Alibaba Employees Pay Tribute To Birth City on 20th Anniversary while founder Jack Ma Leaves

In what seems to be an unusual act of tribute, employees of the Alibaba Group shared a poem and special video  tribute to the its birth city of Hangzhou to celebrate the company’s 20th anniversary.

This coincides with news that Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma will officially step down from his role on his 55th birthday, leaving it his heir CEO Daniel Zhang to take over helm of the USD460 billion e-commerce company. Ma, an ex English teacher, is reported to put the bulk of his over USD40 billion wealth into philantrophic efforts for education.

In a press release, the Alibaba Group shared its tribute to the city of Hangzhou expressing all of the employees’ heartfelt gratitude; recognising Hangzhou was among the first cities in China to welcome and embrace digital transformation, ‘The city is not only Alibaba’s birth place, it is also our bedrock and will continue to be the incubator of many more dreamers and entrepreneurs