As Alibaba becoming USD 160B worth of company this Friday, all type of news, be it negative or positive, are spreading like wildfire in the US stock market. Investors are so excited about the IPO. There are even rumours that established funds are selling other Technology stocks to fund their purchase of Alibaba shares despite the controversy of Chinese VIE structure.
Whatever market expectation is, Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, will be the richest man in China after this IPO and without a doubt,this IPO is the peak of Jack Ma’s success. However, Jack Ma has chosen to step down as Alibaba CEO but remained as Executive Chairman of the Group.
So what kind of person Jack Ma is?
The below video shows Jack Ma delivering address at the conference “China 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce”, hosted by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This probably will give you some idea of Jack Ma. In this video, he also shared the importance of failure as an entrepreneur. Given a choice, he will not share why he is successful. In his view, there are many mistakes made in running Alibaba. He will rather share 1001 mistakes of Alibaba.
I will say, “he is a visionary leader who believes strongly in building an Alibaba’s ecosystem where smart and young people come together developing new and innovative ways of running business”
I like the way he answered on question on buying of Yahoo. “The whole piece” and “Yahoo China is already in my pocket”. It shows a good sense of humour while demonstrating his determination and desire of getting what he wants – Full control of Yahoo
Although this acquisition has yet to realise, I am certain this topic will be the most talk-about one after Alibaba’s IPO.