Jack Ma

“The big businesses are less willing to take risks. I talked to some young people in Hong Kong, and they said they are lost. Young people indeed have fewer opportunities than before. But is it true that there are no more opportunities for them? No!”

“I respect Apple. It's a great company that changed the world, especially the mobile time.”

“Asia is changing, and China is changing. The 'Post' will have great opportunities. With its access to Alibaba's resources, data, and all the relationships in our ecosystem, the 'Post' can report on Asia and China more accurately compared with other media that have no such access.”

“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.”

“What kind of business world are we living in?”

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

“I call Alibaba '1,001 mistakes.' We expanded too fast, and then in the dot-com bubble, we had to have layoffs. By 2002, we had only enough cash to survive for 18 months. We had a lot of free members using our site, and we didn't know how we'd make money. So we developed a product for China exporters to meet U.S. buyers online. This model saved us.”

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

“Hong Kong people say Hong Kong needs to preserve its uniqueness. I say Hong Kong's uniqueness is in its diversity, its tolerance of difference cultures... China does not want to see Hong Kong in decline. I have full confidence in its future.”

“If you want to invest in us, we believe customer number one, employee number two, shareholder number three. If they don't want to buy that, that's fine. If they regret, they can sell us.”

“If the 'Post' can play the role of a connector between the West and the East, I have confidence in the paper's future success.”

“Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow.”

“Every time there's an election, people start to criticize China.”

“I think U.S. and Chinese businesses need a common language and dialogue.”

“A startup for entrepreneurs is like a baby, and I have five babies so far - experienced father.”

“The difference between Amazon and us is Amazon is more like an empire - everything they control themselves, buy and sell.”

“I believe always you should have a philanthropic heart inside but business way. Because you have to get things done. That is what scientists tell us how to do properly. Business should tell us how to get things done efficiently. And government should have the good environment and the foundations of researching.”

“People think, 'Jack, you do too much.'”

“There's an examination for young people to go to university. I failed it three times. I failed a lot. So I applied to 30 different jobs and got rejected. I went for a job with the police; they said, 'You're no good.' I even went to KFC when it came to my city. Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted.”

“It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.”