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Duncan Clark, a former Morgan Stanley investment banker and author of Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built, set out to write about the company but inevitably stories about its founder feature – including how a holidaying Australian family bought Ma his first flat
“What we are watching now is the rise of north and south – the political incumbents if you will, versus the southern entrepreneurs. You can’t say that politely in China, but they are being co-opted into the system,” Clark said last nightat the Hong Kong International Literary Festival.
Clark, a former Morgan Stanley investment banker turned business consultant, speaks and writes with familiarity about Ma, referring to him as “Jack”.
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His 2016 book Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built draws on his personal reminiscences as well as scores of interviews. In 1999 he visited Ma’s lakeside flat in Hangzhou. Ma had set up his Alibaba business – which now owns the South China Morning Post – in the small flat only a few months before saying he wanted to sell things online in China.