Jack Ma Quotes

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Jack Ma

Profession : Businessman

Birth : September 10, 1964

Spending money is much more difficult than making money.

Jack Ma

My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name.

Jack Ma

I call Alibaba '1,001 mistakes.' We expanded too fast, and then in the dot-com bubble, we had to have layoffs. By 2002, we had only enough cash to survive for 18 months. We had a lot of free members using our site, and we didn't know how we'd make money. So we developed a product for China exporters to meet U.S. buyers online. This model saved us.

Jack Ma

My job is making money, helping other people make money. I am spending money, trying to make sure more people get rich, because you cannot spend a lot of money, right? So my job is spending money, helping others. This is a headache.

Jack Ma

We should keep on going along the path of globalization. Globalization is good... when trade stops, war comes.

Jack Ma

When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.

Jack Ma

I flunked my exam for university two times before I was accepted by what was considered my city's worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected student chairman and later became chairman of the city's Students Federation.

Jack Ma

I'm not a tech guy. I'm looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people's eyes.

Jack Ma

Our philosophy is that we want to be an ecosystem. Our philosophy is to empower others to sell, empower others to service, making sure the other people are more powerful than us. With our technology, our innovation, our partners - 10 million small business sellers - they can compete with Microsoft and IBM.

Jack Ma

The most important thing is to make the technology inclusive - make the world change. Next, pay attention to those people who are 30 years old, because those are the internet generation. They will change the world; they are the builders of the world.

Jack Ma

I know nothing about technology.

Jack Ma

The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together.

Jack Ma

I want to change history, do something important in my life, and influence individuals like we have with millions of small businesses on Alibaba. Then they love and respect you because you made their life important.

Jack Ma

Help young people. Help small guys. Because small guys will be big. Young people will have the seeds you bury in their minds, and when they grow up, they will change the world.

Jack Ma

There are big problems that change the world. If we are working together, that will make us understand each other, appreciate each other, help each other.

Jack Ma

You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die.

Jack Ma

The very important thing you should have is patience.

Jack Ma

If you want to invest in us, we believe customer number one, employee number two, shareholder number three. If they don't want to buy that, that's fine. If they regret, they can sell us.

Jack Ma

I think young generation is always better than last generation. No matter you like it or don't like it. My father said, 'Jack, I'm so good, you'll never be' - but I'm better than him. My father is better than my grandfather. My children will be better than us.

Jack Ma

Every government says they love small businesses, but what have they done for them? We should pull down all the barriers.

Jack Ma