Jack Ma at AsiaD: Money is Not the Problem, Yahoo Just Needs to Say Yes

Jack Ma being interviewed this morning at AsiaD in Hong Kong. (Image source: AllThingsD)

Jack Ma’s onstage interview at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong has just come to an end, which gave the Alibaba Group founder and CEO a chance to air some of his views on recent issues, such as the prospective purchase of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), and the virtual protest by some small businesses on his Tmall.com B2C platform.

In effect, Mr Ma didn’t say too much that was new, but it was good to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

Here’s what Ma had to say this morning on a number of key issues (to use the actual quotes from AllThingsD):

On Yahoo…

If the board is willing to sell [Yahoo], I’m interested. They’ve just got to let us know.

We’ve been working with Yahoo for years to buy a portion of them or buy them out. Money is not the problem. The problem is what Yahoo wants to do.

But Jack Ma conceded that they’re just waiting for the board to say something, and that his own mind is set on this issue. He went on to say that he doesn’t know what the Yahoo board is pondering. On why Yahoo is so important to the industry…

Without Yahoo, I wouldn’t have started my Internet business.

Ma said that he’d bring in new management if he were in charge of Yahoo, but declined to name a sort of dream team for the job.

As a final word on the speculation, Ma initially joked, “I didn’t know we were so important;” before then saying, “Definitely, we are the main driving force.”

On China and business…