Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built (HarperCollins 2016), a book about Jack Ma and the Alibaba Group business empire he built, went on sale on Tuesday.

Author Duncan Clark, who has known Jack Ma for nearly two decades, shared his personal insights and experiences with Ma and other key figures who have contributed to the success of Alibaba at the Asia Society in New York on Wednesday.

Bobby Ghosh, managing editor of the online journal Quartz, and Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Society's Center on US-China Relations, were on hand for the discussion.

An international businessman, Clark has been based in Beijing since 1994, when he founded investment advisory firm BDA China.

In his book, Clark explores the foundations Alibaba was built on, with the rise of the private sector and proliferation of the Internet across China. He also explores the more personal story of Ma's childhood and how he overcame great obstacles to become one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs.

In just a decade and half, Jack Ma, a man who started out as an English teacher, has founded and built Alibaba into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire that literally hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend on.

Alibaba's $25 billion IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014 was the largest in history. In 2015, Alibaba's total value of goods transacted on the Nov 11 Singles' Day shopping festival reached $14.32 billion, a new record.

Today Alibaba plays an important role in China's economy as it shifts from a manufacturing-based model to a consumer-based economy and Ma has become an icon for China's booming private sector and the gatekeeper to hundreds of millions of moneyed middle class consumers.

Clark first met Ma in 1999 in the small apartment where Alibaba was founded. With access to a wealth of material, including exclusive interviews, Clark draws on his own experience as an early advisor to Alibaba.

Clark said there are a lot of interesting things to discover about China through the prism of Alibaba.

"There's the story of the Internet, but also the story of entrepreneurship in China, particularly the rise of the south of China — what I think of as the entrepreneurial side of China," he said, referring to East China's Zhejiang province, where Alibaba is headquartered.

Ma calls himself 100 percent made in China, since he didn't come to school in the US like many other Chinese international businessmen. Ma started his business in China and Clark thinks his "humble origins" have contributed to his success.

"In a way, Jack Ma wasn't a product of China but a blend of East and West," Clark said.

"He was not part of the system, he didn't even go to the top university. Jack was almost a left-behind man in China, yet he has the connection with the West," he said.

In the book, Clark recounts a little-known story of Ma's early friendship with an Australian pen-pal named David Morley and his father Ken, who helped Ma practice his English, sponsored him to travel to Australia at age 19 and even bought his first apartment for his marriage.

"It all goes back to the connection with the West," Clark said. "He is a joint venture of the East and West."

Clark examines Alibaba's relationship with the government and the powerful motivation it has brought to Chinese society.

"To create the capacity for his ambition to be realized, Ma has to basically push into the territory of the state," Clark said.

"For example, in finance, the Alipay asset (a major payment platform operated by Alibaba) that he has, it's much more than a PayPal but really a window for Chinese into a new world of customer service that they've never experienced in the banks, which have the attitude ‘Ai cun, bu cun' (You save, you don't save, whatever) in Chinese," Clark said.

"Since banks don't care about their customers, that's the opportunity for people like Jack," he added.

"It's an offered service and gives trust and gives choice, that's what Alibaba is about, and what its website delivered. So that's helping the government to some extent as China moves away from the ‘Made in China' model of the past, with the associate pollution, excess inventory and trade disputes, to a consumer China," he said.

"He is an incredible representative of a part of China, which he represents so well," said Orville Schell. "He is very dynamic, globalized, speaks foreign languages, comfortable in his own skin."