Jack Ma Quotes

Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.
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.
We should keep on going along the path of globalization. Globalization is good... when trade stops, war comes.
Spending money is much more difficult than making money.
You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die.
When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.
The very important thing you should have is patience.
My vision is to build an e-commerce ecosystem that allows consumers and businesses to do all aspects of business online.
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.
Trust the young people; trust this generation's innovation. They're making things, changing innovation every day. And all the consumers are the same: they want new things, they want cheap things, they want good things, they want unique things. If we can create these kind of things for consumers, they will come.
I'm coming to this world not to work. I want to come to this world to enjoy my life. I don't want to die in my office. I want to die on the beaches.
If we work so hard and put all the money in the hospital to buy medicine - it will be a disaster. Why we should work? So without a healthy environment of this Earth, no matter how much money you make, no matter how wonderful you are, you have a bad disaster.
I don't want to be liked. I want to be respected.
The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together.
I don't think I'm a workaholic. Every weekend, I invite my colleagues and friends to my home to play cards. And people, my neighbors, are always surprised because I live on the second floor apartment, and there are usually 40 pairs of shoes in front of my gate, and people play cards inside and play chess. We have a lot of fun.
I know nothing about technology.
Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma.
There's an examination for young people to go to university. I failed it three times. I failed a lot. So I applied to 30 different jobs and got rejected. I went for a job with the police; they said, 'You're no good.' I even went to KFC when it came to my city. Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted.
I'm humble 'cause I think many years ago people say, 'Well, Alibaba's terrible company'. And I know we were not that terrible. We're pretty good; we're better than people thought. But today, when people have a high expectation on you, and I start to worry and nervous because we are not good yet.
The name Jack was given by an American tourist.
If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Wal-Mart, I will regret it for the rest of my life.
I got my story, my dream, from America. The hero I had is Forrest Gump... I like that guy. I've been watching that movie about 10 times. Every time I get frustrated, I watch the movie. I watched the movie before I came here again to New York. I watched the movie again telling me that no matter whatever changed, you are you.
I respect Apple. It's a great company that changed the world, especially the mobile time.
I'm not a tech guy. I'm looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people's eyes.
The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you've got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. Also, if you don't give up, you still have a chance. And, when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.
Trade is a communication of cultures and values.
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.
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.
Before I left China, I was educated that China was the richest, happiest country in the world. So when I arrived Australia, I thought, 'Oh my God, everything is different from what I was told.' Since then, I started to think differently.
We want to help U.S. entrepreneurs, small business owners, and brands and companies of all sizes sell their goods to the growing Chinese consumer class. Chinese consumers will get to buy the American products they want. This, in turn, will help create American jobs and increase U.S. exports.
IBM, Microsoft, the profit they made was larger than the top four banks in China put together... But where did the money go?
A startup for entrepreneurs is like a baby, and I have five babies so far - experienced father.
I try to make myself happy, no, because I know that if I'm not happy, my colleagues are not happy and my shareholders are not happy and my customers are not happy.
Every time there's an election, people start to criticize China.
I'm just a purist. What is important in my life is that I can do something that can influence many people and influence China's development. When I am myself, I am relaxed and happy and have a good result.
Year 2008 wiped out $19.2 trillion in US income... What if the money was spent on the Midwest of the United States?
Today the financial market is no good, but the money is there.
I want to stress the importance of being fair to our readers. You should not impose your own view and prejudice on the readers and try to lead them to a conclusion. As a reader, I understand what a fair report is.
The competition between me and Bill Gates, probably: Who can spend money more effectively that can do better philanthropy.
If the 'Post' can play the role of a connector between the West and the East, I have confidence in the paper's future success.
As a company, we have to be very transparent. We are in a business very related to finance, and I want this company to last long, and I want this company to be audited by everyone.
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.
The big businesses are less willing to take risks. I talked to some young people in Hong Kong, and they said they are lost. Young people indeed have fewer opportunities than before. But is it true that there are no more opportunities for them? No!
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.
People say, 'Well you know the economy's bad, so China consumption will be low. No, totally different. You Americans love to spend tomorrow's money, and other people's money maybe... We Chinese love to save money.
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.
China's government is so strong on investment, so strong on exporting, but they're too weak on domestic consumption.
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.
What a publication can do is to help people get a clearer picture without jumping to any rash conclusion. I'm very happy that the 'Post' can take the responsibility to report on China in a broader and deeper way. I believe the 'Post' must be fair to our readers. We should let our readers see China from more angles and perspectives.
I like to play cards. I'm not very good, because I don't want to calculate, I just play by instinct. But I've learned a lot of business philosophy by playing poker.
What kind of business world are we living in?
The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization.
A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.
The world is getting so small. Young people are mobile; they want to travel around the world. When you travel around the world, you exchange culture, you want to make friends, you want to exchange things.
I don't shop online, but my wife buys everything at home. We buy sea crabs, fresh crabs, all kinds of things.
When we first started our internet company, 'China Pages', in 1995, and we were just making home pages for a lot of Chinese companies. We went to the big owners, the big companies, and they didn't want to do it. We go to state-owned companies, and they didn't want to do it. Only the small and medium companies really want to do it.
Every government says they love small businesses, but what have they done for them? We should pull down all the barriers.
I am going to enjoy some other things apart from business.
I don't care about revenues.
Every technological revolution takes about 50 years.
I even don't dare to watch our stock price, because this is what other people think who you are. I dare not watch it. I think, let the market take care of themselves; we should take care of the business.
Our focused customers are small business and young people. We did a great job in China. How can we help those young people in India, in Pakistan, in Africa. If they can use in the same ways.
When I was 12 years old, I got interested in learning English.
Helping doing business easier, we choose the name Alibaba because it is a global company. It is founded in China, but it was created for the world.
Alibaba spends money on improving the products and services, not on kickbacks. That's a good thing. It's called a value system, and because of that, we get more and more small- to medium-sized companies to support us in China.
I don't want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds.
My job is to help more people have jobs.
Chinese people, young people, they don't go shopping a lot in department stores. All department store guys hate me. They say business is bad because of Jack.
When we started the e-commerce, nobody believed that China would have e-commerce because people believed in 'guang-shi,' face-to-face, and all kinds of network in traditional ways. There's no trust system in China.
In the beginning I just wanted to survive. For the first three years, we made zero revenue. I remember many times when I was trying to pay up, the restaurant owner would say, 'Your bill was paid.' And there would be a note saying, 'Mr. Ma, I'm your customer on the Alibaba platform. I made a lot of money, and I know you don't, so I paid the bill.'
The difference between Amazon and us is Amazon is more like an empire - everything they control themselves, buy and sell.
China is still the fastest growing economy in the world, but we need to learn how to use money in a better way, and it's about quality, not quantity.
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.
I believe the most important thing for the media is to be objective, fair, and balanced. We should not report a story with preconceptions or prejudice.
People think, 'Jack, you do too much.'
A trade war would be a disaster for the world. It's very easy to slip into a trade war.
Consumption is still going up on Alibaba. This is because when the economy goes down people look online to Alibaba to buy cheaper things.
You American people worry too much about the China economy. Every time you think China is a problem, we get better, but when you have a high expectation for China, China is always a problem.
Hong Kong people say Hong Kong needs to preserve its uniqueness. I say Hong Kong's uniqueness is in its diversity, its tolerance of difference cultures... China does not want to see Hong Kong in decline. I have full confidence in its future.
I want people to learn what democracy means.
When I was starting out, I thought about how the Internet is global and that we should have a global name, a name that's interesting. At that time, the best name was Yahoo! Suddenly I thought, 'Alibaba is a good name.'
If you're doing business, not that simple to only buy. You have to create something. You have to create something that never exist for the future.
It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.
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.
I'm a normal guy.
As a business person, I want the world to share the prosperity together.
Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow.
I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets.
It's impossible for China to keep 10 to 15% growth annually. The economy needed to slow down, and we have to learn to slow down.
I tell the government, if people have no jobs, you are in trouble. Government will be in trouble. My job is to help more people have jobs.
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.
Our philosophy is, using internet technology, we can make every company become Amazon.
When I was 12 years old, I went to swim in a lake, and I almost died in that lake because the water was too deep - much deeper than I thought.
The more I come to know about the outside world's perception of China, the more I feel there are all sorts of misunderstandings, and to a certain extent, people do not get the full picture from the media. A lot of foreigners have few opportunities to visit China, and a lot of Chinese people do not have the chance to go to Europe or to the West.
I believe always you should have a philanthropic heart inside but business way. Because you have to get things done. That is what scientists tell us how to do properly. Business should tell us how to get things done efficiently. And government should have the good environment and the foundations of researching.
When I graduated from university I tried to buy a beeper, and it cost me $250. My pay at the time was $10 a month.
EBay is a great company. There are a lot of good assets and good customers, and the U.S. people love it.
Asia is changing, and China is changing. The 'Post' will have great opportunities. With its access to Alibaba's resources, data, and all the relationships in our ecosystem, the 'Post' can report on Asia and China more accurately compared with other media that have no such access.
I think U.S. and Chinese businesses need a common language and dialogue.
On privacy issues, it's just like hundreds of years ago when people said, 'I would rather put my money under my pillow than in a bank.' But today, banks know how to protect money much better than you do. Today, we may not have the answers to privacy issues, but I believe our young people will come up with the solutions.
I absolutely don't have $20 billion. But I'd love to, right?
I think globalization is a great thing. And now a lot of people complain about globalization; a lot of people don't like, you know, the globalize of the concept, the idea of the results. I think the globalization is a great idea and to create a lot of jobs.

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