Jack Ma, 46, is the founder of of Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce website. It has made him a billionaire and changed the way that the Chinese do business. that he believes have made it possible. Alibaba Generates $700 Million in Revenue
ABC's Diane Sawyer spoke to Ma November 15 in Hangzhou, China about his work, China's remarkable growth, and the American ideals
Ma was born in Hangzhou, now the home base for Alibaba and its 22,000 employees. He started learning English at age 12, and he didn't learn about the Internet until he visited the United States as an adult on a trade delegation in 1995. Realizing the potential, he returned to China to create China Pages that same year, one of the first Chinese Internet companies
Ma said he believes that American ingenuity is a model for the Chinese.
"Innovation is a culture. When I see the American culture, the American culture is very innovative," Ma said. "To have a culture of innovation takes about two or three generations."
Ma believes that the future of China is rooted in the success of small businesses and American ingenuity, but he also sees value in China's decisiveness. (Source: Bradley Blackburn, ABCnews.go.com, Nov 15, 2010).