code nor made one sale to a customer. He acquired a computer for the first time at the age of 33. From 1998 to 1999, Ma headed an information technology company established by the China International Electronic Commerce Center, a department of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. In 1999, he quit and returned to Hangzhou with his team to found Alibaba, a China-based business-to-business marketplace site in his apartment with a group of 18 friends. He started a new round of venture development with 500,000 yuan. In October 1999 and January 2000, Alibaba won a total of a $25 million foreign venture capital investment from Goldman Sachs and SoftBank. The program was expected to improve the domestic e-commerce market and perfect an e-commerce platform for Chinese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to address World Trade Organization (WTO) challenges. Alibaba became profitable three years later. Ma wanted to improve the global e-commerce system and from 2003 he founded Taobao Marketplace, Alipay, Ali Mama and Lynx. After the rapid rise of Taobao, eBay offered to purchase the company. However, Ma rejected their offer, instead gathering support from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang with a $1 billion investment. Alibaba IPO In September 2014, it was reported Alibaba was raising over $25 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange. Chair of Alibaba Group Ma served as executive chairman of Alibaba Group, which is a holding company with nine major subsidiaries: Alibaba.com, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall, eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Juhuasuan, 1688.com, AliExpress.com, and Alipay. In November 2012, Alibaba's online transaction volume exceeded one trillion yuan. Ma stepped down as the chief executive officer of Alibaba on 10 May 2013 but remained as the executive chairman of the corporation. , Ma is the owner of Château de Sours in Bordeaux, Chateau Guerry in Côtes de Bourg and Château Perenne in Blaye, Côtes de Bordeaux. On 9 January 2017, Ma met with United States President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower, to discuss the potential of 1 million job openings in the following five years through Alibaba's business interests in the United States. On 8 September 2017, to celebrate Alibaba's 18th year of establishment, Ma appeared on stage and gave a Michael-Jackson-inspired performance. He performed part of "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" at the 2009 Alibaba birthday event while dressed as a heavy metal lead singer. In