Alibaba Group was founded by Jack Ma and 17 co-founders in 1999.
The company began in Hangzhou, China, as Alibaba.com, a business-to-business marketplace connecting suppliers and buyers. Its name was chosen because it was recognizable internationally and associated with the story “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”
Alibaba later expanded through Taobao, Tmall, Alipay-related businesses, logistics, cloud computing, and digital media. The scale of its commerce platforms helped make it one of Asia's most valuable publicly traded companies by market capitalization.
Alibaba Group is not the same company as Amazon, although both operate major online retail businesses. Alibaba's platforms have historically emphasized marketplaces that connect merchants with consumers or businesses, while Amazon has also operated a large first-party retail business. Alibaba listed its shares in New York in 2014 in one of the largest initial public offerings at the time.