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I waited tables in New York, and when you're in that line of work, you often have a horrible boss.

Never sit at a table you can't walk away from.

There are a lot of people who wait tables. And especially because you can do it at night and you can do your work in the day, she and I had a very similar experience.

In the beginning I just wanted to survive. For the first three years, we made zero revenue. I remember many times when I was trying to pay up, the restaurant owner would say, 'Your bill was paid.' And there would be a note saying, 'Mr. Ma, I'm your customer on the Alibaba platform. I made a lot of money, and I know you don't, so I paid the bill.'

There are certain times you realize you've got too much money. One was when I started getting bills from the Koi hotel. When I was remodeling the Koi pond, the Koi had to go to the Koi hotel. They ended up staying there for 13 months and I never asked what the bill was.

I always ignore money.

There are so many of us that just do things to pay bills, but I never wanted that to be me.

When you get something for nothing, you just haven't been billed for it yet.