Alibaba Co-Founder Jack Ma to retire at age 54

According to a report, Alibaba co-founder and chairman Jack Ma plans to retire from his Chinese e-commerce firm to devote his time to philanthropy and focus on education.

Ma has told that he plans to step down from the company on Monday - his 54th birthday - referring to his departure as "the beginning of an era" rather than an end.

Born into a poor family in Hangzhou, eastern Zhejiang province, Ma became a university teacher but gave up the job after discovering the internet. After being knocked back by US venture capitalists in 1999, a cash-strapped Ma persuaded friends to give him USD 60,000 to start Alibaba, which operated out of an apartment in Hangzhou.

In an interview earlier he has hinted on his retirement plans, saying he wanted to follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He has quoted that he had learnt a lot from Bill Gates. He can never be as rich, but one thing he can do better is to retire earlier. Ma is among China's richest men with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $38.6 billion.

Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com in China are what Facebook and Google are in the United States. The Alibaba empire now spans well beyond online retail and payments to include cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, with a sterling revenue growth that jumped another 61 percent in the quarter ending June 30.

Ma is the first of his generation to retire so early. It is a rare move as business figures often run their empires well into their 80s -- Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing retired in May at the age of 89.