Digital Media Concepts/Jack Ma

Hangzhou, China.

Jack Ma, 2008

Introduction

Jack Ma is one of the most successful businessmen in the world, creating his biggest company at just thirty-four years old. Now, he is a billionaire who is able to take part in philanthropy and help others who are interested in business.

Childhood

Jack Ma, also known as Ma Yun, was born in Hangzhou, China on September 10, 1964. He grew up here with two siblings and his parents. During this time, communist China was thriving and his family was not doing well financially.

When Richard Nixon went to visit Hangzhou in 1972, the town became a place for tourists. After realizing this, Ma would go to nearby hotels as a child and offer to give them tours of Hangzhou’s West Lake in exchange for being taught English. He was given the nickname of “Jack” by some of the tourists he accompanied.

As a child, he would frequently get into fights with the other kids but was never afraid to take on a challenge. One of his hobbies was to play with crickets and knew them so well to the point where he could tell what kind of cricket it was just by the sound it made.

Early Adulthood

Because his family did not have much money, he chose to get an education. At first, he was rejected two times by universities for his lack of performance. However, he was eventually able to get into the Hangzhou Normal University where he studied teaching.

After graduating in 1988, he began to apply for many jobs. After being rejected by many jobs, he finally landed an English teacher job at his local university and made only twelve dollars every month.

Before Technology

Jack Ma, China Trust Global Leader Meeting, 2007.

Since Ma knew English well, he began to do translation jobs for international business opportunities. He would sometimes travel to other countries in order to assist a business deal by using his translation skills. This also allowed him to grow his connections with many different types of business partners.

Ma was not particularly interested in technology until it was introduced to him in 1995. He was visiting the United States in order to assist a company with a business deal translation. When he looked on the internet for images of beer, he saw that there were no Chinese brands shown. This is what inspired him to want to create a Chinese internet company.

In 1999, he was able to get seventeen of his friends and colleagues to invest in his business venture called “Alibaba” where users could buy products that would get shipped to them.

Early Career

Mauricio Macri and Jack Ma, 2017

In October of 1999, the company was given $5 million from Goldman Sachs and $20 million from SoftBank. He made sure that the people in his company were always having fun and we treated the right way. At first, Alibaba was a predominantly English shopping website, but Ma and his team eventually changed it to be a "domestic wholesale marketplace".

Later in 2003, the company came out with another platform called Taobao, another shopping website that eventually generated millions.

Ma would continue with his business ventures until September of 2019 when he decided to step down as the CEO of Alibaba and Taobao. However, he is still a large shareholder in both platforms' assets.

Current Life

In 2014, Ma would begin the Jack Ma Foundation, a nonprofit organization that would assist people with entrepreneurship, education, and eventually COVID struggles in 2020.

Jack Ma has gone through many harmful events towards his company after criticizing the Chinese government's financial regulatory practices. This caused him to disappear from the public in 2020-2021. However, he is now back and is fixing the damage that was done to his company even though he is no longer CEO of Alibaba or Taobao.

External Links

External Links Jack Ma - Jack Ma's Wikipedia page.

Sources

Gregersen, Erik. "Jack Ma." Britannica, 2024.

Kharpal, Arjun. "Jack Ma steps down as Alibaba's chairman." CNBC, 2019.

Stone, Madeline. "The Inspiring Life Story of Alibaba Founder Jack Ma, Now The Richest Man In China." Business Insider, 2014.

Stone, Madeline. "Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, is back in the public eye after a hiatus." Business Insider, 2024.