There are many stories that seem to be taken from fairy tales about the gurus of global eCommerce. An unusual case is that of Jack Ma, the founder of This visionary man of humble origin managed to become the richest Chinese citizen on the planet, and This is something that may not have been so good for his career.
Ma had not appeared in public since the end of October 2020 and had already speculated about his whereabouts, even using the term “disappeared” after the brush he had with the Chinese government after the authorities of the Asian giant began a campaign against him and his companies, which sparked rumors regarding his legal status.
Ant Group IPO Freezes, Alibaba Investigations Launched
Rumors about hypothetical pressure from the Chinese government they started as soon as to pursue educational philanthropy in 2019.
With only 55 years the founder of decided to leave the presidency of the Chinese eCommerce giant, assuring that it was for personal reasons. “I don’t want to die in the office, I want to die on the beach” he assured a year earlier when announcing his departure as president of the firm.
However, it was not until the month of November 2020 when Chinese government authorities froze Ant Group’s IPO plans when the rumors got louder.
the Fintech of Alibaba Group, was going to star in the largest IPO in history, and missing only 48 hours for the date indicated, the authorities decided to stop the operation due to the enormous power that the Fintech could achieve, since if its IPO had been consummated, the platform would have surpassed the first state banks.
In addition, Ma had made some statements about the legislation in his country in financial matters that many believe were the trigger for the authority to challenge the tycoon. Jack Ma as “pawn shops” and what should be “replace that mentality with a credit system based on big data, using current technological possibilities”.
As if this were not enough, last December The State Administration for Market Regulation announced the opening of an investigation against Alibaba for possible monopolistic practices, and consequently the Chinese giant has lost almost a third of its price, the equivalent of 280,000 million euros.
Where was Jack Ma? The demise of the tycoon
Since October of last year Jack Ma, not in his old apartment where he founded Alibaba, not in the mansion where he offers tai chi lessons that he mistook for actor Jet Li in 2013, not in the Alibaba headquarters, and not in the bar that Alibaba executives opened in early 2019 and I used to visit at least once a month.
He did not even participate on January 1 in the final of a television contest that was created by himself. “Mr. Ma was unable to participate due to a scheduling problem,” an Alibaba spokesman told .
However, in January 2021, and after much speculation about his whereabouts, such as that he was detained, that the authorities had prohibited him from leaving the country, or that he was trying to keep a low profile while the investigation into Alibaba continues; Ma was participating in an award ceremony for rural teachers named after him. She has done it, however, through the screen.
Following Ma’s reappearance, Alibaba shares soared 8.52% on the Hong Kong stock market, whose benchmark index (the Hang Seng) ended the day up 1.08%. Alibaba shares had previously plunged more than 18% since the businessman last appeared publicly.
Nevertheless at the moment everything is conjecture and we can only ask, what will be the next step Jack Ma?
The rocky beginnings of Jack Ma
Jack Ma was a Professor of English who, in 1999, together with a venture capital partner and 17 friends, founded Alibaba. It is important to point out that, in addition to his undoubted talent, he coincided with the economic situation of expansion of international trade that China has experienced since the 1990s. He was in the right place at the right time and, in 1995, it created its first website portal for Chinese companies. Alibaba was a more ambitious development, since the objective was to work the B2B of Chinese companies with foreigners. In the year 2000, he obtained 22 million euros of investment for the company.
However, the professional beginnings by Jack Ma they were not easy. It was difficult for her to find a job, because rejected up to thirty applications made by, as well as ten times the entry into Harvard. In fact, he had to enter the university in his hometown, and that after suspending twice. Jack Ma is an example of perseverance and the ability to overcome life’s setbacks, which the Spanish Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela described very well in a phrase: he who resists wins.
In 2014, with its , this mega website for buying and selling products and services consolidated its worldwide fame. Now, Jack Ma is the richest man in China, with an estimated fortune of more than 36,000 million euros.
As described at the time Porter Erismannformer vice president of Alibaba: “He was idealistic, optimistic, competent, innovative and resilient. He studied to be a teacher: his first job. That’s why I think he measures his life by the effect he has on others.”
Today no one disputes that Alibaba is the largest eCommerce group in the world, with brutal control over China, since it accumulates 75% of the retail and wholesale market share in the country. Its online platforms, and Taobao have a larger product portfolio than Amazon.com. Other companies in the Alibaba group are Cainiao, Alimama, Ant Financial, and Juhuasuan. They all work in a complementary way and have changed the way the .
Jack Ma and the miracle of Alibaba
In its beginnings Alibaba was focused Its purpose was connect chinese companies with foreign companies in an agile marketplace. Little by little, it positioned itself as a safe space to make transactions thanks to its points and evaluations system. It attracted the attention of many companies concerned about the long history of wrongdoing in Chinese business.
Today, Alibaba is the most important eCommerce group in the world, surpassing other well-known platforms in the West such as Amazon. This is because, from its market niche in China, it has been able to expand and be a benchmark of the first order for global trade.
Jack Ma grows the Alibaba Group
After Alibaba, Jack Ma began to experiment with parallel services. One of the best known is (de), an alternative to Paypal for the Chinese. It has 700 million registered users and It is the third most used form of digital payment in that country.
Alipay was followed Taobao, aimed at B2C and C2C with the same Alibaba points and ratings system. Currently Taobao It is already the tenth most visited page in the world and the third in China. Gradually Alibaba Group has extended its reach outside the digital realm with the purchase of majority stakes in various businesses (, ).
Other projects of the group that have been carried out are Aliexpress.com, for the public that was looking for low-cost products and resides outside of China.
A conglomerate of companies valued at more than 231,000 million euros. It covers sectors as dissimilar as the media, telecommunications, logistics, data analysis, etc. The only company that
Alibaba’s growth was rapid, an “Open Sesame” of wealth. In the year 2000 there were 50 people in the company. In 2001 they reached 150 and in 2008 there were around 15,000 workers. Today there are more than 117,000 people spread over offices around the world.
Jack Ma’s interests don’t end at Alibaba
As we said, Jack Ma is today the richest man in China, with a personal fortune of more than 36,000 million euros (June 2017) and is considered by important business publications such as Fortune magazine the most influential chinese leader in the world and the second in the global list.
Jack Ma has always been one step ahead of the needs of the Chinese market, and this has allowed him to create an empire. He’s a far-sighted, detailed leader who assumes his life as a mission: to support the development of local companies.
Currently, Jack Ma is involved in a project that transcends Alibaba and is the conservation of the environment in China with the program Nature Conservancy’s China. Since 2010, 0.3% of the group’s profits have been used for environmental conservation projects. If it puts as much effort into e-commerce, we hope that in about 15 years the natural ecosystem crisis facing the Chinese giant will take a resounding turn.
Jack Ma’s farewell to Alibaba
In September 2018, Jack Ma announced his goodbye to the company he had founded, albeit on a delayed basis. After two decades dedicated body and soul to his growth, Ma will leave the presidency effectively in September 2019, when the current CEO, daniel zhangwill assume his role. “It is not the end of one era, but the beginning of another. The tycoon commented in an interview in which he insists that he will spend more time focusing on education.
Jack Ma quotes for history
Jack Ma is a prototype of self made manand has a wide repertoire of motivating phases based on your personal experience. Here you can see a few:
- “Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow the sun will shine.”
- “Never compete on price, but on services and innovation.”
- “Help young people. Your seeds will remain in their minds and, when they grow, they will change the world.
- “If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the biggest mistake.”
- “When you’re little, you have to rely on brains, not brawn.”
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