Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built

by Duncan Clark Narrated by Jim Meskimen

Overview

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

In just a decade and half Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded and built Alibaba 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% 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 U.S.?

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

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2017 - AudioFile

Narrator Jim Meskimen brings an unassuming charm and perfect timing to his performance of this engaging book about the Chinese ecommerce hub Alibaba. Alert to every nuance in the writing—he’s a longtime associate of Jack Ma—Meskimen delivers this fast-moving narrative with appealing authority. Starting out as an English teacher in China, Jack Ma found the path to becoming a superstar entrepreneur in the days when the Internet was young and much of China’s business took place in street markets. He overcame cultural, technical, and governmental obstacles to reel in the financial partners necessary to grow his Internet sales platform and ultimately defeat U.S. competitors. The story’s texture and detail explain the personal and administrative challenges of this entrepreneur’s journey, and provide a colorful overview of how China has become an economic juggernaut. T.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Library Journal

11/15/2015
Former Morgan Stanley banker Clark, who's lived in China for over 20 years, explains how Alibaba became the world's second largest Internet company. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

MARCH 2017 - AudioFile

Narrator Jim Meskimen brings an unassuming charm and perfect timing to his performance of this engaging book about the Chinese ecommerce hub Alibaba. Alert to every nuance in the writing—he’s a longtime associate of Jack Ma—Meskimen delivers this fast-moving narrative with appealing authority. Starting out as an English teacher in China, Jack Ma found the path to becoming a superstar entrepreneur in the days when the Internet was young and much of China’s business took place in street markets. He overcame cultural, technical, and governmental obstacles to reel in the financial partners necessary to grow his Internet sales platform and ultimately defeat U.S. competitors. The story’s texture and detail explain the personal and administrative challenges of this entrepreneur’s journey, and provide a colorful overview of how China has become an economic juggernaut. T.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173423566
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/12/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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