Iria

Hangzhou, China -- Jack Ma, diminutive and wispy, a boyish former English teacher, does not fit the mold of a man who would attract groupies. Yet he's constantly surrounded.

Ma has attained cult status as the most famous of an elite group in China -- the country's Internet entrepreneurs. The half-dozen or so men in their 30s hold sway over a booming, homegrown element of the world's fastest-growing economy.

Reporters hang on their words in hours-long news conferences and photographers wait all day to snap their photos. Investors from around the world abound and admirers clamor for just a word or two.

Only the appearance of former President Bill Clinton, widely beloved in China for pushing free trade, briefly stole the spotlight from the boundlessly energetic Ma and his fellow Internet company chiefs during a recent business gathering in Ma's hometown of Hangzhou, a sleepy Chinese tourist city and capital of the eastern Zhejiang province.
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Read More / Source: SFGate