Jack Ma is the founder and former CEO of Alibaba, one of the largest e-commerce companies in China. He was born in 1964 in Hangzhou, China and saw education as his ticket to success. After graduating, he worked as an English teacher and first experienced the internet during a trip to the US in 1995, which inspired him to create an online business in China. In 1999, he founded Alibaba with 17 friends and $60,000. Alibaba has since grown to become one of the largest online retailers and cloud computing companies in the world. Ma believes that Alibaba can help drive economic development in China and other countries and has expanded operations to India, the US, and beyond.