market when others were focused on large firms.
Jack Ma speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative with Chelsea Clinton. Source: Getty Images
He also managed to drive eBay out of China by keeping his competitor site, Taobao, free at a time when eBay was dominant, even though the decision meant Taobao was haemorrhaging money. By the end of 2005, eBay conceded defeat and essentially withdrew from China after Taobao managed to capture almost 70 per cent market share in the consumer-to-consumer eCommerce space.
Mr Ma once said of his youth: “I had wished that I was born in a period of war. I could have been a general. I thought about what I could have achieved in war.”
Alibaba’s two main websites, Taobao and Tmall.com, account for the majority of packages shipped through the Chinese postal system, according to CNBC.
He’s a fan of hard work and perseverance. Even though most people in the West had only started hearing about Alibaba in the past year after IPO rumours started to swirl, Mr Ma has been at the game for 15 years. He told a crowd at a discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative: “We got successful today but not because we did a great job today. We had a dream 15 years ago.”
Film star Jet Li is a partner with Jack Ma in a tai chi club. Li attended Alibaba’s IPO in New York. Source: Getty Images
Mr Ma, who turns 50 in three weeks, though, is not just all about the business. Last year, he opened Taijizen, a tai chi club with kung fu and film star Jet Li. He’s also expressed a fondness for Forrest Gump, the character immortalised by Tom Hanks in the 1994 Robert Zemeckis film.
On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange he said that every time he’s frustrated, he watches the movie. “I watched the movie again before I came here. It’s telling me, ‘no matter whatever changes, you are you.”
Mr Ma once also donned a blonde wig and black leather jacket with red flames to belt out ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ at a company gathering.
There are many philanthropists, including Bill Clinton, who sees Mr Ma as someone who could trigger a giving culture among the Chinese elite. Mr Ma has set aside $3 billion in a charitable trust with the environment and education as key focuses. He’s identified pollution in China as something that urgently needs attention. And he’s willing to use his billions to help.
Jack Ma finds comfort and wisdom in Forrest Gump. Source: Supplied
He wrote once wrote for the Harvard Business Review. He wrote: “The most enjoyable part of building a business, at least for me, is that I allows us all to contribute to the future. It’s not just about making money. It’s about making ‘healthy’ money — sustainable money that’s not only good for shareholders and employees, but is also good for society, as it enables people to live better lives.”
“We as Chinese citizens must raise awareness as much as possible about our environmental crisis. I am hopeful that the government will become more involved. I actually see the haze in Beijing as a catalyst for change.”
For all his wealth, Mr Ma acknowledges that with money comes responsibility. He said the days when he made $20 a month as an English teacher were “fantastic”. He also said that anyone who had $1 million was lucky but $10 million brought “troubles” and “headaches”.
After stepping back from chief executive duties from Alibaba last year (he is now executive chairman), he’d hoped to regain some of his life back. But with a $25 billion fortune in his pocket and a face that’s been plastered everywhere, he’s unlikely to be left alone.
Plus, he once said: “I have a unique and ugly face so people always recognises me.”
