Jack Ma was happier when earning $12 a month

Alibaba founder and Chairman Jack Ma said, “When you don’t have much money, you know how to spend it. At 1 billion dollars, that’s not your money. The money I have today is a responsibility. It’s the trust of people on me.”

The chairman of China’s largest e-commerce company spoke during a luncheon of the Economic Club of New York, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, in New York, Tuesday, where he made other similar points.

This isn’t the first time Ma has spoken about the burden of being a billionaire. Previously he has said, “Anyone with 1 million is lucky, but when you reach 10 million dollars, you’ve got troubles.” At Tuesday’s speech, Ma referred to his days as an English teacher after graduating college in 1988 when he was earning 12 dollars a month as “fantastic,” inducing laughter among the audience.

At Bloomberg’s billionaires list announced at the end of last year, Ma had a fortune of 29.7 billion dollars, ranking No.1 in China and 18th in the world. During the speech, he said if he was given chance to do business again, he will not go for IPO and quietly do personal business, which reflected his burden on the need to be socially responsible as a listed company that is attracting global attention.

Ma came to visit major cities in the U.S. to make inroads into its market. He said, “We show great respect for eBay and Amazon,” adding Alibaba is not competing with them but heads for a different direction. “I think the opportunity and the strategy for us is helping small business in America go to China, sell their products to China,” Ma said, adding that Alibaba shopping mall now sells U.S. cherries. He went on to note that China’s middle class is now the size of the entire population of the U.S., and predicted it will grow to half a billion in the next decade.

bookum90@donga.com