For those who aspire to be a billionaire, Jack Ma has some words of wisdom. Speaking on Wednesday at the fourth World Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Convention, the Alibaba Group chairman told the audience, “Making one or two million yuan a month will make people happy, but not making one or two billion yuan.
“It doesn’t make you feel good. The money is not yours because you cannot spend [it all]. And if you get it, you need to do something about it.”
For the record, Alibaba’s profit in the three months ended June 30 almost doubled from the same quarter in 2016 to US$2.2 billion, based on its quarterly results published in August.
It makes you wonder how much the man who runs China’s biggest online shopping portal really took home in the communist country. Does he have to give back some money to his political supporters?
However, this is not the first time the 53-year-old man Forbes has listed as the third-richest in China, with a paper worth of US$38.6 billion as of the end of November, has bemoaned the curse of being too rich.
The former English teacher said last year that China’s happiest people are those in the middle class who make 20,000 to 40,000 yuan per month and those whose net worth doesn’t exceed 10 million yuan.
According to Ma’s theory, people can enjoy their money if it does not exceed a million yuan. But once it hits 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million), they face all sorts of challenges, like where to invest the money — stocks, bonds or real estate. And they will suffer even more headaches if they have more than 20 million yuan.
Earlier this year he reiterated that he felt as if he owned nothing.
“I do not have time to spend money, and I do not think money is that important to me today,” Ma said. “Spending money is an art, especially to people like me; I do not know how to spend money.”
His contrarian view on money did not sit well with most people who are much poorer than Ma.
One typical response from a netizen: “Don’t bullshit! Although I make only 2,000 yuan a month, I should understand how rough it is to make 2 billion?”
A lot of people think they would be happy if they were as rich as Ma. But does Ma really feel happy?
He should give away the bulk of his wealth to the poor, only then can he be truly happy.
Amazonian dudes need to have unhappy thoughts daily to swallow up others even when they are not hungry.
I tend to agree with what many people are saying: Ma is a good bullshitter and a lucky entrepreneur.
Everything over dose is poisonous so has some subtle meaning in what he say
I prefer worrying having more money than I could spend.I hv enough living from paycheck to paycheck..Always worrying having not enough to put foods on table
when you have that much money the question is not how to spend it but how to share it
I’d rather have his problem… ????
I agree with Ma, the more money one has the more one has to worry about what to do with it. And it’s true, investments need monitoring, which takes time, as do all the toys money can buy. They have to be looked after, insured, maintained etc. and of course used, and there is only so much time in a day.