Quotes from Jack Ma

Spending money is much more difficult than making money.

I believe the most important thing for the media is to be objective, fair, and balanced. We should not report a story with preconceptions or prejudice.

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

Before I left China, I was educated that China was the richest, happiest country in the world. So when I arrived Australia, I thought, 'Oh my God, everything is different from what I was told.' Since then, I started to think differently.

If we work so hard and put all the money in the hospital to buy medicine - it will be a disaster. Why we should work? So without a healthy environment of this Earth, no matter how much money you make, no matter how wonderful you are, you have a bad disaster.

Helping doing business easier, we choose the name Alibaba because it is a global company. It is founded in China, but it was created for the world.

I don't think I'm a workaholic. Every weekend, I invite my colleagues and friends to my home to play cards. And people, my neighbors, are always surprised because I live on the second floor apartment, and there are usually 40 pairs of shoes in front of my gate, and people play cards inside and play chess. We have a lot of fun.

There are big problems that change the world. If we are working together, that will make us understand each other, appreciate each other, help each other.

The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together.

I'm coming to this world not to work. I want to come to this world to enjoy my life. I don't want to die in my office. I want to die on the beaches.

Today the financial market is no good, but the money is there.

I'm just a purist. What is important in my life is that I can do something that can influence many people and influence China's development. When I am myself, I am relaxed and happy and have a good result.

You American people worry too much about the China economy. Every time you think China is a problem, we get better, but when you have a high expectation for China, China is always a problem.

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

I flunked my exam for university two times before I was accepted by what was considered my city's worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected student chairman and later became chairman of the city's Students Federation.

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

IBM, Microsoft, the profit they made was larger than the top four banks in China put together... But where did the money go?

People say, 'Well you know the economy's bad, so China consumption will be low. No, totally different. You Americans love to spend tomorrow's money, and other people's money maybe... We Chinese love to save money.

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

Never ever do business with the government. Be in love with them, never marry them.

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.

What a publication can do is to help people get a clearer picture without jumping to any rash conclusion. I'm very happy that the 'Post' can take the responsibility to report on China in a broader and deeper way. I believe the 'Post' must be fair to our readers. We should let our readers see China from more angles and perspectives.

A trade war would be a disaster for the world. It's very easy to slip into a trade war.

When we started the e-commerce, nobody believed that China would have e-commerce because people believed in 'guang-shi,' face-to-face, and all kinds of network in traditional ways. There's no trust system in China.