Jack Ma Biography
Born 10 Sep1964 in Hangzhou, China (Co-founder and Former Executive Chairman of 'Alibaba Group')
Jack Ma is a Chinese businessman, investor, and philanthropist. Once a poor lad who survived by guiding tourists, Jack went on to rise above his humble condition and achieve success. He started off by improving his communication skills and also learned English.
Jack was one of the first few individuals who saw the Internet as a business opportunity even at a time when the rest of the world didn’t believe in his vision. After starting his first venture with a mere $20,000, the entrepreneur went on to earn around $800,000 in just three years. In the late-1990s, he founded the e-commerce based venture ‘Alibaba’ which catapulted him to global fame.
The revenue generated by the firm helped him reach the zenith of success and made him the richest man in China. He even co-founded other similar ventures which were also successful to a great extent; one of these was an e-commerce website called ‘Taobao.’ Jack is the recipient of many awards. He has also been featured in world-renowned magazines, such as ‘Forbes’ and ‘Time.’
Jack Ma's Net-Worth and Influence
What is Jack Ma, founder and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA), worth? As of Jun. 21, 2023, Jack Ma's net worth is $34.1 billion as the 39th richest person in the world, according to an article from Bloomberg.
Much of Ma’s wealth is linked to Alibaba. He used to own the largest controlling interest in the company and its subsidiaries, though he has been divesting his shares over time. In July 2020, he sold another $8.2 billion worth of shares. According to the company's 13D filing in February 2022, he now ownes 3.9% of the business. The firm's roots date back to 1995, when Ma and his wife started a site-creating company called China Yellow Pages. Less than five years later, Ma co-founded Alibaba with 17 friends in Hangzhou.
Alibaba’s holdings now include outright ownership and or important ownership stakes in a movie studio, venture capital funds, Yahoo! China, healthcare technology makers, Internet messaging and voice apps, supply chain management companies, taxi-hailing app services, video streaming sites, social media apps, and online clothing retailers. Ma stepped down as Chairman of Alibaba on Sept. 10, 2019, on his 55th birthday, as part of a long-standing succession plan.
Jack Ma
A former English teacher, Jack Ma cofounded Alibaba Group, now one of the world's largest e-commerce businesses, in 1999.
The former high-flying billionaire stepped down as Alibaba's executive chairman in 2019. After approximately a year overseas, Ma returned to China in March 2023 just as Alibaba unveiled a plan to split itself into six businesses.
Ma, whose travels to Japan, Thailand and Europe were tracked by media, made a surprise trip to a school in China the day before Alibaba announced the group split.
Jack Ma: Alibaba founder seen in China after long absence
Jack Ma had rarely been seen in public since late 2020
Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who has rarely been seen in public in the past three years, has resurfaced at a school in Hangzhou, a report says.
The 58-year-old has kept a low profile since criticising China's financial regulators in 2020.
Mr Ma was the most high-profile Chinese billionaire to have disappeared amid a crackdown on tech entrepreneurs. He recently returned to China after more than a year overseas, according to the South China Morning Post.
The Alibaba-owned newspaper said he had made a short stopover in Hong Kong, where he met friends and also briefly visited Art Basel, an international art fair. It added that Mr Ma has been travelling to different countries to learn about agricultural technology but made no reference as to why he had disappeared from public view in recent years.
Mr Ma, a former English teacher, met staff and toured classrooms at the Yungu School in Hangzhou, the city in which Alibaba is headquartered.
Jack Ma
Jack Ma Yun (Chinese: 马云; pinyin: Mǎ Yún; born September 10, 1964) is a Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate. In addition, Ma is also the co-founder of Yunfeng Capital, a Chinese private equity firm. As of February 2024, with a net worth of $30.1 billion, Ma is the sixth-wealthiest person in China, as well as the 50th wealthiest person in the world, ranked by Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Ma was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang on September 10, 1964, as Ma Yun. He became interested in learning the English language as a young boy and began practicing it with English-speaking visitors who frequented the Hangzhou International Hotel. Ma's grandfather served as a security guard during the Second Sino-Japanese War. At the age of 12, Ma bought a pocket radio and began listening to English radio stations frequently.
For nine years, Ma rode 27 km (17 miles) on his bicycle every day to work as a tour guide of Hangzhou for foreigners in order to practice his English. He became pen pals with one of those foreigners, who nicknamed him "Jack" because he found it hard to pronounce his Chinese name.[16] When Ma was 13 years old, he was forced to transfer to Hangzhou No. 8 Middle School as he kept getting in fights. In his primary school days, Ma struggled scholastically, and it took two years for him to gain acceptance at an ordinary Chinese high school, as he only got 31 points in mathematics on the Chinese high school entrance exam.
Alibaba - More Than Two Decades of Track Record of Innovation
Alibaba Group was established in 1999 by 18 people led by Jack Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China.
From the outset, the company’s founders shared a belief that the Internet would level the playing field by enabling small enterprises to leverage innovation and technology to grow and compete more effectively in the domestic and global economies.
Since launching its first website helping small and medium-sized enterprises in China to sell internationally, Alibaba is a holding company of six major business groups: Taobao and Tmall Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, Cloud Intelligence Group, Local Services Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited, and Digital Media and Entertainment Group, along with various other businesses.
Alibaba shares jump after founder Jack Ma reemerges with praise of Chinese giant’s ‘transformations’
Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, reappeared in the public view in China for the first time in months. Alibaba then announced a huge reorganization of its business. Experts see the move as a signal that the Chinese government is softening its stance toward tech giants after a crackdown that began in late 2020
Alibaba founder Jack Ma on Wednesday praised the company’s reorganization and change over its tumultuous past year, marking the billionaire’s second major public statement to employees in just a few months.
In the past year, Alibaba underwent a historic overhaul and sweeping management changes in a bid to return the Chinese technology giant to growth.
“Over the past year, amid external and internal doubt and pressures, I have witnessed the birth of a strong and courageous Alibaba team,” Ma wrote in an internal memo to employees, a translated version of which was seen by CNBC. Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares were nearly 2% higher in morning trading Wednesday.
Alibaba Group
"Taobao City", the main corporate campus of Alibaba Group at Xixi, Hangzhou
Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba, is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the company provides consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services via Chinese and global marketplaces, as well as local consumer, digital media and entertainment, logistics and cloud computing services. It owns and operates a diverse portfolio of companies around the world in numerous business sectors.
On 19 September 2014, Alibaba's initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange raised US$25 billion, giving the company a market value of US$231 billion and, by far, then the largest IPO in world history.[8] It is one of the top 10 most valuable corporations,[9] and is named the 31st-largest public company in the world on the Forbes Global 2000 2020 list. In January 2018, Alibaba became the second Asian company to break the US$500 billion valuation mark, after its competitor Tencent. As of 2022, Alibaba has the ninth-highest global brand valuation.
Alibaba is one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies. In 2020, it was also rated as the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. It is also one of the biggest venture capital firms and investment corporations in the world, as well as the second largest financial services group behind Visa via its fintech arm Ant Group. The company hosts the largest B2B (Alibaba.com), C2C (Taobao), and B2C (Tmall) marketplaces in the world. It has been expanding into the media industry, with revenues rising by triple percentage points year after year. It also set the record on the 2018 edition of China's Singles' Day, the world's biggest online and offline shopping day.