Alibaba

The House That Jack Ma Built

By: Duncan Clark

Narrated by: Jim Meskimen

An engrossing insider's account of how a teacher built one of the world's most valuable companies - rivaling Walmart and Amazon - and forever reshaped the global economy.

In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector and the gatekeeper to hundreds of millions of middle-class consumers.

Duncan Clark first met Jack in 1999 in the small apartment where Jack founded Alibaba. Granted unprecedented access to a wealth of new material including exclusive interviews, Clark draws on his own experience as an early advisor to Alibaba and two decades in China chronicling the Internet's impact on the country to create an authoritative, compelling narrative account of Alibaba's rise.

How did Jack overcome his humble origins and early failures to achieve massive success with Alibaba? How did he outsmart rival entrepreneurs from China and Silicon Valley? Can Alibaba maintain its 80 percent market share? As it forges ahead into finance and entertainment, are there limits to Alibaba's ambitions? How does the Chinese government view its rise? Will Alibaba expand further overseas, including in the US?

Clark tells Alibaba's tale in the context of China's momentous economic and social changes, illuminating an unlikely corporate titan as never before.

©2016 Duncan Clark (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Very high level

A TechCrunch covering of the Alibaba story. Mainly the investing aspects not how the business was grown in any detail or decisions made

Good reading!<br />

Bit technical but good reading... enjoyed it. If you have a bit of understanding about market on share and how it works ... you can enjoy rhis book to max.

Learn from the best-----

I think the story overall was amazing--- I love the personal touches in the first few chapters, but felt like the end was insanely rushed with EBay, Yahoo etc... I loved Jacks determination to learn English as a boy,,,,, a serious part of his life and success today even though he is focused on China.

A worthwhile story

Great story about Jack Ma. It details the inspiring story of Alibaba's incredible growth and immense dominance in China and the world at large. I enjoyed the well paced and pleasant reading.

Comprehensive

Great for getting not only an understanding of the enigma that is Alibaba, but an overview of the history and progression of the internet in China leading up to today.

Genuinely unique business insights by Jack are translated smoothly by the author. Good narration.

Definitely an audiobook worth your time if you have any interest in the Chinese internet market.

Very interesting

The narrator did a great job with the story. Despite some aspects being abstract it well worth the listen.

Inspirational

Jack Ma is inspirational and his Alibaba strategy is fascinating. His personality and leadership style is so different from Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs but just as effective. This book is a great window into the dynamics of Chinese internet businesses. My only complaint is that the Chinese pronunciations by the narrator are pretty far off the mark.

More about the company than about jack

the book gives an ovrveiw of alibab but has less information regrding thebpwrsonal life of jack

Fascinating encounter

really enjoyed this book. If you're into the intricacies of big business and how Jack ma Got Alibaba there this book is for you. For those not so interested in the workings of big business might have to skip this one.

too good

loved it. narrator too good, clear. definitely Jack will make huge presence in entire world