On Sept, 19,2014 Alibaba went public on the New York Stock Exchange (纽约证券交易所), raising $25 billion through an IPO (公司股票的首次公开发行), the biggest in the US history. It shows that Ma Yun has done his business successfully. The short Chinese man seems to be the tallest in the world right now. Ma, who was an English teacher, has become one of the richest men on the Chinese mainland.
Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Ma grew up as a happy kid. At the age of 12, he wanted to learn English. Every morning, he woke up at 5 a. m., cycling 40 minutes to a hotel near the West Lake where he could chat with foreign tourists.
On a trip to the US in 1995, Ma was shown the Internet for the first time. Seeing the chance, Ma returned to China and set up a website called China Pages without even knowing much about computers.
Four years later, 18 people including Ma, his wife and his friends founded Alibaba in Hangzhou. People called him "Crazy Jack Ma". But 15 years later, Alibaba has developed into the world's largest e-commerce (电子商务) company.
No one thinks he's mad now. Ma's favorite line has been printed on Alibaba's souvenir T-shirts. It reads, "Everybody should have a dream. What if that dream comes true?"
