The Political Commissar: How Zhang Ying's Unwavering Belief Built Jack Ma's Empire

Imagine this scenario: the partner you trust and admire most in your life suddenly decides to quit a respectable, stable job to chase an incomprehensible "dream." He mutters about something you've never heard of called the "internet," painting a picture of an ethereal future to anyone who will listen. As a result, all your relatives and friends think he's gone mad. Your neighbors whisper behind your back, calling him a "fraud." The money he brings home dwindles, while the exhaustion and frustration he carries multiply.

Then, he turns to you, his eyes bloodshot but gleaming with unquestionable conviction, and asks, "I have almost nothing left in my bank account. Do you still believe in me?"

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What would you do?

What you'll learn from Zhang Ying's story:

Why conviction is more valuable than capital in a crisis.

The irreplaceable role of a true founding partner.

How to lead and stabilize a team through emotional support.

The strategic wisdom in knowing when to step back.

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The Start

For a young Zhang Ying, this wasn't a hypothetical question. It was her daily reality.

When Jack Ma was just an ordinary English teacher at the Hangzhou Teacher's Institute, he was a star on campus—the student union president, the soul who could make anything interesting. Zhang Ying, his junior, was drawn to his unique charisma and boundless imagination, just like everyone else. They went from a campus couple to a married one, and were supposed to live a quiet, stable life as educators.

But Jack Ma was not a man content with the status quo. He first started the Haibo Translation Agency, the first professional translation service in Hangzhou. To keep this agency—with a monthly profit of only 200 yuan against a rent of 700 yuan—alive, Jack Ma would haul sacks of goods from Yiwu and Guangzhou. He sold everything from flowers and gifts to clothes, hawking them like a common peddler, using these meager earnings to painstakingly sustain his first "venture."

Zhang Ying watched all of this with mixed feelings, but she never complained. She would simply help him unload the heavy sacks when he returned late at night, silently supporting this seemingly impractical beginning.

In 1995, when the word "internet" was still like something from another planet in China, Jack Ma returned from a trip to the US and resolutely quit his "iron rice bowl" teaching job. He scraped together 20,000 yuan and founded one of China's first internet companies—China Pages.

The decision dropped like a bomb among his friends and family. No one understood what he was doing, and certainly no one believed that a small computer screen displaying pictures could make money. In that era, selling internet services was like trying to sell a car to an ancient emperor. Every day, Jack Ma rode a rickety bicycle through the streets of Hangzhou, knocking on the doors of strange companies, only to be met with ridicule, suspicion, and a slammed door. The "fraud" label began to stick.

At a time when everyone saw him as an outcast, Zhang Ying made her choice. She not only took out all her savings but also quit her own job to become the first—and at the time, the only—full-time employee of this "fraudulent" company.

The "Political Commissar" of Lakeside Gardens

The office of China Pages was their tiny home. While Jack Ma was out hustling, using his silver tongue to paint a vision of the online world to skeptical clients, Zhang Ying was the commander-in-chief of the home front, handling all of the company's internal affairs. She was sales, customer service, administration, and finance, all rolled into one. She made calls to clients during the day, organized files at night, and was also responsible for cooking and cleaning.

Once, in an attempt to persuade a client, Jack Ma visited their office eight times, only to be stopped by the receptionist each time. When he returned home on the ninth attempt, soaked from the rain and on the verge of giving up, he slumped down and said to Zhang Ying, "Am I really wrong? Maybe I truly am a fraud." Zhang Ying didn't say much. She silently brought him a dry towel, served him a steaming bowl of noodles, and then sat down to help him analyze why the first eight attempts failed, simulating the questions he might face on the next visit. "You're not a fraud," she said, her voice calm but firm. "You're just building a future they can't understand yet."

This unconditional trust and support was the only light for Jack Ma in his darkest, loneliest hours.

The China Pages venture did not achieve what one might call conventional success, but it never shook Zhang Ying's faith. After a brief stint working for the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Jack Ma decided to return to Hangzhou to embark on the biggest adventure of his life.

On a cold winter night in 1999, in apartment 202, Building 1, Unit 1 of the Lakeside Gardens complex in Hangzhou—a place later mentioned countless times—Jack Ma gathered 17 of his followers. They stood or sat, crammed into the small living room. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and an almost fanatical excitement. Jack Ma stood in the center, waving his arms like a preacher, passionately describing a dream called "Alibaba"—an e-commerce platform designed to serve small and medium-sized enterprises worldwide.

Among the 17 people present were his students, friends, and colleagues. And sitting closest to him, with the most focused gaze, was still Zhang Ying. She was not only one of the "18 Arhats" but also the "Mamar"—the matriarch—in the hearts of the entire team.

During Alibaba's initial phase, a period known as "hell mode," the company's finances were precarious. Everyone's salary was just 500 yuan a month. The team worked 16-18 hours a day, sleeping on the office floor when they were tired, surviving on instant noodles and cheap boxed meals. The team's morale was like a rubber band stretched to its limit, ready to snap at any moment.

Technically and strategically, Jack Ma was the undisputed leader. But spiritually and emotionally, Zhang Ying was the "political commissar" who held this ragtag army together.

She was in charge of all company administration and logistics. When the programmers argued heatedly over a technical problem, it was Zhang Ying who would walk over with a plate of fruit, easing the tension with a few jokes before patiently listening to all sides to mediate. When the team's morale hit rock bottom after failing to secure funding, with some even starting to doubt the future, it was Zhang Ying who would organize a late-night gathering, personally cooking her specialty, braised pork, to help everyone rediscover the feeling of home and their initial passion around the dinner table. She would remember everyone's birthday, and at the toughest times, she would magically produce a small cake, light the candles, and let the team temporarily forget their exhaustion in song.

With a uniquely feminine sensitivity and resilience, she molded this diverse group of strong-willed idealists into a warm and effective fighting force. She did the things that don't appear on a business plan but are immeasurably important: building trust, providing care, and safeguarding the team's cohesion.

The Wisdom of Stepping Back

As Alibaba secured key investments from Goldman Sachs and SoftBank, the company began to enter a phase of rapid, structured growth. It needed to transform from a "guerilla squad" into a "regular army" with a modern management system.

It was then that Jack Ma had a profound conversation with Zhang Ying. Their son was in elementary school and, neglected due to his parents' all-consuming focus on the company, had become addicted to online games, his grades plummeting. "One of us has to return to the family," Jack Ma told her. "If you stay with the company, with your abilities, you could do very well. But our family might fall apart, and our son would be ruined. The company can find another professional CEO, but our son's upbringing has only one mother."

The decision was undoubtedly difficult for Zhang Ying. She was Alibaba's "Mamar," one of its creators, with a deep, revolutionary bond with every member of the team. To give all that up meant abandoning the enterprise she had built with her own hands, transitioning from a comrade-in-arms to an "outsider." She would lose her title, her authority, and the chance to grow with the team.

But in the end, she once again chose to trust Jack Ma's judgment. Just as she had when she quit her teaching job, she decisively completed the resignation procedures, transforming from a formidable female entrepreneur back into a full-time homemaker. She started showing up at the wet market on time every day, meticulously preparing three meals for her son, helping him with his homework, and chatting with him. She applied the same energy and wisdom she used to run a company to managing this once-neglected home.

This choice was Zhang Ying's third, and most important, "investment" in Jack Ma and Alibaba. She was investing in the long-term stability of the company and the future of their family. She fully merged her own career ambitions into her husband's dream, supporting his ventures on the global stage by building a solid home front, free of worries.

Many years later, as people marvel at the business miracle of Alibaba, they tend to focus on Jack Ma's vision, Joseph Tsai's financial acumen, and Masayoshi Son's bold gamble. But the starting point of all these stories originates from the woman who, when everyone else said "no," firmly said "yes."

A startup partnership comes in many forms. There are strategic partners like Joseph Tsai, who bring capital and structure at critical moments, defining how far a company can go. There are executive partners like the "18 Arhats," whose skill and sweat determine how fast a company can run.

But there is another kind of partner, like Zhang Ying. She defined the very foundation of whether the company could survive at all. In the most fragile and hopeless moments, she provided not capital, but conviction; not strategy, but care. What she protected was the team's emotional capital, ensuring the ship wouldn't sink from internal storms before it found its course. Her retreat to the background was, in itself, a profound strategic decision, ensuring that the navigator could unburden himself from domestic worries and devote himself entirely to the vast, open sea.

Zhang Ying's story teaches us that the greatest founding partner is sometimes not the one pointing to the horizon from the bridge, but the one behind you, providing a bedrock of absolute trust, stabilizing the home front with endless care, and, at the most critical juncture, willing to sacrifice their own ambitions for the sake of a shared dream.

When the world doubts you, who is your last and strongest fortress?

The answer to that question, perhaps, defines how far you can ultimately go.