Ali Baba and the 250 billion dollar

he earns more than Amazon and eBay combined. Has hundreds of millions of items for sale - including very strange things that are not anywhere else on the web. Meet the curious story of Alibaba: the Chinese giant who wants to swallow the internet.

Ali Baba, in the Arabian tale, is a poor woodcutter who gets rich by finding a treasure. 

In Chinese portal Alibaba, this treasure has sometimes weird faces.

 Him and its subdivisions can find frozen sea cucumber ($ 12 a pound), pears Buddha format ($ 10 for three), hair "young virgins" ($ 16 wick) - or a centrifugal to produce enriched uranium (USD 9000).

 Plus a mountain of counterfeit products: is about 800 million pirated items offered by 8 million Chinese sellers

. Last year, Alibaba topped $ 250 billion. It is more than Amazon and eBay added (and four times the annual revenue of Google).

 In cash terms, the Chinese portal is the largest internet site. 

This month, should put their actions for sale on the New York Stock Exchange. It is believed that the market value of the portal can overcome Facebook and IBM. 

The exact day of business is kept secret, but it is speculated that it could happen next August 8. Because eight in Chinese, pronounced "ba". Eight is August 8-8, or "ba-ba". As Alibaba. 

The pick of the day is an irreverent gesture, in the style of the company.

 In celebration of ten years of the Alibaba in 2009, 15 000 employees gathered in a stadium to celebrate and see shows of Chinese pop music.

 Until the stage opened and, wearing leather clothing, sunglasses and a wig with white hair to her waist and a big purple mohawk, the former university professor Jack Ma turned the spotlight.

 No one would say that there was the third richest man in China with a personal fortune of $ 10 billion. But the owner of Alibaba did after was even more bizarre: he sang the song from the movie Lion King, Can You Feel the Love Tonight, hand in hand with a Marilyn Monroe lookalike. Then, former President Bill Clinton attended the event via teleconference. 

This unlikely mix of things recalls the trajectory of Jack himself. Born in rural China, he met an American tourist as a child, was fascinated, and decided to go after other foreigners. Proceeded to go by bike to the hotel in the city, pedaling a half hour, only to find gringos and try to learn English. He did this every day for nine years, until he learned. Became teacher of the language, earning the equivalent of $ 12 per month. In 1995, got a job as a translator in a project and traveled to the USA, where he saw a computer for the first time and accessed the internet. Marveled. 

Returning to China, set up the first Internet company in the country: a website called China Pages, which listed the contacts of local businesses. But the communist government surprised. Many of the officers had never even seen a computer, and so many obstacles placed against the company of Jack, who eventually gave up. Four years later, in 1999, decided to try again. Gathered 17 friends and convinced him to work for free in the creation of Alibaba. At first, the site was facing trade between companies, negotiations with iron ore, machinery and equipment. It worked, but there was a problem. The site could not make money, since announcing it was (and still is) free. It was then that Jack had the idea that would become billionaire: charge to highlight the ads. Which was transformed into a giant Alibaba, which now has 24 000 employees. "He has no knowledge of technology, but its great quality is to assemble teams with people without experience, and motivate these people," says executive Porter Erisman, who spent ten years at the site, where he became vice president, and is the director of a new documentary about the company, Crocodile in the Yangtze ("Crocodile on the Yangtze", yet no version in Portuguese). The film is just one of dealing Alibaba - there are at least seven more concerning. 

Jack Ma is even an idol in China, where it is known for its ability to convince anyone of anything. This was vital to overcome a typical challenge there: the relationship with the authorities, who control the internet with an iron hand. "In China, no business survives if it has a friendly relationship with the government," says Fabro Steibel, professor of new technologies ESPM. Ma managed to convince communist leaders that Alibaba would be a good deal, which would generate foreign exchange for China. 

As it has grown, the site has also become more controversial - and typically Chinese way. Like any person or company can advertise in Alibaba, and there are hundreds of millions of products, it is difficult to know what is original and what is not. In China, counterfeiting also does not carry the stigma it has in the West. "A company can manufacture a copy of a product, or do it slightly differently, without this being regarded as piracy.'s A different way to address intellectual property," says Steibel. Alibaba declined to speak with SUPER, is claiming that the so-called quiet period (silent period), a rule imposed by the American authorities. When a company is about to go public on the stock exchange, it is forbidden to give interviews and talk to the press - not to give statements that may inflate the value of the shares. 

Officially, Alibaba prohibiting the sale of counterfeit goods, and there are cases of ads that have been deleted from the site because of it. The portal also created Tmall.com site, which is geared for the Chinese domestic market and only sell official products of famous brands such as Nike, Adidas, GAP, Apple and Ray-Ban. Another site created by the group is the AliExpress, that offers cheap items like clothes, cosmetics and electronic gadgets for the international market. He has version in Portuguese, and is popular with Brazilians - who are your clients the 3rd largest (just behind the Americans and Russians). The shipping is free, but the delivery is a problem: take months to arrive. It happened with the lawyer Andrea Araujo, who bought a blouse for $ 8 and only received after sending a complaint to the site. 

The seller sent an unfriendly response, on a broken English, saying she was being unfair. After a few months, the product arrived. Andrea says it will buy again. "It's so cheap it's worth," he says. 

compelling interest 

The new onslaught of Alibaba Group's Alipay, a service that acts as an intermediary for purchases and sales. It retains the money paid for the goods, and the delivery only to the seller after the buyer receives the product and confirm that everything is OK. More or less like MercadoPago and PagSeguro in Brazil, and PayPal, USA. Only the Chinese decided to go one step further. Took advantage of the popularity of AliPay to create an investment fund, the Bao Yu¿e (something like "left treasure" in Chinese), in which anyone can put their money with a few clicks. Worked very well: in just ten months 81 million invested in the Chinese fund, which already totals $ 92 billion and pays interest of 5.5% per year - far more than the 0.35% annual offered by banks. An irresistible deal. The success was so great that it led other Chinese Internet companies to create their own investment funds. And is irritating Chinese banks, who recently published an article advocating the government to impose rules to curb Yu¿e Bao. Alibaba may end up being embarrassed by its own success. Or, if your offering succeeds, consolidating its position as the fourth largest technology company in the world - behind only Apple, Google and Microsoft.