Ma became a billionaire not just through brilliant management but also by leading his company in a big, brash way. From the day in 1999 when he founded Alibaba in a Hangzhou apartment, he has exhorted employees to "think big" and "work for their dreams!" He did that himself and built Alibaba into the world's largest online business, with some 100 million shoppers a day and higher revenues than Amazon and eBay combined.