Alibaba’s history in 9 photos

In honor of Alibaba’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, today Alibaba posted a series of photos on its Weibo page that briefly tracks the company’s history. We’ve posted and translated a few choice clips below, including one showing Alibaba employees donning face masks during the 2003 SARS outbreak, and one showing founder Jack Ma taking a stroll with Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

In the fall of 1999, 18 young people gathered in a West Hangzhou apartment to start a business. They emptied their savings, pooled together RMB 500,000, and set forth to “create a global Chinese company” – Alibaba.

2000: China’s internet entrepreneurs meet at West Lake [as the first of what would become an annual gathering]. At the time, when if you asked, “What will life and the internet be like in the future?” The answer you’d receive was “We don’t know, but we hope to create it.”

2002: This year we finally made money! Our CFO giddily puts cash in an envelope for saving.

2003: Upon the SARS outbreak, Alibaba employees self-quarantined and worked from home. During this time, Taobao quietly launched. Amidst that era of determination and fearlessness, we remember May 10th as “Alibaba Day.”