About this item
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.
About the Author
Eoin Colfer (pronounced Owen) is the New York Times best-selling author of the blockbuster Artemis Fowl series as well as Airman; Half Moon Investigations; The Supernaturalist; Eoin Colfer's Legend of... books; The Wish List; Benny and Omar; Benny and Babe; and Illegal, a graphic novel. He was born in Wexford on the southeast coast of Ireland in 1965, where he and his four brothers were brought up by his father (an elementary school teacher, historian and artist of note) and mother (a drama teacher) . He first developed an interest in writing in primary (elementary) school with gripping Viking stories inspired by history that he was learning in school at the time.Eoin got his degree from Dublin University and qualified as a primary school teacher, returning to work in Wexford. He married in 1991 and he and his wife spent about 4 years between 1992 and 1996 working in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Italy. His first book, Benny and Omar, was published in 1998, based on his experiences in Tunisia; it has since been translated into many languages; a sequel followed in 1999. In 2001, the first Artemis Fowl book was published worldwide to much success - shortly thereafter he left teaching to concentrate fully on his writing.To this day, Eoin has written 8 Artemis Fowl books which have sold over 12 million copies worldwide.
