
Former English teacher who co-founded Alibaba Group and led it from 1999 to 2019; also co-founded Yunfeng Capital and set up the Jack Ma Foundation.
5 biographies about them · 6 books they recommend · 1 appearance
One outside biography and one insider memoir; both predate his 2020 disappearance from public life.
Alibaba from Jack Ma's Hangzhou apartment to its 2014 New York listing.
Recommended by: Patrick Collison
Insider account: Alibaba's chief strategy officer on platform design.
Early Chinese-sourced account, admiring and lightly sourced.
Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai
Insider account: an early Western executive on the eBay fight.
How Chinese private champions including Alibaba actually built scale.
What eighteen long-lived companies did differently from close rivals in their fields.
Also recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Drew Houston, Ev Williams and 2 others
Without shelf limits, sales of many niche products add up to rival the hits.
Also recommended by: Jim Collins, Ev Williams, Reed Hastings
Eighty-one short chapters on the Tao, the founding text of Taoism.
Also recommended by: Nat Eliason, David Perell, Jack Dorsey and 5 others
Also recommended by: John Maeda, Ryan Holiday
How 3D printing and other tools let anyone start a manufacturing business.
| Jack Ma profile – Alibaba's powerful but humble billionaire | The Guardian | 2014 |
| Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder, in the IPO spotlight Paywall | Fortune | 2014 |