Jack Ma

In October 1999 and January 2000, Alibaba won a total of a $25 million foreign venture capital investment from Goldman Sachs and Softbank. The program was expected to improve the domestic e-commerce market and perfect an e-commerce platform for Chinese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to address World Trade Organization (WTO) challenges. Alibaba became profitable three years later. Ma wanted to improve the global e-commerce system and from 2003 he founded Taobao Marketplace, Alipay, Ali Mama and Lynx. After the rapid rise of Taobao, eBay offered to purchase the company. However, Ma rejected their offer, instead gathering support from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang with a $1 billion investment.

On a trip to the United States on behalf of the Hangzhou city government in 1995, Ma had his first encounter with the Internet and saw the lack of Chinese Web sites as a great business opportunity. On his return, he founded China Pages, which created Web sites for Chinese businesses and was one of China’s first Internet companies. He left the company two years later. From 1998 to 1999 Ma was head of an Internet company in Beijing that was backed by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. In 1999, he quit and returned to Hangzhou with his team to found Alibaba, a China-based business-to-business marketplace site in his apartment with a group of 18 friends. He started a new round of venture development with 500,000 yuan.

He left the company two years later. From 1998 to 1999 Ma was head of an Internet company in Beijing that was backed by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

He left the company two years later. From 1998 to 1999 Ma was head of an Internet company in Beijing that was backed by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

On a trip to the United States on behalf of the Hangzhou city government in 1995, Ma had his first encounter with the Internet and saw the lack of Chinese Web sites as a great business opportunity. On his return, he founded China Pages, which created Web sites for Chinese businesses and was one of China’s first Internet companies.

From 1988 to 1993 he taught English at the Hangzhou Institute of Electronics and Engineering (now Hangzhou Dianzi University). In 1994 he founded his first company, the Haibo Translation Agency, which provided English translation and interpretation.

Early career

According to Ma's autobiographical speech, after graduating from Hangzhou Normal University in 1988, Ma applied for 31 different odd jobs and was rejected by every one. "I went for a job with the KFC; they said, 'you're no good'", Ma told interviewer Charlie Rose. "I even went to KFC when it came to my city. Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted. I was the only guy [rejected]...". During this period, China was in its first decade of Deng Xiaoping's Chinese economic reform.

He entered Hangzhou Normal University to study English. He graduated in 1988 with a B.A. in English.

He studied it daily, practiced talking with foreigners at the Hangzhou hotel, traveled daily, about an hour by bicycle, to get to that hotel. For 9 long years, he became a tour guide in exchange for practicing his English, a circumstance that, by maintaining a friendship by correspondence, gave him a nickname that came from his friend. Jack was his nickname, it was easier for his foreign friends than his real name.

Since a very young age, Jack was keen on gathering knowledge about English and tried his best to communicate better in the language. His desire to speak English encouraged him to visit a hotel frequented by English-speaking foreigners.

Jack Ma, originally Ma Yun, (born September 10, 1964, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China), Chinese entrepreneur who was head of the Alibaba Group, which comprised several of China’s most popular Web sites, including the business-to-business marketplace Alibaba.com and the shopping site Taobao.com.