Childhood and youth
Ma Yun was born in 1964 in Hangzhou into a family of poor musicians. Parents could not give their son start-up capital. And the guy appeared at the wrong time - during the Cultural Revolution, inspired by Mao Zedong. The party opposition and the intelligentsia fell under the steamroller of “revolutionary” repressions. In the case of Ma Yun's family, everyone was disgraced: his grandparents - members of the Nationalist Party - and his parents.
Businessman Jack Ma
After Richard Nixon's visit to Yun's hometown, Huangzhou became a tourist mecca. Ma saw this as a way to earn pocket money and learn English for free. The teenager went to the hotel early in the morning, where he offered foreigners free and mutually beneficial excursions. Tourists called Ma Yun “Jack” for ease of reference. The name “stuck”, and since then the Chinese has become Jack Ma.
But while success in learning English was evident, Jack’s studies did not work out. As the Chinese entrepreneur admitted to American journalist Charlie Rose, he failed tests twice in elementary school and three times in middle school. Twice Ma “fell asleep” in college exams, and when he graduated, he received refusals from all employers.
Jack Ma as a child
In 1988, after graduating from a local pedagogical university, Jack was hired as a teacher with a monthly salary of $12-15. But Jack did not lose heart: he applied for admission to Harvard University 10 times and was rejected the same number of times. Having received the 10th refusal, Jack said that the time would come when he would be invited to teach at Harvard.
In the early 1990s, Jack Ma went in search of a lucrative job, but knocked on all doors in vain. Even the KFC restaurant chain rejected Ma, and he was the only one out of 24 applicants who was not hired even as an assistant manager. Jack is sure that the management was intimidated by the applicant’s short stature and unpresentable appearance.
Childhood
Ma Yun was born on September 10, 1964 in a suburb of the capital of the southeastern province of Zhejiang, Hangzhou. Yun became the second child in a family of musicians who made their living by giving lessons on Chinese folk instruments.
Jack Ma as a child
Contrary to information spread online, the family of the future billionaire was not poor, just not rich. A modest lifestyle was more a distinctive feature of the Chinese intelligentsia of the 60-70s, rather than a forced situation.
During his school years, Yun was already different from his peers, and although studying did not come easy to him, he showed a purposeful character, which amazed both teachers and parents. The skinny, short boy was not afraid to fight back against offenders who were much larger than him. He had a strange hobby - collecting crickets and making them fight.
Jack Ma with his parents
Ma Yun's early years came at a time when China was distancing itself from the Western world. But after President Richard Nixon visited Ma's hometown in 1972, a flood of tourists poured into Hangzhou, and Yun couldn't help but take advantage of it. To improve his knowledge of English, he went to the hotel every day and communicated with tourists, offering the services of a tour guide and guide to local attractions. One day, one of the tourists forgot the Chinese name of the young guide and called him Jack. Time will pass, and the name of Jack Ma will become known throughout the world.
Business
Jack Ma took his first steps in business in the early 1990s: the young teacher founded the translation agency “Haibo”, which he brought into profit for 3 years. The partners gave up when they saw that the cost of renting an office was three times higher than the income of the first working month. But Ma did not think of giving up: to support the business he sold souvenirs, clothing and consumer goods.
Jack Ma in his youth
After 3 years, “Haibo” brought its first profit without a penny of external investment. Today it is the largest organization in Hangzhou that provides translation services.
Jack Ma had no computer experience and no idea about programming. The entrepreneur first encountered the Internet in America, where he went with a Chinese delegation as a translator in 1995. When Jack searched for “beer,” he didn’t see the Chinese-made product he was looking for in the results. Search engine Yahoo! did not contain information about China. That’s when the idea came up to found an Internet company upon returning home.
In Seattle, Jack Ma placed a Haibo advertisement on the website for the first time and was convinced of its effectiveness: after 2 hours, the Chinese translation agency received 6 offers from America, Japan and Germany.
Returning from the United States, Jack founded a second website creation business, calling it Chinese Yellow Pages. There was no money to rent the premises, so Ma set up an office in his own apartment. My wife and friend helped me find the money to start – $2 thousand.
Analysts assured that the project was a failure: it took 2-3 hours to load one page of the site. After 3 years, Jack Ma’s second brainchild bore generous fruit: profits exceeded $800 thousand. In the late 1990s, Jack Ma was entrusted with the leadership of the international e-commerce center, a division of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade. The businessman learned a lesson from his experience in the civil service:
"Love the government, but don't marry it."
In 1999, after 14 months, Jack Ma left the government and founded the Alibaba Group with like-minded people, a trading platform for small and medium-level enterprises. Jack's name was inspired by an oriental tale about the leader of the forty thieves, who knows the “code word” for access to a cave with countless treasures. This is the corporate version of the name, pragmatic - “Ali Baba” is easy to pronounce in all languages.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma
In early 2000, Jack Ma's brainchild won $25 million in investments, but this did not lead to profit. Then the company came up with a system that helped Chinese exporters find customers in America. In 2002, Alibaba made its first profit - $1, after which revenue went up. 10 years later, the income of Ma’s company exceeded a trillion yuan; another year later, in 2013, Jack resigned as president, retaining his chairmanship of the board of directors.
In 2014, Alibaba held an IPO and listed shares on the New York Stock Exchange, planning to attract $1 billion in investments, but reality exceeded dreams: Jack Ma’s company attracted 25 billion. Was Jack Ma happy about the victory? Yes and no. The statement of the Chinese billionaire was replicated in the media:
“If you have a million dollars, it's your money. When you reach twenty million, problems begin: you worry about inflation, you think about which securities to invest in, etc., it’s a complete headache. When you have a billion, know that it is not your money. This is the expressed trust of society.”
Jack Ma's speech at the international economic forum in St. Petersburg was replete with shocking revelations. The billionaire who founded the mega-successful company said that creating Alibaba Group was his main mistake. He dreamed of a small business, but built a giant that requires responsibility and brings a sea of problems commensurate with those solved by the presidents of countries.
“Only I don’t have power like the president. And there is no personal life. So I decided that in my next life, if given the chance, I would never take up a business like this. I want to be myself, I want to enjoy life.”
Today, Alibaba Group controls 80% of China's e-commerce. Two-thirds of purchases are paid through the Alipay payment system, whose annual turnover is $148 billion. Domestically, Jack Ma’s company develops 6 shopping sites and owns a package of the Chinese hybrid Facebook called Weibo, which has a monthly audience of 156.5 million users.
Jack Ma
The corporation manages a dozen structures, including the film company Alibaba Pictures, the online store AliExpress.com, the online auction Taobao.com, and the online payment platform Alipay.
The Aliexpress online store began operating in 2010, and opened in Moscow in 2016. The resource is intended for selling Chinese goods abroad. According to Alexa, 21.8% of site visitors are Russians. In 2009 and 2014, Jack Ma entered the TOP 100 most influential people on the planet.
The richest Chinese man. Biography of Jack Ma
Jack Ma (real name Ma Yun) was born on October 15, 1964 in the city of Hangzhou in southeastern China. Besides him, there were two more children in the family - an older brother and a younger sister. Their childhood occurred during the isolation of the PRC from the West. The parents were poor.
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Ma was a skinny child and often got into fights at school. “I wasn’t afraid of opponents, even if they were bigger than me,” he recalls in Liu Shin and Martha Avery’s book Alibaba. Like other boys, Ma had her own hobbies. He loved to catch crickets and arrange fights between them. And by their chirping, he could even determine the type and size of the cricket.
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After US President Richard Nixon visited Huangzhou in 1972, Ma's hometown became a tourist mecca. As a teenager, Ma would often go early in the morning to the city's central hotel and offer free excursions to tourists in order to learn English from them. The nickname "Jack" was given to him by one of those tourists with whom he became friends.
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Without money and connections, Ma had only one way to get out into the world - get an education. After school, he decided to go to college, but failed the exams twice. After hard preparation, he was finally able to enter Hangzhou Normal Institute. In 1988, he received his diploma and began looking for work.
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He was rejected for a job more than ten times, even KFC, until he got a position as an English teacher. Ma turned out to be a natural teacher and loved the job, despite the fact that he earned only $12 a month at the local university.
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He had no experience with computers, let alone programming, until Ma first encountered the Internet during a trip to the United States in 1995. He accompanied the Chinese business delegation as a translator. The first search query he made was the word “beer,” and he was surprised when no Chinese-made beer came up in the search results. It was then that he decided to found an Internet company in his homeland.
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Ma's first two ventures were not successful. But four years later, he gathered a company of 17 friends and acquaintances in his apartment and convinced them to invest money in his project of an online trading platform called Alibaba. The site will provide the opportunity for suppliers to post offers of products that the buyer can purchase directly.
Soon the service attracted participants from all over the world. By October 1999, the company had received an investment of $5 million from Goldman Sachs and $20 million from SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications company that invests in technology projects. At that time, the Alibaba team consisted entirely of non-professionals. “We did it because we were young and never gave up,” Ma said at one staff meeting.
His sense of humor never left him. On the day when the company stopped being unprofitable and made its first profit, Ma gave employees a bottle of multi-colored serpentine aerosol and threw a party in the office. And in the early 2000s, when the company launched the Taobao project (the Chinese equivalent of eBay), he taught employees to do handstands during breaks to maintain their performance.
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In 2005, Yahoo invested $1 billion in Alibaba in exchange for a 40% stake in the company. Then Alibaba tried to bypass eBay in China. The investment was also a huge success for Yahoo, which later earned about $10 billion during Alibaba's IPO.
Ma stepped down as CEO in 2013, remaining as chairman of the company's board of directors. Alibaba held its IPO on September 19, 2014. “Today we did not buy money. Today we have gained people's trust,” Ma said on CNBC that day. The initial public offering, valuing the company at $169 billion, was the largest offering in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. This made Ma the richest person in China with a net worth of $25 billion.
Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou hosted a grand celebration for employees to mark the occasion. One of them even proposed to his girlfriend during the celebration.
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During the press conference, Ma urged his employees to use their newfound wealth to become “truly noble, kind and happy people who are capable of helping others.”
The IPO turned Ma into a more than wealthy man, but he did not make extravagant purchases and remains modest. “I don't think he's changed much. He stayed true to himself,” one of Ma’s friends told USA Today. His usual hobbies include reading and writing kung fu stories, playing poker, meditating, and practicing tai chi, a traditional health exercise derived from martial art. Together with actor Jet Li, he promotes the practice of tai chi, and on all trips he is accompanied by a personal trainer.
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Jack began to advocate for the environment after a relative of his wife was diagnosed with a disease caused by poor ecology. He is a member of the global board of trustees of the international nonprofit organization Nature Conservancy, and in September 2014 spoke at the Bill Clinton Foundation Global Initiative session. In addition, he allocated money to allocate more than 10 thousand hectares of land in China for the creation of a nature reserve.
Ma tries not to advertise her family life. He met his wife Zhang Ying in the late 80s while working at a school. “He’s not a handsome guy, but he can do a lot of things that handsome guys can’t do,” Zhang says of him. They are raising two children - a daughter and a son. The son studies at the University of California at Berkeley, where Ma once took a history course.
He, however, sometimes does not hesitate to show off his wealth. It is known that in March 2013, to ensure his movements around the world, the company purchased a Gulfstream G550 business class aircraft for $49.7 million.
The company also hosts annual talent shows in which Ma himself acts as host. At the celebration of the company's anniversary, he, in the guise of a punk rocker, performed in front of an audience of 20 thousand of his employees.
According to corporate legend, Ma came up with the name Alibaba while sitting in a coffee shop in San Francisco. In the famous Arabic tale “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” a magic word could open the entrance to a cave with treasures. Jack Ma's company also, in its own way, helps small and medium-sized businesses around the world achieve prosperity.
Personal life
It is impossible to find information online about the height and weight of the Chinese billionaire who created a business empire. Judging by the photos, Jack Ma is not Apollo. But Zhang Ying’s wife managed to see the main thing in her former classmate:
"He can do things that handsome men can't do."
They got married in the late 1980s and had a son and daughter. Until 2002, Zhang Ying was in the top management of the company, but in 2002, Jack courageously told his wife that the children needed her more than the company. The woman experienced shock, which was soon replaced by humility, and turned her attention to her family.
Jack Ma and his wife Zhang Ying
According to Jack Ma, his wife pushes him to new victories like no one else. 2 years after starting Alibaba, she asked how much she earned. A grimace of disappointment appeared on her beloved’s face. Then the husband added: “On the day.” His wife's face lit up with a smile, and wings grew behind Jack's back.
The billionaire is a great father. He advises his son not to strive to get into the top three students, but rather to remain in the middle. The main thing is not to slide into poor students. Jack Ma is sure that a child needs time free from classes for development and creativity. As for traditional education,
“It’s stuck in the past and still prepares schoolchildren for factory work.”
Billionaire Jack Ma's life today
The future billionaire met his wife Zhang Ying while still a student. The girl studied at the same institute as him. After completing her studies, she agreed to marry him, despite his unsightly appearance. They say that she considered him a man capable of actions that handsome men were not capable of.
Jack Ma met his future wife at the Pedagogical Institute
The billionaire has a son, Ma Yuankong, and a daughter, Ma Yuanbao. The son graduated from the University of California at Berkeley.
The businessman recommended his children to be “average”: not to fall into “low-grade” students, but not to strive to be in the top three students. Jack Ma is sure that for a child to develop, he needs time free from classes.
Until 2002, the businessman’s wife participated in the management of his company. But Jack advised her to devote more time to the children, and she left the company. After that, until today, Zhang Ying supports social and environmental projects and finances charitable organizations together with her husband. Jack Ma himself, after leaving the post of CEO of Alibaba Group, leads a less stressful lifestyle, although the position of chairman of the company does not allow him to completely relax. He participates in various conferences, including meeting with students, talking about how to build a career. So, in 2021, he visited Moscow State University at a meeting with students from the physics department.
Also in 2021, he began actively investing in startups outside of China, including in the following projects:
- Tokopedia;
- Lazada;
- Big Basket.
Jack Ma loves to meditate and practice tai chi, and he is always accompanied by a trainer when traveling. Ma reads a lot and writes stories about kung fu, and sometimes plays poker.
Jack Ma now
In October 2021, the billionaire visited Moscow State University, where, at a meeting with students of the physics department, he gave advice on how to build a career. The Chinese are convinced that in the near future the driver of the labor market will be the service industry, not industry.
Jack Ma in 2017
Jack Ma does not believe in Donald Trump’s promises to return the United States to greatness by returning production, and does not see a future in the Made in China program promoted by China.
“It’s time to stop talking about Made in China and Made in America. The era of Made in Internet has arrived,” said Ma.
The Chinese star's books are selling out at the speed of light. The hit book was “Never Give Up. History of AliExpress."
In 2021, Jack Ma appeared on the screen. The billionaire starred in Jet Li's kung fu action film "At Night... While We Sleep." Ma posted the film's premiere poster on his official Weibo page. The short film stars Asian action stars Donnie Yen and Jin Woo.
Jack Ma - author of the book
The book “Never Give Up. The AliExpress Story" was written by a Chinese billionaire and co-authored by John Grisham. The pages of the work describe the formation of the trading platform and its development, and also reveal the personality of Jack Ma himself.
Anyone interested in the history of the creation of AliExpress can find relevant information in the book “Never Give Up”
The book attracted public attention not only because of the interest in the Chinese businessman, but also because the famous writer John Grisham worked on it.
Condition assessment
In November 2014, experts estimated Jack Ma’s fortune at $32.7 billion, which brought the businessman to the leadership level of the richest Chinese and 18th in the world ranking.
Jack Ma on the cover of Forbes
That same year, Forbes ranked Jack 30th on its list of "China's Most Powerful People." The founder of the Alibaba empire is the first Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes magazine.
Quotes and advice
When you start a business, it means you give up a steady income, sick days, and annual bonuses.
If you don't know everything about your competitors, or you underestimate them, or you don't see them as a threat, then you will definitely lose.
Gather your team with a common goal. It is impossible to succeed if all that unites your team is you. If every employee works not for you, but for a common goal, you will be able to use the maximum potential of your colleagues.
Get yourself a replacement. Reduce your team’s dependence on you - instill in your subordinates the skills that you have, teach them what you know. Over time, you will be able to shift a significant part of your responsibilities to the team and move on to other projects.
Work with those whose professional skills are higher than yours. If you constantly have to give advice to experts, then you hired the wrong people. The employee should be much more qualified than you in his field.
Your attitude is more important than ability. Whether it is a difficult time or a favorable one, a leader must always remain calm, confident and purposeful.
Don't mix business and politics. Capital is a keg of gunpowder, and politics is a lit match. If you try to combine one with the other, the consequences will be quite predictable.
Work with those who suit you. When hiring an employee, pay attention not only to his qualifications. Professionalism and excellent characteristics of a specialist do not at all mean that you will work with him. Hire those with whom you feel comfortable, and you can train them into the specialists you need.
While devoting time to work, do not forget to enjoy life. Remember, your life is not all about work and more work, and then premature death from a heart attack at work. If you spend your whole life working, you will regret it, but it will be too late.
There is nothing worse than giving up your ambitions. By abandoning unfinished business, you are not only admitting defeat - you are abandoning yourself.
