(lighthearted music)
Jack Ma is Asia's richest man
and most recognizable business tycoon.
He's the chairman of Alibaba.
China's E-commerce giant
and one of the 10 largest companies in the world.
Yet he still wants more.
We know where we're going,
we want to be the fifth largest economy.
Big words from the man some call Asia's Jeff Bezos.
He's confident, he's charismatic
and he's definitely not the average CEO.
♪ Can you feel the love tonight ♪
This is how a poor school teacher
went from the classroom, to being one
of the most influential multi-billionaires in the world.
(lighthearted music)
Ma was born in China's southeastern city, Hangzhou, in 1964.
His parents were traditional musician storytellers.
As a teenager, he started to learn English
from foreign tourists,
after China opened up in the late 1970's.
And then for nine years, Jack Ma,
hung around outside the Hangzhou Hotel,
which is now called the Shangri-La.
He would get up at five a.m.
to talk to travelers.
That's Bloomberg Technology reporter, Lulu Chen.
And I cover China internet for Bloomberg.
Ma failed China's National University
entrance exam twice
before being admitted to Local Teachers College.
He graduated in 1988.
He applied for 30 jobs and got rejected.
Including from the fast food giant, KFC.
When KFC come to China,
(crowd laughing)
24 people went for the job.
23 people were accepted, I was the only one guy.
Then Ma got a job at a local university
and taught English there for about five years
earning just $15 dollars a month.
On the side he started a translation company
with several friends.
During a company trip to the U.S. in 1995,
Ma had his first encounter with the internet,
at a friend’s place in Seattle.
I searched the first word, beer.
(crowd laughing)
I don't why, because easy to spell, maybe.
And I see beers from Germany,
beers from U.S.A, beers from Japan.
But there's no beer from China.
So he searched for the word China instead
and still couldn't find anything.
And that got him thinking,
he wanted to build something
that would put China on the world's map.
He started China Pages,
a Yellow Pages like website, but it didn't take off.
Then Ma joined a government agency
in Beijing to help set up a website.
(energetic music)
By 1999, the internet stock boom
had gripped Wall Street.
And back in his Hangzhou apartment,
Ma decided to try again.
With his wife and a group of friends,
Ma raised $80,000 dollars,
and set up Alibaba, a site that allowed businesses
to sell stuff to each other.
(speaking excitedly in a foreign language)
(upbeat music)
By 2000, Alibaba had raised $25 million dollars
from investors, including Goldman Sachs and SoftBank.
He had no business plan
and zero revenue,
but his eyes were very strong.
Strong eyes.
(laughing)
In 2003, Alibaba started Taobao,
a platform for individual sellers
to trade with each other
and publicly declared war against eBay,
who had started to make a foray into China.
Jack Ma has this famous saying
that Alibaba is a crocodile in the Yangtze River,
whereas eBay is a shark in the ocean.
And if they fight eBay in the ocean
then they'll lose,
but if they fight them in the Yangtze River
then they have a home base advantage.
(upbeat music)
In 2007, just one year
after it forced eBay out of China,
Alibaba debuted its business-facing division
on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
But it delisted five years later,
as its performance sagged.
(bells chiming)
(crowd yelling)
In 2014, Alibaba raised $25 billion dollars
in the world’s biggest IPO in New York.
Everybody should have a dream.
What if that dream comes true?
After achieving dominance
in the business of E-commerce in China,
Alibaba has been building
an internet empire worth $472 billion dollars
with businesses in cloud computing,
online video streaming, movie production,
healthcare, sports, retail, and even news media.
Alibaba buying into South China Morning Post
really raised eyebrows.
This is the largest English newspaper in Hong Kong.
And it shows that Jack Ma's ambitions
weren't limited to E-commerce.
He wanted to influence, not just Chinese users,
but also overseas users, as well.
(upbeat music)
The U.S. has criticized Alibaba
for allowing companies
to sell counterfeit and poorly made goods.
But in China, it enjoys the favor
of China's government.
It's part of Ma's company philosophy.
In love with the government,
but don't marry with them.
Jack Ma is an extremely fortunate man
for jumping on the internet sector so early.
Note that this is a person
who has no coding skills at all.
He's a natural showman and a gifted public speaker,
and really able to convince others
to believe in his vision.
Ma's vision of growing Alibaba
to be the world’s fifth largest economy
faces strong competition at home and abroad.
It will require more than just naked ambition and charisma.
But Ma is great at getting himself
in the right place at the right time.
So far it's served him well.
(successful music)