Jack Ma

One of the world's richest men, Jack Ma was born in China and as a youngster cycled 70 miles a day just to learn English. Having been rejected for countless jobs he went on to co-found Alibaba Group and now dedicates much of his life to philanthropy. Lysanne Currie shares some of his most inspirational quotes 

On business priorities: Put the customers first, the employees second, and the shareholders third. 

On competition: You should learn from your competitor but never copy. Copy and you die. 

On wealth: When you have $1million, that's your money. When you have $20million, you start to have a problem. When you have $1billion, that's not your money, that's the trust society gave you. 

On making mistakes: When a person makes a mistakes or fails, if he or she always complains or blames others, that person will never come back from the failure. But if the person checks inside, this person has hope. 

On learning from mistakes: Someday the book I really will want to write about is Alibaba's 1001 mistakes. These are the things people should remember and people should learn. 

On responsibility: Today, making money is very simple. But making sustainable money while being responsible to the society and improving the world is very difficult.  

On remaining focused: No matter how tough the chase is, you should always have the dream you saw on the first day. It'll keep you motivated and rescue you from any weak thoughts.  

On building teams: You need the right people with you, not the best people. 

On seeking out new business opportunities: Opportunity lies in the places where the complaints are. 

On perseverance: Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine. If you give up tomorrow, you will never see the sunshine.