Page 18 - Forbes - Asia (December 2019 - January 2020)

Ma singing at Alibaba’s 20th anniversary
celebration (top); Jack Ma (circled), with fellow
employees in Alibaba’s early days (left); Steve
Forbes handing the Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime
Achievement award to Jack Ma at the Forbes
Global CEO Conference held in Singapore in
October (below).
DIGITAL TEACHER

Ma worked as an English teacher in his hometown of
Hangzhou before starting Alibaba in 1999, and becoming
one of China’s earliest internet entrepreneurs. Alibaba went
public on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2007, before
voluntarily delisting in 2012. Two years later Alibaba went
public again on the New York Stock Exchange. It was the
world’s largest IPO by amount, raising $25 billion. The shares
have now more than doubled to $200, giving Alibaba a
market capitalization of $527 billion. Ma is the richest person
in China, at $38.2 billion and the No. 21 richest in the world.
Ma is shifting to philanthropy at age 55, just three years later
than Bill Gates, who did so at age 52.

Aside from China, the foundation has helped causes
in Africa, Australia and the Middle East. Ma wants his
foundation to have maximum impact. “Philanthropy is also
about efficiency. If you can spend $3, why spend $5? If you
can finish it in two hours, why do four hours? The way I
learned how to run a company, that is the way I learned how
to run a philanthropic organization,” he says. While philanthropy is on the rise in China, Ma says much
Ma also wants to encourage the spirit of philanthropy in more can be done. One reason for his China focus is that he
others. “The world won’t change because you donate money, wants to develop and test ideas first in China that he can then
but it will change if your heart is changed. You can never apply elsewhere. Another motivation is his belief that China,
save all the poor people and heal all the illness, but we can as the world’s second largest economy, can do more. “China
wake up the kindness inside everyone in the world,” he said has a great culture of charity, but China needs to build up COURTESY OF ALIBABA GROUP; STRINGER/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM
in a 2016 philanthropy conference held in Hangzhou that the culture of philanthropy,” says Ma. He’d like to develop ac-
Alibaba sponsored. ademic programs in China on philanthropy. “I want to de-
China will be, for now, Ma’s core focus. The former teach- velop a course with a university [in China] to train people
er has a special interest in improving education in his coun- in how to do philanthropy,” he says. As he said at the Forbes
try’s rural and impoverished areas, and his foundation has Global CEO conference: “I believe China one day [will have]
already pledged at least $75 million to training teachers and hundreds of thousands of businesspeople who will build up
headmasters, along with other educational efforts. their own charities or philanthropy foundations.”

16 | FORBES ASIA DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020