Jack Ma is an iconic Chinese businessman, known for creating the giant shopping platforms Alibaba and Aliexpress. In 2014, he was the richest man in China, and is still one of the wealthiest people in the country, with an estimated fortune of over $40 billion today.
Known for his hands-off leadership style, which allows his employees to feel empowered, Jack Ma doesn’t believe in micromanagement or engaging in day-to-day decision-making. He aims to bring out the creativity, problem-solving skills, and experience of his employees. This has made him one of the best leaders in business. Jack Ma also focuses on friendly competition, thereby avoiding making enemies.
These are great life skills that go a long way in any field. Let’s take a look at a collection of quotes from Jack Ma that give us an insight into his business style, personality, and motivations.
Keep reading to find out more about this mysterious mega-billionaire and enjoy our list of quotes from Jack Ma.
“If you’ve never tried, how will you ever know if there’s any chance?”
“Spending money is much more difficult than making money.”
“Global vision, local win.”
“I am going to enjoy some other things apart from business.”
“The opportunities that everyone cannot see are the real opportunities.”
“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.”
“If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Walmart, I will regret it for the rest of my life.”
“We will make it because we are young and we will never, never give up.”
“Customers should be number 1, Employees number 2, and then only your Shareholders come at number 3.”
“Your employee should have superior technical skills than you. If he doesn’t, it means you have hired the wrong person.”
“Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow.”
“I believe in two principles: Your attitude is more important than your capabilities. Similarly, your decision is more important than your capabilities!”
“Change yourself, take baby steps, and stay determined for ten years.”
“Luck is very important. Of course, you can’t wait for luck, because it won’t come. While you start a journey, luck may eventually come to you.”
“Intelligent people need a fool to lead them.”
“A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.”
“I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.”
“Trade is a communication of cultures and values.”
“If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure.”
“I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name.”
“If we go to work at 8 a.m. and go home at 5 p.m., this is not a high-tech company and Alibaba will never be successful. If we have that kind of 8-5 spirit, then we should just go and do something else.”
“Never ever compete on prices, instead compete on services and innovation.”
“The competition between me and Bill Gates, probably: Who can spend money more effectively that can do better philanthropy.”
“If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them.”
“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.”
“Now more than ever, we need heroes in our communities!”
“When we have money, we start making mistakes.”
“I know nothing about technology.”
“Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.”
“If there are nine rabbits on the ground and you want to catch one, just focus on one.”
“eBay is a great company. There are a lot of good assets and good customers, and the U.S. people love it.”
“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.”
“A good job isn’t something you go out and find, it’s something you discover while you’re working.”
“Adopt and change before any major trends or changes.”
“Don’t even trust that you are able to unify what everyone is thinking; it is impossible.”
“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.”
“I don’t want people to have deep pockets but shallow minds.”
“Go big or go home. Otherwise, you’re wasting your youth.”
“It’s not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It’s your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.”
“Don’t hire the most qualified, hire the craziest.”
“No matter what your current condition, how or where you grew up, or what education or training you feel you lack, you can be successful in your chosen endeavor. It is spirit, fortitude, and hardiness that matter more than where you start.”
“A leader should be a visionary and have more foresight than an employee.”
“A great opportunity is often hard to be explained clearly; things that can be explained clearly are often not the best opportunities.”
“The world will not remember what you say, but it will certainly not forget what you have done.”
“As a businessperson, I want the world to share the prosperity together.”
“Our philosophy is, using internet technology, we can make every company become Amazon.”
“I call myself a blind man riding on a blind tiger.”
“Life is so short, so beautiful. Don’t be so serious about work. Enjoy the lives.”
“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.”
“Forget about your competitors, just focus on your customers.”
“I don’t care about revenues.”
“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.”
“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).”
“A lot of people complain about yesterday. We have no power to change yesterday.”
“Success and profitability are outcomes of focusing on customers and employees, not objectives.”
“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.”
“If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win.”
“It’s only in times of change that someone can be clear of what he has and wants, and what he needs to give up.”
“Without internet, there would have been no Jack Ma, and no Alibaba or Taobao.”
“A real businessman or entrepreneur has no enemies. Once he understands this, the sky’s the limit.”
“A leader should never compare his technical skills with his employee’s.”
“The most unreliable thing in this world is human relationships.”
“Once in your life, try something. Work hard at something. Try to change. Nothing bad can happen.””
“If you view everyone as your enemies, everyone around you will be your enemies.”
“We should never finish a 20-year program in two years.”
“If you’re still poor at 35, you deserve it.”
“30% of all people will never believe you. Do not allow your colleagues and employees to work for you. Instead, let them work for a common goal.”
“We appreciate yesterday, but we’re looking for a better tomorrow.”
“If the customer loves you, the government will have to love you.”
“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.”
“You never know how much you can do in your life.”
“Today is cruel. Tomorrow is crueller. And the day after tomorrow is beautiful.”
“I want people to learn what democracy means.”
“Opportunities are where the complaints are.”
“The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization.”
“Always let your employees come to work with a smile.”
“Rather than having small smart tricks to get by, focus on holding on and persevering.”
“The very important thing you should have is patience.”
“If you have a different mindset, you will have a different outcome: if you make different choices from your peers, your life will then be different from your peers.”
“I would love to, if someone would lend me the money.”
“Today the financial market is no good, but the money is there.”
“No matter what one does, regardless of failure or success, the experience is a form of success in itself.”
“Never ever do business with the government. Be in love with them, never marry them.”
“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.”
“A leader should have higher grit and tenacity and be able to endure what the employees can’t.”
“I don’t want to be liked. I want to be respected.”
“My job is to help more people have jobs.”
“The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together.”
“Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma.”
“Today, making money is very simple. But making sustainable money while being responsible to the society and improving the world is very difficult.”
“When you have one million dollars, you’re a lucky person. When you have 10 million dollars, you’ve got trouble, a lot of headaches.”
“For ecommerce, the most important thing is trust.”
“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.”
“Only fools use their mouth to speak. A smart man uses his brain, and a wise man uses his heart.”
“A leader should have higher endurance and ability to accept and embrace failure.”
“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.’”
“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.”
“Even if your competitor is still small in size or weak, you should take him seriously and treat him as a giant. Likewise, even if your competitor is massive in size, you shouldn’t regard yourself as a weakling.”
“Find the right people, not the best people.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Every government says they love small businesses, but what have they done for them? We should pull down all the barriers.”
“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.”
“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.”
From Humble Beginning to Unimaginable Riches
Jack Ma has a cinematic biography. He grew up in poverty, failed college entrance exams twice, and couldn’t find a job for a long time. They didn’t even want to hire him to sell fast food in the American KFC chain. He tried to get into Harvard ten times and was rejected all 10 times. And then he founded his third internet company, with which he became one of the most successful and powerful people in the world.
Ma was born on October 15, 1964, in Hangzhou in southeast China. He has an older brother and a younger sister. After US President Richard Nixon visited Hangzhou in 1972, tourists started coming to the city. As a teenager, Jack Ma, or Ma Yun as he is called, would go in front of the city’s main hotel and offer tourists a tour of the city in exchange for practicing English.
In 1999, Jack Ma founded an Internet company whose value today is estimated at more than 90 billion dollars. He stepped down as director of the company in 2013 but retained a seat on the Alibaba Group Board.
Striking Gold
Jack Ma spent a lot of time trying to find any job that would support him. He was rejected in numerous places, but in the end, he got a job as an English teacher. The future billionaire received a Chinese teacher’s salary, which at that time did not exceed $12 a month.
While traveling in the United States in 1995, he became fascinated by the Internet. He entered “beer” in one of the Internet search engines of the time and realized that not a single Chinese beer appeared among the results. That’s when he decided to create an Internet company for China. He failed with the first company. Then he invited 17 of his friends to his apartment and convinced them to invest in his idea – a Chinese online store.
By October 1999, Alibaba had raised five million euros from the American investment giant Goldman Sachs and $20 million from Softbank, a Japanese telecom company that invested in technology companies. Then in 2005, Yahoo invested $1 billion in Alibaba in exchange for a 40 percent stake in the company. In 2014, Alibaba went public, launching an IPO, i.e., an initial offer of shares worth 150 billion dollars. It was the largest IPO in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.
Troubles With the Government
Ma has had a difficult couple of years. It appears that Xi Jinping’s regime had abandoned his company following his criticism of China’s regulatory system. Jack Ma eventually stepped down and disappeared.
At one point, the public declared him to be the most famous living Chinese (which Xi Jinping must not have loved hearing).
Before he disappeared from public view in 2020, Ma was set to cap his career with a spectacular initial public offering for Ant Group, the world’s largest financial technology business. At the time, his commercial empire was worth more than $1 trillion. He positioned himself as an entrepreneur, inventor, and charismatic proponent of a different way of conducting business.
Jack Ma delivered a key address in which he publicly lambasted China’s banking industry and establishment. This was a mistake, considering the politics of China. Ant Group’s first public offering was stalled, and Ma was invited to Beijing for repeated “interviews” with Chinese officials. He was only spotted a few times after that.
Since then, Ma has taken a step back from his business. There is no trace of Jack as his economic empire is slowly fracturing and being divided among his competitors, and Alibaba loses billions of dollars in worth. His critical speech against the Chinese Communist Party, which would also be his last, turned out to be his downfall.
Wrapping Up
“It is unusual for the richest Chinese to have a happy ending” are almost prophetic words spoken by Jack Ma. The story of Jack Ma is a story of someone who saw potential in themselves and never gave up. His life might have been difficult, but he chose to believe in himself and achieved his true potential.
We hope his quotes will help you on your road to success. Remember, it does not matter how many times you try, as long as you do not give up.
Check out our quotes by Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and Elon Musk for more inspiration.
