Young Entrepreneur: Jack Ma

By Adam Toren

The lumbering, sleeping giant awakes. What will soon become the world’s largest economy is very much on the radar screen as it emerges from centuries of sleep. China’s potential for growth and its likely impact upon the economies of the Western world cannot be underestimated. Several homegrown entrepreneurs are riding that wave and one of their most notable nationals is Jack Ma, who founded the business-to-business website alibaba.com. After a meteoric rise, Ma’s company went public and now has a valuation of more than $30 billion.

Ma is certainly a child of China’s Cultural Revolution. He learned English when he was 12 and was able to interact with a number of foreign tourists. In his own words his eyes were opened. “China was opening up and a lot of foreign tourists went there. I showed them around as a free guide and practiced my English. Those eight years deeply changed me. I started to become more globalized than most Chinese. What I learned from my teachers and books was different from what the foreign visitors told us.” A visit to Australia in the early ‘eighties reinforced his vision. (more)