1.

 “No matter how tough the chase is, you should always have the dream you saw on the first day. It’ll keep you
motivated and rescue you (from any weak thoughts).” – Jack Ma
2. “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
3. “I try to make myself happy 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.” – Jack Ma
4. “Without internet, there would have been no Jack Ma, and no Alibaba or Taobao.” – Jack Ma
5. “I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.” – Jack Ma
6. “Never ever do business with the government. Be in love with them, never marry them.” – Jack Ma
7. “My job is to help more people have jobs.” – Jack Ma
8. “When we have money, we start making mistakes.” – Jack Ma
9. “We should never finish a 20 year program in two years.” – Jack Ma
10. “If you’ve never tried, how will you ever know if there’s any chance?” – Jack Ma
11. “I’m a normal guy.” – Jack Ma
12. “If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure.” – Jack Ma
13. “Life is so short, so beautiful. Don’t be so serious about work. Enjoy the lives.” – Jack Ma
14. “Opportunity lies in the place where the complaints are.” – Jack Ma
15. “When you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.” – Jack Ma
16. “Today, making money is very simple. But making sustainable money while being responsible to the society and
improving the world is very difficult.” – Jack Ma
17. “I don’t care about revenues. – Jack Ma
18. “You never know that the things you’re doing are that meaningful to society.” – Jack Ma
19. “If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them.” – Jack Ma
20. “A leader should have higher grit and tenacity, and be able to endure what the employees can’t.” – Jack Ma
21. “A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.” – Jack Ma
22. “I don’t want people (in China) to have deep pockets but shallow minds.” – Jack Ma
23. “I don’t want to be liked. I want to be respected.” – Jack Ma
24. “You never know how much can you do in your life.” – Jack Ma
25. “You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die.” – Jack Ma
26. “It doesn’t matter if I failed. At least I passed the concept on to others. Even if I don’t succeed, someone will
succeed.” – Jack Ma
27. “You’ve to make consumers smart. An e-commerce portal doesn’t sell a product at cheaper rates, instead an offline
shop sells it at a costlier prices.” – Jack Ma
28. “I call myself a blind man riding on a blind tiger.” – Jack Ma
29. “We’re never in lack of money. We lack people with dreams, (people) who can die for those dreams.” – Jack Ma
30. “The very important thing you should have is patience.” – Jack Ma
31. “Never ever compete on prices, instead compete on services and innovation.” – Jack Ma
“Instead of learning from other people’s success, learn from their mistakes. Most of the people who fail share common
reasons(to fail) whereas success can be attributed to various different kinds of reasons.” – Jack Ma
“Intelligent people need a fool to lead them. When the team’s all a bunch of scientists, it is best to have a peasant lead
the way. His way of thinking is different. It’s easier to win if you have people seeing things from different
perspectives.” – Jack Ma
“If the customer loves you, the government will have to love you.” – Jack Ma
“Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.” – Jack Ma
“It’s very difficult to know the outside world, but you know yourself. You know your need and what you want. If I know
myself better, I can change myself to meet the outside world.” – Jack Ma
“You need the right people with you, not the best people.” – Jack Ma
“You’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision.” – Jack Ma
“We appreciate yesterday, but we’re looking for a better tomorrow.” – 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
“I believe it is not the technology that changes the world, but the dream behind that technology.”

“If you want to be successful, have great EQ, because EQ knows to work with people.”

“No matter how smart you are, if you don’t know how to work with people, your dreams will just be dreams.”

“Don’t be discouraged when people don’t help you.”

“Be simple. Stay foolish. No matter what, just continue. Do not complain about others. Complain only about yourself.
“
“If you complain, you have to have a solution. If you don’t have a solution, don’t complain.”

ON HAVING A LARGER MISSION

"It doesn't matter if I failed. At least I passed the concept on to others. Even if I don't succeed, someone will succeed."

ON COMPETITION

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

ON TEAMWORK

"If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them."

ON THE BENEFITS OF HIS TECHNOLOGICAL INEPTITUDE

"Intelligent people need a fool to lead them. When the team's all a bunch of scientists, it is best to have a peasant lead
the way. His way of thinking is different. It's easier to win if you have people seeing things from different perspectives."

ON STARTING A COMPANY

"If you want to grow, find a good opportunity. Today, if you want to be a great company, think about what social
problem you could solve."

ON WORK

"If we go to work at 8 am and go home at 5 pm, this is not a high-tech company and Alibaba will never be successful. If
we have that kind of 8-to-5 spirit, then we should just go and do something else."
ON NOT GIVING UP

"Today is cruel. Tomorrow is crueller. And the day after tomorrow is beautiful."

ON PERSEVERANCE

"We will make it because we are young and we will never, never give up."

ON GROWTH

"In carrying out e-commerce, the most important thing is to keep doing what you are doing right now with passion, to
keep it up."

ON PAST MISTAKES FROM

"The dark days at Alibaba": "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."

You need the right people with you, not the best people.

No matter how tough the chase is, you should always have the dream you saw on the first day. It’ll keep you
motivated and rescue you (from any weak thoughts).

We’re never in lack of money. We lack people with dreams, (people) who can die for those dreams.

I call myself a blind man riding on a blind tiger.

Never ever compete on prices, instead compete on services and innovation.

Instead of learning from other people’s success, learn from their mistakes. Most of the people who fail share
common reasons(to fail) whereas success can be attributed to various different kinds of reasons.

Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.

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.

I try to make myself happy 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.

If you’ve never tried, how will you ever know if there’s any chance?
If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure.

I don’t want people (in China) to have deep pockets but shallow minds.

You never know how much can you do in your life.

You never know that the things you’re doing are that meaningful to society.

You’ve to make consumers smart. An e-commerce portal doesn’t sell a product at cheaper rates, instead an
offline shop sells it at a costlier prices.
You’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision.

When you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.

Today, making money is very simple. But making sustainable money while being responsible to the society and
improving the world is very difficult.

If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them.

A leader should have higher grit and tenacity, and be able to endure what the employees can’t.

A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.

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

It doesn’t matter if I failed. At least I passed the concept on to others. Even if I don’t succeed, someone will
succeed.

Intelligent people need a fool to lead them. When the team’s all a bunch of scientists, it is best to have a peasant
lead the way. His way of thinking is different. It’s easier to win if you have people seeing things from different
perspectives.

If the customer loves you, the government will have to love you.

Never ever do business with the government. Be in love with them, never marry them.

When we have money, we start making mistakes.

We should never finish a 20 year program in two year.

It’s very difficult to know the outside world, but you know yourself. You know your need and what you want. If
I know myself better, I can change myself to meet the outside world.

We appreciate yesterday, but we’re looking for a better tomorrow.

Without internet, there would have been no Jack Ma, and no Alibaba or Taobao.

Life is so short, so beautiful. Don’t be so serious about work. Enjoy the lives.

Opportunity lies in the place where the complaints are.

 Jack Ma (a.k.a. Ma Yun) was born on October 15, 1964, in Hangzhou, located in the southeastern part of
China. He has an older brother and a younger sister. He and his siblings grew up at a time when communist
China was increasingly isolated from the West, and his family didn't have much money when they were young.
Ma was scrawny and often got into fights with classmates. "I was never afraid of opponents who were
bigger than I," he recalls in "Alibaba," a book by Liu Shiying and Martha Avery. Still, Ma had hobbies just like
any other kid. He liked collecting crickets and making them fight, and was able to distinguish the size and type
of cricket just by the sound it made.
After then-US president Richard Nixon visited Hangzhou in 1972, Ma's hometown became a tourist
mecca. As a teenager, Ma started waking up early to visit the city's main hotel, offering visitors tours of the city
in exchange for English lessons. The nickname "Jack" was given to him by a tourist he befriended.
Without money or connections, the only way Ma could get ahead was through education. After high
school, he applied to go to college — but failed the entrance exam twice. After a great deal of studying, he
finally passed on the third try, going on to attend Hangzhou Teacher's Institute. He graduated in 1988 and
started applying to as many jobs as he could.
He received more than a dozen rejections — including from KFC — before being hired as an English
teacher. Ma was a natural with his students and loved his job — though he made only $12 a month at a local
university.
Ma had no experience with computers or coding, but he was captivated by the internet when he used it
for the first time during a trip to the US in 1995. He had recently started a translation business and made the trip
to help a Chinese firm recover a payment. Ma's first online search was "beer," but he was surprised to find that
no Chinese beers turned up in the results. It was then that he decided to found an internet company for China.
Though his first two ventures failed, four years later he gathered 17 of his friends in his apartment and
convinced them to invest in him and his vision for an online marketplace he called "Alibaba." The site allowed
exporters to post product listings that customers could buy directly.
Soon, the service started to attract members from all over the world. By October 1999, the company had
raised $5 million from Goldman Sachs and $20 million from SoftBank, a Japanese telecom company that also
invests in technology companies. The team remained close-knit and scrappy — "We will make it because we
are young and we never, never give up," Ma said to a gathering of employees.
He has always maintained a sense of fun at Alibaba. When the company first became profitable, Ma
gave each employee a can of Silly String to go wild with. In the early 2000s, when the company decided to start
Taobao, its eBay competitor, he had the team working on it do handstands during breaks to keep their energy
levels up.
In 2005, Yahoo invested $1 billion in Alibaba in exchange for about a 40% stake in the company. This
was huge for Alibaba — at the time it was trying to beat eBay in China — and it would eventually be an
enormous win for Yahoo too, netting it ~$10 billion in Alibaba's IPO alone.
Ma stepped down from his post as CEO in 2013, staying on as executive chairman. Alibaba went public
on Sept. 19. "Today what we got is not money. What we got is the trust from the people," Ma told CNBC. The
company's $150-billion IPO was the largest offering for a US-listed company in the history of the New York
Stock Exchange. It also made Ma the richest man in China, with an estimated worth of $25 billion.
Company lore has it that Ma came up with the name "Alibaba" while sitting in a San Francisco coffee
shop. In "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," a secret password unlocks a trove filled with unbelievable riches.
Ma's company has, in a way, revealed the potential of small and mid-sized businesses across the globe.