NEW YORK: In his long road to riches, Alibaba founder Jack Ma says his inspiration has been the film character "Forrest Gump."
"I like that guy. I've been watching that movie about 10 times," Ma said in an interview with CNBC as his Chinese online firm made its historic Wall Street trading debut on Friday.
"Every time I get frustrated, I watch the movie."
Ma said the lesson he learned from the blockbuster featuring Tom Hanks was "that no matter whatever changed, you are you. I'm still the guy I was 15 years ago (when I earned) $20 a month."
Ma became excited about the Internet during a visit to the United States in 1995 and wanted to find a way to bring the online world to China. In 1999, he convinced friends to give him $60,000 to start an e-commerce firm called Alibaba.
Fifteen years later, the company is an Internet giant and Ma -- a former English teacher -- is among the topmost ranks of China's super-rich, with wealth estimated at $11 billion by Forbes magazine.
Alibaba Group includes Tmall.com for business-to-consumer transactions and Taobao, China's most popular online consumer marketplace with hundreds of millions of products and services listed.
Ma, now 50, gave up his university teaching job after discovering the Internet.
Seeing an opportunity for small businesses to buy and sell their goods online, he started Alibaba, initially running the company out of his apartment in the eastern city of Hangzhou.
"The first time I used the Internet, I touched the keyboard and I find 'well, this is something I believe, it is something that is going to change the world and change China,'" Ma said in a CNN interview.
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