- Company
- Alibaba Group
- Role
- Co-Founder
- Est. Net Worth
- $25 Billion (Est.)
- Stage
- Elite
- Industry
- Tech & SaaS
Jack Ma
Co-Founder at Alibaba Group
About
Jack Ma co-founded Alibaba in 1999 from his apartment in Hangzhou, building it into one of the world's largest e-commerce and technology companies. A former English teacher who was rejected from dozens of jobs, Ma grew Alibaba into a global platform serving hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses across China and beyond.
Current Company
Alibaba Group — Co-Founder
The English Teacher Who Built China's Amazon
Jack Ma was rejected from dozens of jobs — including KFC — before becoming an English teacher in Hangzhou earning $12 a month. In 1995, on a trip to the United States, he encountered the internet for the first time and decided to build a business around it. After two failed startups, he gathered 17 friends in his apartment in 1999 and founded Alibaba, a business-to-business marketplace connecting Chinese manufacturers with global buyers.
Jack Ma's timing was prescient. As China's manufacturing economy boomed, Alibaba became the essential platform for connecting factories with overseas customers. He then expanded into consumer e-commerce with Taobao and Tmall, logistics with Cainiao, cloud computing with Alibaba Cloud, and fintech with Ant Group — building one of the most comprehensive internet ecosystems in the world.
Global Ambition and Quiet Return
At its peak, Alibaba Group's combined platforms facilitated more gross merchandise volume than Amazon and eBay combined, and Ant Group's Alipay became the world's largest mobile payment platform. Jack Ma's charismatic, unconventional leadership style and his story of overcoming rejection made him arguably the most recognizable business figure in Chinese history.
After stepping down as Alibaba's executive chairman in 2019, Jack Ma largely retreated from public life following a period of regulatory scrutiny. He has since focused on philanthropy, agriculture, and education initiatives, while Alibaba continues to operate as one of the world's most important technology and commerce platforms.