Alibaba creator Jack Ma's stature may be small but what he’s achieved is huge
Alibaba - have you heard of it, know the name or what it is, or care what it does? Because you might want to.
It’s China’s largest online shopping empire. It controls 80% of web sales in a nation of 1.4 billion people. It does more trade than Amazon and eBay combined, and its estimated value is $160 billion.
The company is about to be floated on the New York Stock Exchange in what’s set to be the biggest debut in history, and it’s creator is Jack Ma.
He’s a diminutive man and a former English teacher from Hangzhou, in eastern China.
His stature may be small but what he’s achieved is huge, even by Chinese standards, and tomorrow is Alibaba's time to “Open Sesame” on Europe and the US.
Jack Ma was born in 1964, 100 miles from Shanghai, and he had an early love of the English language.
He’d ride daily on his bike as a young man to a hotel in his home town. There, he'd work for free as a guide to tourists, desperate to learn more and improve.
He went on to teach the language, setting up a translation business and heading to America to work as a interpreter.
It was there that he discovered the internet, and eventually returned to his home country to set up China’s first internet company - China Pages (their version of the Yellow Pages).
That was just a flirtation with the internet. In 1999, his incredible vision then inspired him and 17 friends, all cramped in his one-bedroom apartment, to set up Alibaba.
This was a team energised by creating something completely new, because Jack saw the potential of e-commerce, the potential to lift people out of poverty and open their eyes to the world.
To his staff, he once said, "Alibaba is not just a job. It’s a dream, it’s a cause.”
Over 15 years, that cause has created business-to-business trading sites, the online shopping site Taobao (the Chinese equivalent to eBay) and Alipay, a web payment scheme that operates in a similar way to Paypal, to name but a few.
Alibaba has also invested in the entertainment industry with television and film companies part of its portfolio, and even football teams.
Jack Ma’s dynamism and boundless scope for ideas “cast a spell on people.” That’s what Duncan Clark - an investment advisor in China who’s known Jack for 15 years - told me.
Jack’s voyage through the e-commerce industry has seen him go to war with eBay and win in China. He represents the rising middle class who want to shop online.
Previously, Chinese customers would have to pay high prices, travel to big cities and queue up in department stores for what they wanted.
Jack and Alibaba have brought choice to people across the country, and his online platforms have spawned a new generation of millionaires. Those who can set up their own businesses through his sites.
Junchao Wong is one of them. I met him today. He is 30 years old and has made £10 million in the past three years selling designer European cosmetics through Taobao.
He saw there was a demand, "cut out the middle man” by starting his own store on Jack’s site, and now sells directly to the Chinese market. There was little risk.
He invested one month’s salary of £1,000 in 2010 and the business grew, and still is growing. It was, and is, that simple.
As Alibaba prepares to generate yet more money in tomorrow’s flotation, allowing it to expand across America and Europe, the vision will spread.
So, just as our awareness of it increases, our understanding of China must do too, according to Duncan Clark.
The internet and Alibaba have helped spark the dreams of a generation in China.
So maybe the country's rise shouldn’t be feared but looked at it with optimism. Either way, welcome to the wonderful world of Jack Ma