Quotees Archive

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

- Jack Ma

Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma.

- Jack Ma

People think, ‘Jack, you do too much.’

- Jack Ma

The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. Also, 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.

- Jack Ma

The very important thing you should have is patience.

- Jack Ma

Today the financial market is no good, but the money is there.

- Jack Ma

What kind of business world are we living in?

- Jack Ma

When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.

- Jack Ma

When I was 12 years old, I got interested in learning English.

- Jack Ma

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. When you have more than one billion dollars, or a hundred million dollars, that’s a responsibility you have – it’s the trust of people on you, because people believe you can spend money better than the others.

- Jack Ma

I want people to learn what democracy means.

- Jack Ma

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

- Jack Ma

My job is to help more people have jobs.

- Jack Ma

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.

- Jack Ma

My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name.

- Jack Ma

If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Wal-Mart, I will regret it for the rest of my life.

- Jack Ma

I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.

- Jack Ma

I’m a normal guy.

- 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 try to make myself happy, no, 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

I am going to enjoy some other things apart from business.

- Jack Ma

I don’t care about revenues.

- Jack Ma

I don’t shop online, but my wife buys everything at home. We buy sea crabs, fresh crabs, all kinds of things.

- Jack Ma

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

- Jack Ma

I don’t want to be liked. I want to be respected.

- Jack Ma

I flunked my exam for university two times before I was accepted by what was considered my city’s worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected student chairman and later became chairman of the city’s Students Federation.

- Jack Ma

I got my story, my dream, from America. The hero I had is Forrest Gump… I like that guy. I’ve been watching that movie about 10 times. Every time I get frustrated, I watch the movie. I watched the movie before I came here again to New York. I watched the movie again telling me that no matter whatever changed, you are you.

- Jack Ma

I know nothing about technology.

- Jack Ma

I like to play cards. I’m not very good, because I don’t want to calculate, I just play by instinct. But I’ve learned a lot of business philosophy by playing poker.

- Jack Ma

I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets.

- Jack Ma

A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.

- Jack Ma

I absolutely don’t have $20 billion. But I’d love to, right?

- Jack Ma

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

EBay is a great company. There are a lot of good assets and good customers, and the U.S. people love it.

- Jack Ma

Chinese people, young people, they don’t go shopping a lot in department stores. All department store guys hate me. They say business is bad because of Jack.

- Jack Ma

Before I left China, I was educated that China was the richest, happiest country in the world. So when I arrived Australia, I thought, ‘Oh my God, everything is different from what I was told.’ Since then, I started to think differently.

- Jack Ma

Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow.

- Jack Ma