Abrar Hussain: In an interview with The New York Times, Alibaba’s co-founder and chairman Jack Ma has expressed his intention to retire from the Chinese e-commerce giant on his 54th birthday to devote his time to philanthropy focused on education.
Ma was an English teacher before starting Alibaba in 1999 and built it into a multibillion-dollar internet giant, becoming one of the world’s richest men and a revered figure in his homeland.
His own worth has soared along with that of the company, which has added cloud computing, films and e-payments to its growing portfolio and was valued at $420.8 billion when the stock market closed on Friday.
During the interview, Ma said he plans to step down from the company on Monday — his 54th birthday — referring to his departure as “the beginning of an era” rather than an end.
Ma, who gave up the title of CEO in 2013, added that he now planned to devote his time and fortune to education. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is among China’s richest men with a net worth of around $40 billion.
Interestingly, The New York Times is blocked in China by Communist Party censors and there was no official statement from Alibaba yesterday, making Ma’s announcement through the American newspaper a head-scratching decision.
-Source: AFP