In just a decade and half Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded and built Alibaba 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% 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 U.S.?

Clark tells Alibaba’s tale in the context of China’s momentous economic and social changes, illuminating an unlikely corporate titan as never before.

邓肯•克拉克（Duncan Clark），毕业于伦敦政治经济学院，先后作为投资银行家于伦敦和香港的摩根士丹利分部工作4年。1994年他在北京创立了BDA公司，目前担任董事长一职。BDA为投资者提供专业的咨询服务，特别专注于中国的科技及消费者领域，在北京的专业员工超过100人。邓肯在阿里巴巴早期曾为其提供咨询服务，此外他还是英国政府在中国数字经济方面的顾问。由于他在英国在华贸易和投资方面所做出的杰出贡献，邓肯于2013年被授予大英帝国官佐勋章。他还曾担任中国英国商会主席。2010～2012年，邓肯在斯坦福大学担任访问学者，并于2010年联合创建了“China 2.0”项目。

邓肯是许多科技企业的早期投资人，如App Annie、Student.com以及Radish Fiction。他目前还在一些机构的顾问委员会中任职，其中包括总部位于日内瓦的Pictet & Cie银行旗下的数字通信基金、杜绝非法野生动物交易的野生救援协会。邓肯还是盘古银行（中国）的独立董事。邓肯是经常活跃于众多商业媒体的行业评论员，其中包括BBC、CNBC、CNN等。同时，他也是中国互联网和企业创业领域方面所公认的专家。