These 3 trends will define your future, says Jack Ma

'The next 30 years are critical for the world'
Image: World Economic Forum / Greg Beadle
Stay up to date:
Future of Work
In a one-on-one interview on the second day of Davos, Alibaba founder Jack Ma gave his take on a wide range of global issues, from the backlash against globalization and the incoming Trump administration, to the prospects of a trade war between China and the US (it will never happen, he said) and the future of jobs.
He even let slip his favourite film (it’s Forrest Gump).
At the very end of the interview, Ma told the audience that he had one last piece of advice to share – what our priorities should be for the next three decades.
Accept our marketing cookies to access this content.
These cookies are currently disabled in your browser.
“The next 30 years are critical for the world,” he said. “Every technological revolution takes about 50 years.” In the first 20 years, we witnessed the rise of technology giants like eBay, Facebook, Alibaba and Google. This is “good”, Ma said, but now we need to focus on what comes next.
“The next 30 years,” should be about handling “the implications of this technology,” he argued.

“The most important thing is to make the technology inclusive – make the world change. Next, pay attention to those people who are 30 years old, because those are the internet generation. They will change the world, they are the builders of the world.
“Third, let’s pay attention to the companies who have fewer than 30 employees. So, 30 years, and 30 years old, and 30 employees, that way we can make the world much better.”
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Related topics:
Forum Stories newsletter
Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.
More on Economic GrowthSee all
Maciej Kolaczkowski
February 27, 2025
David Elliott
February 26, 2025
Andrew Collinge and Katie Adnams
February 26, 2025
Moustoifa Hassani Mohamed and Ratnakar Adhikari
February 26, 2025
Fernando J. Gómez, Derek Keddy and Sebastian Reiter
February 25, 2025