Just under three years ago, Alibaba founder Jack Ma quoted China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in a speech to a finance conference in Shanghai. “Success isn’t up to me,” Ma said, a phrase Xi initially used to get officials to move away from short-term thinking and do more for the country’s long-term interests. Ma threw this quote back on regulators and state-owned banks who, he insinuated, were holding up the financial technology sector with their “pawnshop mentality.”
Ma is an icon in China’s tech industry, one of its most successful and recognizable figures at home and abroad. He was speaking weeks before Alibaba subsidiary Ant Group, owner of the world’s largest
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