Jack Ma might be the only man in China who could stand up against Steve Jobs.
The chief executive of Chinese Internet company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has a big reputation for challenging industries and competitors—traits shared by Apple's famed co-founder.
Mr. Ma has redefined e-commerce in China by taking online bartering beyond eBay Inc.'s consumer-to-consumer swapping style and adding to it a marketplace for China's small businesses to connect with a global web of customers and suppliers. Nearly everything made in China can be traded globally on Alibaba.com, Mr. Ma's only publicly listed company, which had sales of 1.62 billion yuan in the three months ended June 30, up 19% from a year earlier, and posted profits of 464.5 million yuan ($72.6 million), up from 363 million yuan a year earlier.
Like Mr. Jobs, Mr. Ma enjoys taking on rivals. At a recent conference, he fired a direct hit at Baidu Inc., China's dominant search operator, saying he planned to take away market share with his new online shopping-search engine, e-Tao. "People ask why I got involved in search engines," Mr. Ma said at his annual Alifest meeting in September. "The reason is not to let Baidu sleep soundly. If Baidu sleeps well, then Internet users in China cannot sleep well."
Mr. Ma years ago also fought off eBay as it aimed to expand in China, seizing the consumer-bartering market with website Taobao.com by undercutting transaction fees for sales. Taobao now has a 33% market share.
He's moving into Google Inc.'s territory, challenging the Android handset operating system with Alibaba's own, Aliyun.
Mr. Ma shares only some of Mr. Jobs' quirky cult of personality. He calls his employees his Aliren, meaning Ali-people. His office decor is inspired by novel "The Legend of the Condor Heroes," part of a Chinese martial-arts book series. He judges employee performance on how well they exhibit their integrity and passion.
Mr. Ma is fiery, having repeatedly challenged China's lagging state-owned banks. He developed in 2004 his own online payment system Alipay to help consumers easily buy products on his sites and across the Web. He also started in 2009 a service called Ali-loan, a lending partnership with banks to help small businesses access more loans.
"If banks don't change, we will change banks," he said at the Alifest conference.
Alibaba CEO Jack Ma: The 'Next Steve Jobs'?
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