Jack Ma was born on 15 October 1964, in Hangzhou China, and is best known through being the founder and executive chairman of the Alibaba Group, a conglomerate of highly successful internet-based businesses. In 2015, Forbes magazine rated Jack as the 33rd richest person in the world, and the second richest in China – discounting Hong Kong.
So just how rich is Jack Ma? Forbes estimates that Jack’s net worth is over $27.1 billion, most of his wealth having been accumulated from his entrepreneurial activities through the above-mentioned Group.
Jack Ma Net Worth $27.1 Billion
Jack Ma is certainly a self-made billionaire. He was born into a very modest family – his parents were simple musicians-storytellers – but Jack possibly helped himself inadvertently by deciding to learn English at an early age, practicing with foreigners as he guided them around the city. However, he apparently failed university entrance exams three times, before eventually attending Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute ( Hangzhou Normal University) and graduating in 1988 with a BA degree in English, as well as being elected student chairman. Jack then lectured in English and International Trade at the Hangzhou Dianzi University, before attending Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) in Beijing, founded in 2002 by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, graduating in 2006.
In the meantime, Jack Ma discovered the internet, and borrowed $20,000 to start a company called Yellow Pages in 1995, building websites for Chinese companies, with the help of friends in the US, and within three years earned close to $1 million, clearly a large boost to Jack Ma’s net worth. From 1998 to 1999, Ma headed an information technology company established by the China International Electronic Commerce Center, a department of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, but then with a group of friends he founded Alibaba, a new source of venture development. The program improved the domestic e-commerce market, and built a competitive e-commerce platform for Chinese enterprises, especially SMEs. Ma’s aim was to improve the entire e-commerce system, and since 2003, he has founded Taobao, Alipay, Ali Mama, and lynx etc. So successful was Taobao, that eBay offered to purchase it, but Ma received support to maintain it from Yahoo’s co-founder Jerry Yang, with a $1 billion investment. These developments considerably enhanced both Jack Ma’s reputation and his net worth.
Subsequently, in 2014 Alibaba became one of the most valuable tech companies in the world after raising $25 billion from its float on the NYSE, with Jack Ma now serving as Executive Chairman of the Group which is a holding company with nine major subsidiaries. This is quite an achievement for someone who states that he had never used a computer until he was 33 years old.
In his private life, Jack Ma married Zhang Ying in 1988, and they have a son and a daughter. An active philanthropist, Jack sits on the board of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences with fellow billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner.
