The Woman Behind a Successful Entrepreneur: Ma Yun’s Wife
The Story of Zhang Ying and the Choices Behind Alibaba’s Success
We Were University Classmates
Ma Yun and I met in university. We got married right after graduation without delay. He was never a handsome man—what attracted me was his ability to accomplish things that handsome men could not. He organized Hangzhou’s first English corner, worked as a tour guide for foreign visitors to earn foreign exchange, took on multiple tutoring jobs, and somehow simultaneously became known as one of Hangzhou’s ten outstanding young teachers.
Yet after we married, I lived in constant anxiety because his unexpected ventures multiplied endlessly.
The Translation Company Years
Then suddenly, he quit his job and announced he wanted to start his own business. He opened a translation company in Hangzhou called HaiBo Translation. The monthly profit was 200 yuan—but the rent was 700. To keep it going, Ma Yun carried bags and traveled between Yiwu and Guangzhou, buying and reselling flowers, gifts, and clothing. For three years he was essentially a street merchant, personally feeding a translation company that finally became sustainable.
Later he attempted the “China Yellow Pages” project—then people accused him of being a con artist.
The Alibaba Moment
And then he suddenly told me he wanted to pool 500,000 yuan to start an e-commerce website. Within days, he had gathered sixteen people, his former colleagues, students, and friends, all willing to take the risk.
Ma Yun told everyone: “Contribute all your spare money. This will probably fail, but if it succeeds, the returns will be unimaginable.”
He also convinced me, saying that if they were a military unit, I would be the political commissar—the person who kept everyone feeling secure. And that’s how I resigned too. Eighteen people boarded one ship: “Alibaba.”
The Early Days of Chaos
The startup period was relentless. Whenever Ma Yun had an idea, a phone call would bring everyone to my home for a meeting in ten minutes. His mouth was always full of technical jargon—B2B, C2C, search engines, communities—which I didn’t understand. But when they met, I stayed very busy. They debated during the day; I cooked in the kitchen. They conferenced at midnight; I prepared late-night snacks. I had the title of political commissar but performed the work of a housekeeper.
Before any profit, each person earned just 500 yuan monthly—barely enough to buy groceries for the office “cafeteria.” I was previously a perfectly good teacher. How had I become an unpaid housekeeping volunteer?
The Breaking Point
After more than a year of this, I asked Ma Yun how much money we had actually made. He held up one finger.
“Ten million?” I asked hopefully.
He shook his head.
“One hundred million?” Still no.
“One million,” he said.
“That’s so little!” I despaired.
“Per day,” he corrected. “We’re currently making one million in daily profit. Eventually it will become one million in daily taxes paid to the government.”
The Crisis
But even as the business flourished, family disaster was brewing. We could no longer manage our son.
Our boy was born in 1992, growing up alongside the company. During those early years, thirty-plus people would crowd into our home for meetings, the air thick with cigarette smoke like a gas chamber. Our son was confined to his room. He ate work meals with us, and as a result became increasingly skeletal like his father—just a big head balanced on a thin match-stick body. As we grew busier, our son went to kindergarten at age four and stayed there five days a week, coming home only on weekends.
Finally, we thought our work was done. Our son was approaching his teens. But when we brought him home, he said: “I don’t want to go home. If I do, I’ll just be bored. I’d rather stay at the internet café!”
The Ultimatum
This finally shocked Ma Yun into action. That very night, he sat me down urgently: “Resign. Our family needs you more than Alibaba does now. If you leave Alibaba, we lose just one salary. But if you don’t come home and our son turns out badly, no amount of money can fix it. Your son or your money—which one do you choose?”
I looked at our son and felt panic too, but my heart was unbalanced: When we first married, I’d planned to be a good wife and mother. He’d “tricked” me into Alibaba. Now that we’d finally succeeded, he was asking me to resign to become a full-time wife again. He was using me like a chess piece!
The Three-Day Test
After I resigned, Ma Yun launched his offensive against our son’s gaming obsession. During summer vacation, he gave our son 200 yuan and said: “Go play internet games with your classmates for three days and nights. But when you come back, you must answer this question: What is one good thing about playing games?”
Three days later, our son returned, consumed an enormous meal, fell deeply asleep, then reported his findings: “I was exhausted, hungry, and uncomfortable everywhere. The money is gone, and I found no single good thing about it.”
“So why do you want to go back?” Ma Yun challenged. “Why do you love it so much?”
The boy had no answer. Combined with my supervision, our son gradually withdrew from online gaming.
An Interesting Choice
At that time, the gaming industry was booming. Shanda Interactive and NetEase were launching new games, and following his business instincts, Ma Yun probably would have seized the opportunity.
But he made an explicit decision: “I won’t invest a single cent in online gaming. I don’t want to see my son addicted to games that I created.”
My New Life
Now I wake up early to prepare breakfast for my son, eat together, and drive him to school. Then I rush to the wet market to buy fresh ingredients. I prepare two meat dishes, one vegetable, and a soup, arranging them in a three-tier lunch box. At noon I join my son at school to deliver it fresh.
Within six months of my resignation, my son’s class ranking jumped up seventeen places. His teacher said not only did his academics improve, but his personality transformed. He became more open, happier, more tolerant—from a quiet, introverted student to a sunny young man.
Growing Into Myself
On weekends, my son would link his arm with mine and take me shopping. Passing Linhai Road, he recommended a shop called “Four Seasons Romance” selling long skirts. Since entering Alibaba, I’d never worn long dresses—my closet was entirely white, silver-gray, and black business suits with straight pencil skirts thought appropriate to my position. Now, unconcerned with such restrictions, I could wear anything I wanted.
My son picked out a rose-red velvet long dress with gold fringe cascading diagonally across it. I fell in love immediately.
My style completely shifted. When I visited former Alibaba colleagues, they were astonished. Everyone said I now radiated femininity and looked far more beautiful than before.
A New Perspective
Ma Yun once chatted with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang about me. Yang asked how I was doing. Ma Yun replied: “Zhang Ying was previously my business partner. I wouldn’t be where I am today without credit being due to her labor. I always regarded her as a production resource. But now I realize that as my wife, she’s better suited to be a living resource.”
When this quote reached my ears, I knew it was unembellished—only a man with his head entirely in business would describe his wife in terms of “production” versus “living” resources. But honestly, being a living resource had its charm. Though life at home was ordinary, every small gain felt worth savoring repeatedly.
Epilogue
Women’s greatness lies in this: No matter whether their man is successful or struggling, as long as he has dreams, they offer unconditional support, quiet companionship, and careful management of everything else. And men’s responsibility is this: No matter what setbacks arise, never abandon your dreams. Prove to your woman that her support and encouragement were right.
The journey from university classmates to this point taught me that the greatest success is not measured in billions, but in the laughter shared over breakfast with your son, in the warmth of ordinary moments, and in knowing that the dreams you supported transformed not just a company, but also a family.