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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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Alibaba
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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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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- 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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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- 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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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- 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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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- 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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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- 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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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- 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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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- pargi1988
- 15-07-17
Great read
Great read with a good understanding of how it all started. very insightful and well worth it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Alex
- 14-04-19
Very interesting but a little too long
Really interesting audio book on Jack Ma. I was aware of him but knew very little of his history and the history of Alibaba. I found the back story very interesting but perhaps a little too long.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- george schweitzer
- 15-09-16
Interesting read.
Narrator was good. The book gave an indication of how Alibaba and Jack MA operate. This from beginning to set up an Internet giant in China to a household name around the world. Worth reading.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Niall Carter
- 12-11-17
bit chronological, rather than interesting. a good
a bit chronological, rather than interesting. a good intro to alibaba but wasn't overly insightful
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