Rock Star CEOs

In many ways, Ma’s story sounds like an American success story—and even comes with a bit of the Wild West. Ma, a 1988 graduate of the Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute with a BA in English, got his start as a teacher. He took his first trip to the United States in 1995, on behalf of a friend who was trying to recover some debts from an American associate involved in a highway construction project. For Ma, who was making about $10 a month as a teacher and part-time translator at the time, visiting America was a huge opportunity. He spent much of his savings buying new clothes for the trip and borrowed money from his father.

Ma’s American odyssey brought him to Malibu, Calif., where it took a bizarre twist. His friend’s U.S. associate in Malibu not only refused to pay the debt Ma had come to collect, but Ma says he also tried to persuade Ma to stay on in the United States as a business partner against his will. “At one point he started playing with his handgun,” says Ma. “It was obviously meant as a threat.” After a few days in virtual captivity, his so-called partner took him to Las Vegas, where Ma, by then almost penniless, says he won $600 playing the slot machines. Ma persuaded the American to let him travel on his own to Seattle, and used the Vegas winnings to buy the plane ticket.

Ma says he touched his first computer keyboard on that visit to Seattle. He pulled up the Yahoo search engine and typed in “beer” and “China”; no Chinese breweries popped up. He enlisted the help of friends to make a rough-edged Web site—and by the end of the day had received several e-mails. That first brush with the Web gave Ma the idea to look into “doing this Internet thing” when he returned to China. A decade later, Ma is still doing it, at warp speed.

© 2006