Jack Ma

Ma tied the knot with a woman named Zhang Ying, whom he had first met while studying at the ‘Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute’. Zhang even played an important role in initiating Jack’s first business venture.

The couple later became parents to two children, a son as well as a daughter.

Jack was born to parents, who were involved in a profession of storytelling through music, on the 10th of September, 1964. The place of his birth was Hangzhou city located in the Zhejiang Province of China.

Since a really young age the lad was very keen on gathering knowledge about English and tried his best to communicate better in the language. His passion to be a better speaker used to even drive him to a hotel located near his residence, which was frequented by foreigners.

The youngster even started guiding tourists in visiting sight-seeing places around the city. The motive was to spend more time with native English speakers in a bid to gain a command over the language.

Simultaneously, Ma also aspired to enrol in a university and even attended exams for the same reason, but remained unsuccessful. He then joined the ‘Hangzhou Teacher’s Training Institute’ to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in English. Jack graduated from the institution in the year 1988.

In the mid 1990’s Jack got to know about the existence of the internet and began seeing this new trend in technology as a great business opportunity.

Ma even frequently visited the United States in 1995 to learn more about the internet. One of his friends even showed him how to connect to a website. The same year, he even raised a fund of $20000 to start his own firm with an intention of solely focussing on the internet.

The purpose of the company was to create websites for their clients. Although this kind of business was relatively new, Jack managed to earn a whopping $800000 in a matter of just 3 years.

His success in the field of internet, led to Jack’s appointment as the head of a firm governed by the agency ‘China International Electronic Commerce Center’, in 1998. He continued working in this IT-based firm for the next one year.

After stepping down from his responsibilities in 1999, Jack founded a company named ‘Alibaba’ along with many other friends. The intention was to create a website which is more like a one stop shop for business to business transactions.

Jack is primarily known for being the founder of the e-commerce giant ‘Alibaba’, which is one of the top websites in the business. This firm, which is also a stiff competitor to other famous websites such as ‘eBay’, has helped Ma become the richest man in China.