|THE DEN|
Peak net worth : $61.7 billion dollars Current net worth : $48 billion dollars
Cause : Chinese government
Jack Ma - once China’s & Asia’s richest man, got in crosshairs with the Chinese government. Imbued with success, the Chinese commerce magnate made controversial speech just before his Ant group’s IPO.
Who is Jack Ma ?
Born in 1964 in Hangzhou to musician story tellers, Ma Yun, later known as Jack Ma always stood out from the others. In a country, where English was frowned upon, Jack Ma aspired to learn it and used to ride his bicycle for 40 minutes to reach outside Hangzhou hotel, now known as Shangri-La to interact with foreign tourists. He used to be their guide, on condition that in return they teach him English. He did that for 9 years.
After failing to clear the university entrance exam twice, he was finally admitted to Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute, now known as Hangzhou Normal University. He applied for over 30 jobs and got rejected, including KFC which he proudly says, that 24 people applied for the job and 23 got selected. I was the only on rejected. Finally settling in for a school English-teaching job, he worked for 5 years while starting a translation company as side business with friends.
In 1995, during a company trip to USA, he was fascinated with the powers of internet. In a friend’s place in Seattle, he searched “beer”. He found beers from Germany, USA and other countries. Then he searched “China” and still got nothing. There in he saw an opportunity to bring China on the world’s map.
He started China Pages, a version of yellow pages but it did not work out. Then he joined a government agency in Beijing to start a website for the government.
In 1999, Ma decided to start again in Hangzhou. With his wife and a group of friends, he raised $80,000 and started Alibaba, a B2B selling platform and by 2000, he raised $25 million from investors including Goldman Sachs and SoftBank.
By 2003, he started Tabao, where sellers could sell to each other, a sort of Modern day Amazon. He declared war on Ebay who had just entered the Chinese market.
Alibaba is a crocodile in the Yangtze River. Whereas Ebay is a shark in the ocean. If they fight Ebay in the ocean, they will lose but if they fight them in the Yangtze River, they have a home base advantage.
Alibaba forced Ebay out of China in 2006 and debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007.
Alibaba delisted just 5 years later as the company’s performance deteriorated, but in 2014, Alibaba raised $25 billion in World’s biggest IPO in New York.
Everybody should have a dream, what if that dream comes true ?
Alibaba built business worth $472 billion in his diversified portfolio that cloud computing, healthcare, sports and even news media.
Alibaba enjoyed government’s favour in selling counterfeit goods while he was criticised in US for the same. But, as Donald Trump became President, Jack Ma was the first high profile Chinese he met.
In love with the Chinese government but not married with them.
The Fall
On October 24, 2020 Jack Ma, ahead of its IPO of Ant Group criticised the Chinese Banking System in front of high profile people. He called on Chinese banks to be operating with ‘pawn-shop mentality’. He also went on to say that authorities were trying to manage an airport as they should manage a railway station. This opened the pandora box for Jack Ma as he faced the wrath of Xi Jinping as he upset some bankers and people in high positions.
Ma and his colleagues were called for a meeting with the regulators and Ant Group’s IPO was stopped. Jack Ma’s companies went into free fall wiping $76 billion from the market. Five different regulation agencies launched investigations into the company. After that Jack Ma disappeared from the public.
Jack Ma’s disappearance came into notice when he failed to appear on a TV show he created.
Due to a schedule conflict Mr Ma could no longer be part of thefinale judge panel of Africa’s Business Heroes earlier this year
Many speculated he has been arrested, while some said he was dead. He was the seen on January 20, 2021 at a charity event, then at the island of Hainan playing golf. So, what forced such a passionate billionaire to disappear off the grid. Its China, lets rather not comment.
Supposedly, he crossed lines that day which he never knew existed. He was apparently destroyed by the Chinese government to the extent they could considering the world had its eyes set on the issue. Nobody can possibly fathom what he was put to in the three months he was off the grid. Nobody knows what happened to him, where did the government keep him and what all they did.
Somebody forgot to tell Jack Ma that he is rich and everything but he is in China and its ruled by the Chinese government, you can’t have a democratic opinion, it is China
after all.
He was the richest man in the country with a user base of 800 million and the government finished him off with the world watching. Imagine what would be the condition of common man in China. Well, Jack Ma’s life has had repeated failures and he has always risen higher and better. He will wait his chance and strike back, At least we hope so, that the government did not break him to be irreparable.