Mǎ Yún, better known as Jack Ma, is the co-founder of the international e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group. He served as the company's CEO until September 2019 when he passed the role to economist and former president of Tmall, Daniel Zhang.
Jack Ma was born in 1964 in the city of Hangzhou, capital of Chekyon Province, People's Republic of China. As a teenager, he began to study the English language while driving tourists around the city for free.
In one of his tours, a tourist from the US suggested to Mǎ Yún that he change his name, as he found it very difficult to pronounce. From then on, the tour guide used the Americanized nickname Jack Ma.
His student and professional life, however, was anything but easy. According to the blog Startse , he was rejected several times in elementary school, middle school, and college entrance exams. Harvard rejected him ten times. Furthermore, he failed to get jobs in the police force and at KFC.
Despite this, in the 1990s, Jack Ma graduated in English at Hangzhou Normal University and went on to teach the language at Hangzhou Teacher's College. And in the 2000s, he finally managed to get his MBA from Cheung Kong University. At this same time, he started to found Alibaba Group.
JACK MA AND HIS PATH AT THE ALIBABA GROUP
In 1994, on a trip to the USA, Jack Ma discovered the internet, which activated his mind on the types of businesses that could be done from the web. Over the course of five years, he tested possibilities such as informational websites and website building services, but was unsuccessful.
Back in 1999, after resigning from a job at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade, he founded the e-commerce company Alibaba , based in his apartment. Operating on a Business to Business (B2B) model, the Alibaba website specialized in business-to-business sales, connecting Chinese factories to buyers from various countries. In the following decades, Alibaba would become one of the world's largest e-commerce powerhouses.
Over time, Jack Ma launched other e-commerce sites and technologies, including the following:
- AliExpress: B2B and B2C online for consumers and businesses outside of China;
- Taobao: B2B and B2C online for Chinese consumers and businesses;
- Tmall: retail site for Chinese consumers;
- AliPay: digital wallet, ie a mobile payment platform;
- alimama: Digital Marketing tool for Alibaba's e-commerces;
- Alibaba Cloud: China's leading cloud computing service;
- Ant Financial: financial services company;
- shipping: ultra high-tech supermarket chain.
Today, all these companies, as well as the Alibaba website, are part of the Alibaba Group.
THE POWER OF THE ALIBABA GROUP TODAY
According to data from the Suno blog , upon entering the New York Stock Exchange, Alibaba received the largest initial public offering in US financial history, valued at US$25 billion. And according to an article on the Exame portal , the Alibaba Group was valued at US$850 billion in 2020.
Today, the Alibaba Group, founded by Jack Ma just over 20 years ago, is responsible for more than 60% of China's e-commerce. And Ma Yun, in turn, is listed by Forbes among the 70 richest people in the world with a fortune of US$24,7 billion.
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