How Jack Ma Went From Being A Poor School Teacher To Turning Alibaba Into A $160 Billion Behemoth In 1995, a former school teacher from China named Jack Ma visited the United States for the first time. Ma had recently started a translation company to capitalize on China's export boom. When he was in the U.S., as part of his translation business, a friend showed him the internet. His friend told him that just about everything was on the internet. Ma decided to search for beer. The results didn't turn up a single Chinese option. In fact, he could hardly find anything about China on the Internet at all. When he returned home, he decided to found China Pages, a directory of various Chinese companies looking for customers abroad, and some say, the country's first internet business. Next week, Alibaba will s tart trading on the New York Stock Exchange , in what could be the biggest offering in U.S...