Okay, so let's unpack this. We are dedicating
this deep dive to a figure whose career just,
I mean, it completely shatters all conventional
wisdom about success. Especially in tech, right?
Especially in the cutthroat world of global technology.
We're talking about Jack Ma, or Ma Yin, a man
who consistently failed the systems designed
to measure, you know, intelligence and success.
only to build an empire that literally shaped
the global economy what's so fascinating here
i think is that his Biography isn't really a
corporate history. It's more of a testament to
this radical, almost impossible tenacity. Yes.
We're tracking the journey of a personality who
thrived because of his failures, not despite
them. He leveraged a complete lack of technical
qualifications into this unique, people -centric
leadership style. Absolutely. And when you look
at the sheer volume of material we have, the
narrative that just keeps popping up is rejection,
constant rejection. And we have to start with
the most famous one, the one that, you know,
it defines. his underdog status before he ever
became a tech type. You're talking about the
KFC story? Of course. Yeah, this is crucial for
setting the stage. When KFC first opened a location
in his hometown, Hangzhou, 24 people applied
for jobs. Wait. 23 of them were accepted. Ma
Yun was the single, solitary rejection. Just
imagine that. Being the one person deemed unsuitable
out of two dozen applicants. It's brutal. And
the reason that's always cited, which has become
part of the lore, was just... It was so blunt.
Too skinny, too short, and in general, protruded
a bad physical appearance. I mean, this wasn't
about... It was a rejection of his very presence.
That kind of constant stinging failure is really
the furnace where his later success was forged.
Exactly. Being continually dismissed by traditional
gamekeepers becomes the core of his later philosophy.
So for you, the listener, this deep dive is really
a mission to synthesize these two conflicting
forces. You have Ma's highly unlikely path, right?
Built on soft skills and this global vision.
And then you have the massive, very public clash
with powerful Chinese financial regulators that
forced him to leave. his strategic retreat. And
ultimately, we'll analyze what his reemergence
in, of all things, agriculture and education,
tells us about the limits of private power in
China today. To understand the man who dared
to challenge the state, you really have to start
at the beginning. Right, in the crucible of those
early failures, because they absolutely shaped
his later tolerance for risk and, well, for rejection.
Indeed. So let's go back to Hangzhou, 1964, born
Ma Yan. His early life was defined by this one
almost obsessive interest. English. English.
And it wasn't a subject he was just good at in
school. It was a skill he actively went out and
pursued in the real world. And the dedication
was just staggering. We know he started practicing
with foreign tourists near the Hangzhou International
Hotel when he was still pretty young. But it
was the consistency that underscores his commitment.
It became this dedicated, self -imposed training
regimen. For nine years. Nine years. Every single
day, Ma rode his bicycle 27 kilometers, that's
about 17 miles, just to get to the hotel area.
And he wasn't getting paid. No, he worked as
an impromptu, self -appointed tour guide. He
offered free tours just for the chance to speak
English and get fluent. That is incredible dedication
for a young person. It wasn't about textbook
grammar. You know, it was about immediate, practical,
conversational application. Exactly. He wanted
the real cultural exchange. And it was during
this nine year ritual that he met a foreign pen
pal who struggled to pronounce his Chinese name.
And she gave him the name Jag to Jack. Right.
And this intense self -taught focus on communication,
on bridging cultural divides, that would become
his greatest asset in global business, far more
than any technical skill he lacked. But while
he's busy mastering this informal global language,
his formal academic life was, well, a train wreck.
A total mess. The materials clearly show a personality
who just did not fit the rigid, standardized
structure of the Chinese education system. Especially
when it came to core subjects like math. His
school records paint this highly paradoxical
picture. In primary school, he struggled. He
was even forced to transfer schools because he
was fighting a lot. It shows this restless spirit
that just chafed against the rules. But the real
systemic failure, the big one, came with the
gaokao. The intensely competitive, highly unforgiving
Chinese college entrance examination. This exam
is the ultimate gatekeeper in China. I mean,
failing it can define your entire life path.
And he failed it. Not once. Not twice. But three
times in a row. And the margin of failure was.
Yeah. It was devastating. His first attempt in
1982 yielded only one point in mathematics. One.
A single point. Think about the psychological
weight of that. It's almost a perfect failure.
It speaks volumes about his character that he
came back the next year, 1983, only to manage
an equally abysmal math score of 19 points. I
mean, this is relentless public institutionalized
failure. Most people would have just quit. They'd
have resigned themselves to a different, less
ambitious path. But not Ma. He comes back for
a third try in 1984. He finally scores 89 points
in math. Which is a huge leap. It shows incredible
effort. It is. But even that massive improvement
was still five points below the minimum benchmark
required for university acceptance. The willpower
was there, but the system still said no. So if
he was five points shy, how did he even... get
into higher education at all. This is the kind
of lucky break that only happens to people who
just refuse to quit. It was a bureaucratic loophole
that opened the door for him. He was only accepted
into Hangzhou Normal University because the English
department. His area of strength. Right. His
area of strength hadn't met its minimum enrollment
quota. They basically had to lower the bar out
of necessity to fill seats. So he benefited from
the system's failure to recruit. That's a powerful
reversal of fortune. He was promoted into the
foreign language major, not because he met the
standard, but because they needed him. And once
he was in his element, you know, those nine years
of informal English practice paid off immediately.
He thrived. He went from being an academic outcast
to one of the top students in his department.
He became chairman of the Student Union, then
the Hangzhou Federation of Students. He knew
how to lead and communicate. He just couldn't
solve quadratic equations. And that distinction
is the central paradox of his entire career.
The ability to excel at soft skills communication,
leadership vision, while failing utterly at the
hard skills like math and coding. So he gets
his B .A. in English in 1988, takes a pretty
comfortable job as a lecturer at a university.
But the rejections weren't over. No, not by a
long shot. The real world was just as unforgiving
as the gaokao. The sources say he applied for
31 different entry -level jobs. And was rejected
from every single one. That is an almost unimaginable
emotional toll. 31 doors slammed shut. The KSC
incident is just the most famous of those 31.
So the takeaway is that this relentless pattern
of failure just created the blueprint for his
risk tolerance. If you already failed 31 times
and scored a 1 in math, what's one more failure?
Right. But amidst all this localized failure
in China, there was this one crucial international
connection that fundamentally rewired his worldview.
The Morley family in Australia. This often gets
glossed over. But Ma himself calls this experience
crucial. And it really provides the philosophical
foundation for Alibaba's global scope. Yeah,
in 1980, while he was practicing English, he
befriended Ken Morley, who was visiting China.
Years later, the Morleys hosted Ma in Newcastle,
Australia. for 29 days. And Ma later reflected,
without those 29 days, I would never have been
able to think the way I do today. Think about
what that trip meant. Ma was coming from this
highly rigid, often culturally isolated China.
Suddenly, he's immersed for a month in a Western
democratic capitalist society. He saw a different
way of thinking, a different approach to problem
solving. a different sense of personal freedom.
That experience gave him a non -Chinese worldview,
a global lens that was absolutely essential for
building a truly international e -commerce platform
years later. He developed the tenacity back home,
but the Morley connection gave him the global
vision. That shift is the key inflection point
before technology ever even enters the picture.
He returns to China, and in 1994, he starts his
first small business, a translation agency. But
the real turning point comes the very next year,
1995. The trip to the U .S. Yes, on behalf of
the Hangzhou municipal government. And that trip
introduced him to the nascent world of the Internet.
And the discovery moment is legendary because
it so perfectly highlights the information asymmetry
that existed between China and the rest of the
world at that time. The anecdote is a perfect
case study in recognizing a market void. He searched
for beer online. He found results for Germany,
the U .S., Japan. But nothing for China. Then
he searched for just general information about
China. And found basically nothing. An information
void. China was globally invisible online, and
that void provided immediate, urgent market validation.
Ma and a friend quickly created a very basic
website. Ma called it ugly about Chinese beer.
And the speed of the response tells the entire
story. They launched the site at 9 .40 in the
morning. And by 12 .30 p .m. That same day, he
had received emails from prospective investors.
Within hours. The demand was just there, hiding
beneath the surface. He recalled waiting three
and a half hours for half a page to load on a
slow dial -up connection. But he was so proud,
he said, I proved the internet existed. That
realization led to his second company, Hangzhou
Hope Computer Services, in 1995. It was one of
China's earliest Internet startups, basically
an online Yellow Pages called China Pages. And
this wasn't some slow burn venture. China Pages
made about five million RMB in profit within
three years. He had found his area of dominance
using communication and vision to bridge that
massive information gap. He then did a brief
stint working for the Ministry of Foreign Trade,
but he realized the bureaucracy was just stifling.
He needed to go bigger, faster, and outside the
direct control of the state. And that's when
the real idea of the global platform was born.
He quits the ministry, goes back to Hangzhou
in 1999, and co -founds the Alibaba group in
his apartment with 18 friends. The 18 Luans.
starting with a very modest seed capital of 500
,000 yuan. This was the pivotal pivot, a B2B
platform focused on small and medium -sized enterprises,
helping them connect with international buyers.
And crucially, he quickly secured substantial
foreign venture capital. A total of $25 million
from two titans, Goldman Sachs and SoftBank,
between late 99 and early 2000. Getting that
kind of foreign capital was an enormous vote
of confidence in his ability to sell the future
of Chinese e -commerce to the world. It signaled
that global investors trusted his vision, even
if local bankers were still wary. And his initial
mission was perfect for the moment. Foster the
growth of Chinese SMEs and build a global platform
just ahead of China's entrance into the WTO in
2001. Alibaba became profitable just three years
later, rapidly expanding the ecosystem to include
Taobao, Alipay, Tmall and so many others. We
have to talk about that expansion because the
speed was breathtaking. And one of the most important
strategic moments was his handling of the confrontation
with the American giant eBay. Yes, this was a
battle for the soul of Chinese e -commerce. eBay
offered to buy Taobao, Alibaba's consumer to
consumer platform. They wanted to integrate it
and just dominate the market. But Ma rejected
the offer. He knew that giving up control would
mean surrendering the future. Instead of selling
out, he secured a massive war chest, a $1 billion
investment from Yahoo co -founder Jerry Yang.
Yang believed in an independent future for Taobao,
just like Ma did. That decision secured Alibaba's
autonomy and allowed them to eventually defeat
eBay in the Chinese market. That strategic victory
proved he wasn't just a visionary. He was a master
strategist willing to take massive risks. The
empire he built reached an almost incomprehensible
scale. By November 2012, Alibaba's online transaction
volume exceeded one trillion yuan. And then the
2014 NYSE IPO raised over $25 billion, a global
record at the time. That IPO cemented him as
a global financial force, and it really brought
his unique leadership style into focus. We also
see his commitment to a kind of social strategy
emerge here. Absolutely. Starting in 2010, Ma
announced Alibaba would earmark 0 .3 % of its
annual revenue for environmental protection,
focusing on water and air quality. He was articulating
a commitment that went beyond just profit margins.
Let's get back to that core paradox, because
this is where the deep dive truly begins. It
raises the most important question. How did a
man who struggled so profoundly with math a man
trained in English literature, successfully run
and scale a world leading high technology conglomerate.
Ma's profile just stands in such sharp contrast
to most tech moguls in China and really globally.
They almost all have deep backgrounds in computer
science or engineering. He had a complete dearth
of technical expertise. He wasn't equipped in
the traditional sense to run a tech giant. And
he didn't hide it. In a 2010 public statement,
he revealed he had never written a single line
of computer code. And he only got a personal
computer for business use. at age 33, long after
he'd already founded China Pages. So his role
could never be technical. His genius was entirely
in organizational capacity and soft skills. He
understood how to hire the right technical people
and crucially how to motivate them with a compelling
vision. He was the ultimate promoter, the chief
salesman, the manager, the organizer. It's classic
liberal arts leadership. Applying an understanding
of human behavior and storytelling to a technical
challenge. He had a famous philosophy. I hire
people smarter than me, but I lead them. He specifically
sought out technical specialists who were far
more capable than he was. His job was to manage
the politics, manage the capital, and keep the
team focused on the customer. not on the technological
minutia. It's the vision casting that matters
at that scale, not the coding ability. He focused
on the why helping small businesses thrive, which
resonated globally and allowed him to attract
top talent who would handle the how. That skill
allowed him to operate on a global stage, leading
to meetings like the one he had with then -President
-elect Donald Trump in 2017. Right, where he
discussed creating a million jobs in the U .S.
It underscored his status as China's most powerful
and charismatic global business ambassador. But
this entire arc, this narrative of impossible
charismatic success, it crashed violently into
the reality of state power in late 2020. The
state was fundamentally uncomfortable with the
breadth and depth of the influence he'd accumulated.
And the catalyst for that crash was a single
critical speech. October 2020 at the People's
Bank of China Financial Markets Forum in Shanghai.
Ma, ever the provocative personality, decided
to critique the very financial structures that
had allowed his company, Ant Group, to reach
this unprecedented valuation. He launched a very
public, very controversial broadside against
China's established financial institutions. He
criticized state banks for having what he called
a pawn shop mentality. Meaning they prioritize
collateral and minimizing risk over supporting
innovation or helping small businesses. And he
didn't stop there. He took aim at global banking
standards, dismissing the International Basel
Accords as a club for the elderly. Which was
a profound public challenge to the very foundation
of global financial stability, as regulators
understand it. He was essentially arguing that
traditional finance was too slow for the digital
age and that Ant Group was the superior, more
efficient model. This was seen not just as a
critique, but as a direct challenge to the authority
of China's financial leadership. Coming just
days before Ant Group's highly anticipated $37
billion IPO. The response was immediate, calculated
and absolute. On November 3rd, 2020, just days
before the scheduled debut, the Shanghai Stock
Exchange halted the IPO. A clear, unmissable
signal. of the state's ultimate authority. And
we have to look at the regulator's perspective
here. Ant Group was seeking a tech company valuation,
which is always very high. But about 90 percent
of its revenue actually came from financial services
like microlending. Exactly. This is where the
shadow banking risk comes in. Ant was acting
like a gigantic bank, but without the same strict
capital requirements that state owned banks faced.
The People's Bank of China had been trying to
regulate Ant as a financial holding company since
2018. Which would have required them to hold
more capital, massively depressing their profitability
and their valuation. Regulators feared a financial
bubble. The action was designed to impose stability.
And the scrutiny didn't stop with Ant Group.
This intervention quickly broadened into a much
wider government crackdown. It targeted the bad
giants, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. Ma's outspokenness
provided the convenient justification for accelerating
what was probably an inevitable systemic correction.
And the personal fallout for Ma was dramatic.
He effectively vanished from public life from
October 2020 to January 2021. This generated
immense international speculation about his safety,
his political standing. And the very future of
private entrepreneurship in China. His first
reappearance was precisely calculated. In January
2021, he spoke via video link to rural teachers
at a charity event. Signaling he was alive, well,
and focusing his energy on philanthropy and education
-safe areas encouraged by the state. But this
was not a quick blip. It was a strategic, mandated
retreat. By 2022, Ma had moved to Tokyo, Japan,
largely retreating from the public spotlight.
And in May 2023, he accepted a highly surprising
academic position as an invited professor at
Tokyo College. And his academic focus was perhaps
the most jarring shift of all. Sustainable agriculture
and food production. It's a massive, highly symbolic
change from the glittering high risk world of
fintech into the quiet, grounding work of food
systems research. It speaks to a conscious decision
to move away from high tension sectors. His eventual
return to China was also carefully orchestrated.
In March 2023, he was seen touring a school in
Hangzhou. Reports suggested he was personally
persuaded to return by Premier Li Cheng. Indicating
that the state was facilitating and thus controlling
his reentry. But that return was absolutely conditioned
on a fundamental shift in his power. This is
the critical institutional change. In January
2023, and group announced major changes in shareholder
voting rights. The most significant change was
the dramatic reduction of Ma's voting rights,
which shrank from nearly 50 percent down to just
6 percent. He was effectively neutered as the
ultimate decision maker. This change ensured
no single shareholder could retain a controlling
stake. The Chinese government reacted very positively,
noting improvements in transparency. The message
was clear. Entrepreneurship is fine, but personal
power that challenges state authority is not.
Ma also engineered a massive structural change
at Alibaba itself, turning it into a holding
company and separating its subsidiaries into
six independent firms. A proactive move to satisfy
the state's demand for decentralization and reduce
the systemic risk of one gigantic entity. And
we've seen the slow, cautious process of his
conditional reemergence continue. In early 2024,
he actually replaced SoftBank as Alibaba's largest
single shareholder. reasserting financial commitment
while maintaining his now reduced influence.
And then in February 2025, he attended a high
-level symposium hosted by President Xi Jinping
himself. On the surface, that sounds like full
rehabilitation. It sounds like it, but the state
media coverage is where the detail lies. While
his image appeared on TV, state -run media outlets
like Xinhua conspicuously omitted his name entirely
from the list of attendees. The definition of
conditional acceptance. He's allowed to be present.
to signal compliance. But his personal celebrity
status remains severely curtailed. He is an accepted,
compliant figure, but no longer the independent
global voice he once was. That's a perfect pivot
point because now we have to look at the man's
philosophy, which is just as paradoxical as his
career. Ma has long positioned himself as a thinker
rooted in Chinese tradition, identifying as an
adherent of both Buddhism and Taoism. But he's
also not shy about discussing other cultures.
In 2014, he attributed American society's foundational
strength to its Christian cultural heritage and
stressed the need for China to implement its
own positive value system post -cultural revolution.
And then there was the surprising revelation
in 2018 when the People's Daily identified him
as a member of the Chinese Communist Party. For
many international observers, that was a shock.
It really clarifies his position within the system,
even if he doesn't align with every policy. And
let's talk about his most controversial domestic
view. His endorsement of the 996 working hour
system. Working 9 a .m. to 9 p .m. six days a
week. He didn't just endorse it. He defended
it, calling it a huge blessing necessary for
young people to achieve success. It garnered
significant criticism. But it reflects the intense
mindset in China's tech culture. It's a brutal
demand on the present, but it's dramatically
contradicted by his utopian future predictions
about AI. Right. He balances that sacrifice with
this optimistic vision. He suggested AI would
lead to a life of greater leisure with four -hour
workdays, three days a week. He was also skeptical
that AI could ever truly replace humans in key
areas. He argued that true success requires a
love quotient, a blend of emotional capacity,
vision, and... and empathy that machines lack.
And his views on state planning are highly provocative.
In 2017, he made a stunning claim advocating
for using big data and AI to implement elements
of a planned economy. He argued that historical
models failed because of information gaps. He
proposed that the perfect real -time information
from big data could theoretically make central
planning effective. A very appealing idea for
Beijing. Finally, his philanthropic footprint
is enormous. It provides a massive global platform
for him outside of finance. He founded the Jack
Ma Foundation, focused on education, the environment,
and public health. His commitment to the environment
is particularly longstanding. He became chairman
of the Nature Conservancy's China program board
the day after he stepped down as Alibaba CEO.
And his philanthropic reach is truly global.
We saw it during the Sichuan earthquake, the
Nepal earthquake. And especially during the early
days of the COVID -19 pandemic, the Jack Ma Foundation
became one of the most visible global philanthropic
forces, donating massive quantities of medical
supplies everywhere. It's a public role that
is beneficial to the state, globally recognized,
yet safely distanced from the volatile finance
sector. So what does this extraordinary paradoxical
journey mean for you? the learner. We've traced
Ma's arc from a rejected English teacher who
leveraged sheer will and soft skills to build
an empire. To the mogul who publicly challenged
the state's financial regime, paid a dramatic
price, and was ultimately forced into this strategic
retreat focused on sustainable agriculture. Ma's
story underscores two critical, enduring lessons.
First, vision and charisma can fundamentally
outweigh technical expertise when scaling a global
company. And second, it highlights the permanent
structural tension in the Chinese system, the
conflict between massive private innovation and
the state's demand for absolute control. His
return with dramatically reduced influence, going
from 50 % voting rights to just 6 % in Ant Group,
establishes the new careful equilibrium required
for any large enterprise in China today. His
trajectory teaches us that the highest ceiling
of private financial success is always capped
by political authority. He achieved the highest
level of celebrity entrepreneurship, but the
state successfully mandated his retreat. Which
brings us back to the present and his strange
new academic path. You now know the intricate
details of this man, given his recent focus on
sustainable agriculture and considering his initial
world -changing success came from spotting a
global information gap about China online. What
new global information gap might Ma be preparing
to fill? Is this a peaceful retirement or is
it a strategic change of battlefield to a global
industry food supply that is becoming as critically
important and as poorly digitized as e -commerce
was three decades ago? It's a provocative question
to consider as he enters this new phase of conditional
influence. Welcome to the debate. For more than
two decades, Jack Ma's career was really the
story of China's economic explosion. He took
Alibaba from, what, an idea in an apartment to
a global giant. Exactly. But since late 2020,
we've seen this profound shift, a very public
retreat from corporate life and a new focus on
education, philanthropy, and surprisingly, agricultural
research. And this all happened right as Beijing
launched a huge regulatory crackdown on its tech
sector. Right. Which brings us to our central
question. Is this pivot by Ma, is it a genuine
personal choice, you know, a new chapter he's
wanted for a long time? Or was it purely a strategic
necessity, basically a course correction forced
on him by intense government pressure? And that's
where we differ. I'll be arguing that while the
political climate definitely complicated things,
Ma's actions really do reflect a longstanding
personal commitment to this kind of work. It
was a proactive desire to step back that he'd
been planning for years. And I'm going to argue
that the evidence, specifically the timing and
the sheer speed of his corporate dismantling,
points overwhelmingly to an externally dictated
strategy, a move he had to make for political
and, frankly, financial survival. OK, so let's
begin by establishing the long game here. My
position is really founded on the evidence that
shows Ma was talking about retirement very explicitly
long before the regulatory storm of 2020. I mean,
consider this. He announced his intention to
step down as executive chairman in September
2018. That's nearly two full years before the
Ant Group IPO was halted. Not a knee -jerk reaction.
And it wasn't just talk. His philanthropic work
was already substantive. He'd co -founded the
Jack Ma Foundation, which is dedicated to education,
the environment, public health. He was a trustee
for the Nature Conservancy in China way back
in 2009. He even stepped down as Alibaba's CEO
in 2013, partly to free up his time for this
kind of societal work. So his recent focus, like
being a visiting professor at Tokyo College researching
sustainable agriculture, it just feels like the
next logical step in a journey he started a long,
long time ago. I think that evidence of longstanding
interest is compelling, but I think it risks
confusing a wish with the reality of its implementation.
My position is that focusing on his prior statements
ignores the undeniable force and really the speed
of the state's reaction right after he made those
controversial comments. The rapid dismantling
of his corporate control is, for me, the proof
that this pivot was externally dictated, not
voluntarily realized. OK. The key timeline really
starts in October 2020. Ma gives that infamous
speech in Shanghai. He calls state banks pawn
shops. He criticizes the Basel Accords as a club
for the elderly. And then, days later, the hammer
drops. The $37 billion Ant Group IPO, the biggest
ever, is halted. I mean, that's not a peaceful
retirement. That is a forced retreat. after a
direct confrontation with state power. And the
most definitive evidence came later. In January
2023, Ant Group restructures and Ma's voting
rights are just decimated. They go from over
50 % to just 6%. Right. The company itself says
this is to ensure no single shareholder has a
controlling stake. When you lose that much control
of your flagship company, that isn't some philosophical
shift. That is state intervention. And this extends
to his movements. He only came back to China
in March 2023 after being, by all reports, persuaded
to return by the premier after spending a lot
of time in Tokyo. Which brings us to the significance
of that timing and his public disappearance.
It's just incredibly difficult to separate the
two timelines. I mean, yes, he announced an intention
to retire years prior, but the acceleration and
the severity of his actual retreat, stepping
down from the Alibaba board in October 2020,
and then just vanishing from public view, it
all coincides precisely with the state actively
killing his biggest business interest. It is
so hard to see that as anything other than, you
know, a high stakes self -preservation tactic,
or maybe even outright coercion. The scrutiny
didn't just slow him down, it silenced him, and
it dismantled the very IPO that would have cemented
his power. I see why you draw that conclusion,
I do. But let me offer a slightly different perspective.
focusing on what the regulators were actually
trying to achieve. The intervention was, from
their point of view, largely focused on Ant Group's
financial structure and the systemic risk it
posed, not just Moss' criticism. We have to remember
the context. Ant Group was getting about 90 %
of its revenue from financial services, lending,
insurance, but it was regulated like a tech company.
Regulators were genuinely concerned about its
massive scale and the risk of a financial bubble.
Sure. But the timing? Well, Inma's speech was
just extraordinarily ill -timed. He wasn't just
taking a swipe at local banks. He was mocking
the Basel Accords, which are the bedrock of global
banking stability. The government's reaction
was about proving they control the financial
system, which is essential to them. His silence
afterwards, while dramatic, could have also been
a calculated move to limit the damage among investors,
among his own employees, who lost billions when
that IPO stalled. There was huge internal pressure,
not just external. That argument feels like it
minimizes the political will required to take
down the country's biggest ever IPO. You know,
systemic financial risk is often the most convenient
public reason for exercising political control.
The core issue for me is still the control he
lost, which I think gets us to the shift in corporate
power. Well, proponents of my view would point
out that he willingly divested that control to
focus on these other pursuits, like his academic
work. And there are reports suggesting he still
had a lot of agency. The Wall Street Journal
reported that in early 2023, Maul was the one
who actually orchestrated the breakup of Alibaba
into six separate firms, and he did it while
he was traveling overseas. That speaks to a pretty
profound level of operational influence. He was
shaping the final form of his own empire, which
suggests he was negotiating his retreat, not
just being pushed out. I'm sorry, I just don't
buy the negotiation argument. The fact that he
was restructuring the pieces doesn't change the
fact that the state had already cut the head
off the snake. The reduction of his voting rights
in Ant Group from over 50 percent down to 6 percent.
That's the definitive evidence. Power was stripped,
not voluntarily given away. I mean, no genuine
self -directed retirement involves an earthquake
like that. And the government praised that change,
framing it as an improvement in corporate governance.
That signals state objectives being fulfilled,
not Ma's. And you mentioned his public appearances.
Look at his appearance in February 2025 with
Xi Jinping. His image was on the main state -run
news program, a very controlled signal of approval.
But the official news agency pointedly left out
his name. He's allowed to exist as a quiet, compliant
image, but not as an independent voice. He's
operating within very strict political constraints.
OK, but if this transition is entirely dictated
by the state. Why is his new focus so specific
and intellectually rigorous? Why not just retire
quietly to a golf course? Which brings us to
interpreting this new focus on education, agriculture.
Well, you have to compare it to his past rhetoric.
It's a jarring difference. Ma was the guy who
got international criticism for defending the
90 -96 work system, nine to nine, six days a
week. He glorified that intense corporate culture.
And he advocated for using big data and AI to
implement parts of a planned economy. I mean,
this was a man committed to a very aggressive,
centralized business ideology. Right. His sudden
shift to being an academic focused on sustainable
agriculture is, well, if you're cynical, it's
a calculated deployment of soft power. It's non
-controversial. It aligns perfectly with government
priorities like food security. And it gives them
a safe, apolitical public identity. It's an intellectual
safe harbor. That's an interesting analysis,
but I'd frame his intellectual path a bit differently.
I don't see his shift to agriculture as just
a retreat to a safe harbor. I actually see it
as a redirection of that same massive ambition
toward a different kind of societal engineering.
Ma's past comments, even the aggressive ones,
they always showed an interest in large -scale
transformation. He predicted AI would lead to
three -day work weeks. His philanthropy was focused
on what he called sustainable money, wealth that's
good for society. The current focus on agriculture
and food tech is incredibly complex, it's long
-term, and it requires sophisticated tech and
logistics, which are his core strengths. I mean,
he started the Who You Pan school back in 2015
to tackle these big societal challenges. So his
post -business life really feels like a genuine
application of his skills to problems he'd already
identified as important. So we've established
he had the intention to retire, but it seems
the political establishment controlled the mechanism
of that retirement. To summarize my view, it
really boils down to the institutional dismantling
that happened the moment he stepped out of line.
The reduction of his ownership in Ant Group from
50 % to 6 % is not voluntary. That's a forced
correction. That, plus the reports he had to
be persuaded to return home, shows his pivot
was a response to political pressure. It's a
survival strategy masked as intellectual freedom.
And while I absolutely concede that the timing
was dramatically influenced by the regulatory
climate, we can't just dismiss two decades of
groundwork. From the Jack Ma Foundation to his
2018 announcement, the foundation for his current
life was laid long before the political fight.
His choice to focus on something as complex as
sustainable agriculture suggests a genuine use
of his new freedom, however circumscribed that
freedom may be now. It aligns with a long -stated
desire to create value beyond just commerce.
So the material really leaves us with a difficult
synthesis. A man who wanted to retire, but whose
retirement then became a political necessity.
Exactly. A necessity that perhaps allows him
only the freedom to pursue politically non -threatening
goals. The life of Jack Ma continues to present
this complex picture where personal ambition
and external forces are in constant tension.
And we're left exploring that line where genuine
personal choice ends and political necessity
begins.