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Alibaba
- The House That Jack Ma Built
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
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Summary
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.
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- S. Harris
- 11-02-20
Not the best
Interesting topic but not the best written book and at times felt like the narrator would be better of reading a restaurant menu.
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- Nick Elliott
- 28-06-18
good not great
Jack Ma is amazing and the book very informative, but it certainly isn't a page turner. difficult with a biog like this but it is a list of facts of Jack's life limited in anecdotes or stories.
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- Jason
- 13-07-21
Great biography and insight to China and Jack Ma
I listened to this in 2021, 5 years after this book was published. But despite the delay and recent events this book is actually a great insight into the man and the Chinese tech ecosystem and explosive growth over the last 2 decades.
When you listen to it you can see the foundations of what was the come in 2021 for Jack too, especially with his more erratic behaviour. He's a fascinating man working in an incredible space, I really enjoyed listening to it.
If there was ever to be an updated version, it'd be great for the author to add a chapter for recent events as well as BAT, ByteDance replacing Baidu!
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- Thomas Brown
- 10-06-19
I expected some inights of chinese ecommerce
This audiobook is quite average. Its a great testament to Jack Ma's rise to the top of Chinese business and it is impressive the way he went about doing that. But I kinda hoped that this book would give greater insights into the differences between Chinese eCommerce and Western eCommerce. It is highlighted briefly when it goes into the likes of design differences and such. But it is very brief. If they had added an extra chapter going into these highlights I would have rated this higher.
Regardless of that, Jack Ma is an inspirational and humble businessman. I feel his methodology and mentality should be more widely regarded in the west. Like Jeff Bezos, he values the customer more than anything, but the greatest difference between the two eCommerce giants that I can see is that Jack is generally a much nicer person (I make this judgement after listening to both this audiobook and the 'Amazon - The Everything Store'. Or is at least portrayed as a much nicer person. Empathy is a value that shouldn't be overlooked.
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- Cosmin
- 27-11-17
Extraordinary!!!
Jack Ma is is not only a business man, he is a wise teacher and a true leader.
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- Mr David Igoe
- 23-01-19
Really good insight into Alibaba and Jack.
However, would have really benefited from editing to exclude irrelevant details e.g. person X was born y, DOB, etc.
Good overview of the birth and competitive challenges of Alibaba operating in the unique Chinese environment.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-12-18
Interesting listen
Downloaded this to understand more about the big Chinese player and how Jack Ma made it! Found the whole book very interesting and learned some new information about American giants trying to play in the Chinese market
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- Cheysa B.
- 17-11-17
Great
it's an amazing inspiring book for those who are living or startinf the entrepreneur path
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-08-20
Very insightful
Really enjoyed it. Gave a different perspective of Alibaba to a previous biography I read.
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- Anonymous User
- 15-09-20
Seriously, make some effort to get the Chinese pronunciation right
I can clearly tell there is literally zero effort put into pronouncing any of the Chinese person or service name correctly.
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