Will Jack Ma’s quirkiness play in the U.S.?
There’s no two ways about it.
Jack Ma is a quirky guy.
From dressing up like Lady Gaga, to belting out the “Lion King” theme song, to revealing on CNBC that his hero is, the decidedly fictional, Forrest Gump.
Jack Ma is Jack Ma.
And Jack Ma is not the buttoned up (or turtle-necked up) CEO that we’re accustomed to.
But don’t let his antics fool you.
“Everyone seems to underestimate Jack Ma,” says Porter Erisman, former Alibaba VP and director of the documentary ‘Crocodile in in the Yangtze.’
He calls Jack Ma “incredibly innovative, very visionary.”
Ma is also ambitious. And to achieve his goal of reaching an audience outside of China, some think he’ll need to tone his antics down a bit.
“The particular quirky flamboyance that he has historically displayed seems to sell very well there,” says Max Wolff, an economist at Manhattan Venture Partners, which helped institutional investors get Alibaba shares. “It won’t sell quite as well for a global audience.”
But Ma’s flash doesn’t seem to be scaring off investors today. Even though the company is set up in such a way that Ma will be in control, not shareholders.
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