Traces the founding of Alibaba, the world's second largest Internet company, by an English teacher from humble origins, drawing on exclusive interviews to explore how the company and Jack Ma have become icons and leading employers in China's booming private sector.

"In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest e-commerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over ten years, while building a customer base more than twice the size of Amazon's, and handling the bulk of e-commerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such...