Jack Ma, or Ma Yun, is a Chinese business magnate, investor, politician, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate. Profoundly inspirational Jack Ma quotes will get you through anything when the going gets tough and help you succeed in every aspect of life.
If you’re searching for quotes from CEOs that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of profound Ray Kroc quotes, amazing Richard Branson quotes and top Robert Kiyosaki quotes.
Famous Jack Ma Quotes
Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine. – Jack Ma
When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result. – Jack Ma
Help young people. Help small guys. Because small guys will be big. Young people will have the seeds you bury in their minds, and when they grow up, they will change the world. – Jack Ma
I believe in two principles: Your attitude is more important than your capabilities. Similarly, your decision is more important than your capabilities! – Jack Ma
Even if your competitor is still small in size or weak, you should take him seriously and treat him as a giant. Likewise, even if your competitor is massive in size, you shouldn’t regard yourself as a weakling. – Jack Ma
If you want to grow, find a good opportunity. Today, if you want to be a great company, think about what social problem you could solve. – Jack Ma
Go big or go home. Otherwise, you’re wasting your youth. – Jack Ma
Once in your life, try something. Work hard at something. Try to change. Nothing bad can happen. – Jack Ma
Forget about your competitors, just focus on your customers. – Jack Ma
I don’t want to be liked. I want to be respected. – Jack Ma
EBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I’m a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose, but if we fight in the river, we win. – Jack Ma
I always tell myself that we are born here not to work, but to enjoy life. We are here to make things better for one another, and not to work. If you are spending your whole life working, you will certainly regret it. No matter how successful you are in your career, you must always remember that we are here to live. If you keep yourself busy working, you will surely regret it. – Jack Ma
A real businessman or entrepreneur has no enemies. Once he understand this, the sky’s the limit. – Jack Ma
A great opportunity is often hard to be explained clearly; things that can be explained clearly are often not the best opportunities. – Jack Ma
The very important thing you should have is patience. – Jack Ma
A leader should never compare his technical skills with his employee’s. – Jack Ma
30% of all people will never believe you. Do not allow your colleagues and employees to work for you. Instead, let them work for a common goal. – Jack Ma
Giving up is the greatest failure. – Jack Ma
Never ever do business with the government. Be in love with them, never marry them. – Jack Ma
No matter how tough the chase is, you should always have the dream you saw on the first day. It’ll keep you motivated and rescue you (from any weak thoughts). – Jack Ma
Always let your employees come to work with a smile. – Jack Ma
You never know how much can you do in your life. – Jack Ma
When you have one million dollars, you’re a lucky person. When you have 10 million dollars, you’ve got trouble, a lot of headaches. – Jack Ma
Don’t hire the most qualified, hire the craziest – Jack Ma
If we go to work at 8 a.m. and go home at 5 p.m., this is not a high-tech company and Alibaba will never be successful. If we have that kind of 8-5 spirit, then we should just go and do something else. – Jack Ma
Your employee should have superior technical skills than you. If he doesn’t, it means you have hired the wrong person. – Jack Ma
My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name. – Jack Ma
Today, making money is very simple. But making sustainable money while being responsible to the society and improving the world is very difficult. – Jack Ma
I don’t want people in China to have deep pockets but shallow minds. – Jack Ma
Don’t even trust that you are able to unify what everyone is thinking; it is impossible – Jack Ma
Customers should be number 1, Employees number 2, and then only your Shareholders come at number 3. – Jack Ma
When we have money, we start making mistakes. – Jack Ma
Global vision, local win. – Jack Ma
The quality of a good leader therefore is his vision, tenacity, and his capability. – Jack Ma
Luck is very important. Of course, you can’t wait for luck, because it won’t come. While you start a journey, luck may eventually come to you. – Jack Ma
It doesn’t matter if I failed. At least I passed the concept on to others. Even if I don’t succeed, someone will succeed. – Jack Ma
Adopt and change before any major trends or changes. – Jack Ma
Customers first, employees second, and shareholders third. – Jack Ma
If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Walmart, I will regret it for the rest of my life. – Jack Ma
If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. – Jack Ma
All MBA have said are correct, but they can’t execute it. – Jack Ma
We will make it because we are young and we will never, never give up. – Jack Ma
I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes. – Jack Ma
In carrying out e-commerce, the most important thing is to keep doing what you are doing right now with passion, to keep it up. – Jack Ma
Alibaba is an ecosystem that helps small business to grow. – Jack Ma
Opportunity lies in the place where the complaints are. – Jack Ma
Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma. – Jack Ma
If you view everyone as your enemies, everyone around you will be your enemies. – Jack Ma
I want people to learn what democracy means. – Jack Ma
I call myself a blind man riding on a blind tiger. – Jack Ma
If there are nine rabbits on the ground and you want to catch one, just focus on one. – Jack Ma
A lot of people complain about yesterday. We have no power to change yesterday. But this very day, 30 years later, is what we can control and decide. Change yourself, take baby steps, and stay determined for ten years. I thank the times of change and everyone’s complaints. Because when everyone is complaining, that is your chance, an opportunity. It’s only in times of change that someone can be clear of what he has and wants, and what he needs to give up. – Jack Ma
If you’ve never tried, how will you ever know if there’s any chance? – Jack Ma
Find the right people, not the best people. – Jack Ma
No matter what your current condition, how or where you grew up, or what education or training you feel you lack, you can be successful in your chosen endeavor. It is spirit, fortitude, and hardiness that matter more than where you start. – Jack Ma
My job is making money, helping other people make money. I am spending money, trying to make sure more people get rich, because you cannot spend a lot of money, right? So my job is spending money, helping others. This is a headache. – Jack Ma
If you have a different mindset, you will have a different outcome: if you make different choices from your peers, your life will then be different from your peers. – Jack Ma
Today is cruel. Tomorrow is crueller. And the day after tomorrow is beautiful. – Jack Ma
I know nothing about technology. – Jack Ma
The opportunities that everyone cannot see are the real opportunities. – Jack Ma
The most unreliable thing in this world is human relationships. – Jack Ma
What starting your company means: you will lose your stable income, your right to apply for a leave of absence, and your right to get a bonus. However, it also means your income will no longer be limited, you will use your time more effectively, and you will no longer need to beg for favours from people anymore. – Jack Ma
Only fools use their mouth to speak. A smart man uses his brain, and a wise man uses his heart. – Jack Ma
A good job isn’t something you go out and find, it’s something you discover while you’re working. – Jack Ma
You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die. – Jack Ma
Life is so short, so beautiful. Don’t be so serious about work. Enjoy the lives. – Jack Ma
Never ever compete on prices, instead compete on services and innovation. – Jack Ma
If you’re still poor at 35, you deserve it. – Jack Ma
Success and profitability are outcomes of focusing on customers and employees, not objectives. – Jack Ma
We appreciate yesterday, but we’re looking for a better tomorrow. – Jack Ma
The world will not remember what you say, but it will certainly not forget what you have done. – Jack Ma
The customer is number one, the employee is number two and the shareholder is number three. If the customer is happy, the business is happy, and the shareholders are happy. – Jack Ma
A leader should have higher endurance and ability to accept and embrace failure. – Jack Ma
I want to change history, do something important in my life, and influence individuals like we have with millions of small businesses on Alibaba. Then they love and respect you because you made their life important. – Jack Ma
Today the financial market is no good, but the money is there. – Jack Ma
EBay is a great company. There are a lot of good assets and good customers, and the U.S. people love it. – Jack Ma
I like to play cards. I’m not very good, because I don’t want to calculate, I just play by instinct. But I’ve learned a lot of business philosophy by playing poker. – Jack Ma
I try to make myself happy, no, because I know that if I’m not happy, my colleagues are not happy and my shareholders are not happy and my customers are not happy. – Jack Ma
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. – Jack Ma
I got my story, my dream, from America. The hero I had is Forrest Gump… I like that guy. I’ve been watching that movie about 10 times. Every time I get frustrated, I watch the movie. I watched the movie before I came here again to New York. I watched the movie again telling me that no matter whatever changed, you are you. – Jack Ma
Chinese people, young people, they don’t go shopping a lot in department stores. All department store guys hate me. They say business is bad because of Jack. – Jack Ma
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. – Jack Ma
A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated. – Jack Ma
My job is to help more people have jobs. – Jack Ma
I am going to enjoy some other things apart from business. – Jack Ma
I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets. – Jack Ma
What kind of business world are we living in? – Jack Ma
When I was 12 years old, I got interested in learning English. – Jack Ma
I don’t shop online, but my wife buys everything at home. We buy sea crabs, fresh crabs, all kinds of things. – Jack Ma
We used to take these great hikes on the Great Wall, … From our hikes, we developed a friendship that ended up with us combining forces in forming this new Chinese company. – Jack Ma
I would do the same thing. I would let the government take him. – Jack Ma
Four years ago, we were naive; there was fierce fighting, … Now all of us are survivors. We are more calm-minded. – Jack Ma
From today onwards, in China Yahoo means a search engine and a search engine means Yahoo. – Jack Ma
I absolutely don’t have $20 billion. But I’d love to, right? – Jack Ma
I think (in) search, we have a chance to win, when we took (over) Yahoo search, it was not good, and it is not good today either. We are here to make it better. – Jack Ma
We call on eBay to do what’s right for this phase of China’s e-commerce development and make your services free for buyers and sellers in China, – Jack Ma
We welcome her and the eBay team to China, and with this Yahoo! deal, we decided to give them a nice big welcome gift, – Jack Ma
To many people, putting his company on the stock market is a matter of course; but I haven’t thought about it because I’m not short of money. – Jack Ma
What we are doing is sending out a strong signal to China, to the Yahoo team: ‘We are focused, and we are coming,’ – Jack Ma
Cutting prices is not enough — it’s time to make your services free and affordable for all of China’s entrepreneurs and consumers, … Free is the right business model for China’s current conditions. – Jack Ma
Currently, it seems the second phase has been completed smoothly and even better than my expectations. Now we are entering the third phase of reshaping. – Jack Ma
Internet users in China, comparatively speaking, are very young, – Jack Ma
In terms of sensitive phrases, we will use laws and regulations to deal with this. – Jack Ma
If the customer loves you, the government will have to love you. – Jack Ma
You never know that the things you’re doing are that meaningful to society. – Jack Ma
You’ve to make consumers smart. An e-commerce portal doesn’t sell a product at cheaper rates, instead an offline shop sells it at a costlier price. – Jack Ma
We should never finish a 20 year program in two year. – Jack Ma
People think, ‘Jack, you do too much. – Jack Ma
Change the world is maybe Obama’s job. – Jack Ma
I don’t care about revenues. – Jack Ma
I would love to if someone would lend me the money. – Jack Ma
Without internet, there would have been no Jack Ma, and no Alibaba or Taobao. – Jack Ma
If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat ten of them. – Jack Ma
A leader should be a visionary and have more foresight than an employee. – Jack Ma
Yahoo today is not a portal. Yahoo today is a search engine. – Jack Ma
I am very interested in bringing companies from everywhere to sell their products in China. – Jack Ma
For ecommerce, the most important thing is trust. – Jack Ma
Opportunities are where the complaints are. – Jack Ma
Intelligent people need a fool to lead them. When the team’s all a bunch of scientists, it is best to have a peasant lead the way. His way of thinking is different. It’s easier to win if you have people seeing things from different perspectives. – Jack Ma
Rather than having small smart tricks to get by, focus on holding on and persevering. – Jack Ma
No matter what one does, regardless of failure or success, the experience is a form of success in itself. – Jack Ma
