Jack Ma, the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba, became the richest man in China after AlibabaIPO’d for a record $25 billion last September.But Ma was just as happy — perhaps even happier — when he was barely making any money right out of college.After graduating in 1988, Ma worked as an English teacher at a local university in his hometown of Hangzhou, China. He only made $12 a month, according to the documentary about his life called “Crocodile in the Yangtze.”When speaking at a luncheon with the Economics Club of New York on Tuesday, Ma referred to this period as the “best life I had.”When you don’t have much money, you know how to spend it, Ma explained. But once you become a billionaire, you have a lot of responsibility.Ma says he feels a need to spend his money “on behalf of the society.”This isn’t the first time Ma has spoken about the burden of being a billionaire. When speaking at a panel at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, he referred to his days as an English teacher as “fantastic,” according toCNN Money. He said anyone with $1 million is “lucky,” but when you reach $10 million, “you’ve got troubles.”After Alibaba’s IPO, he toldCNBCthatthe pressure that comes with the responsibility gets to him, especially now that the world is focusing on Alibaba’s stock price.
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