As artificial intelligence reshapes traditional career paths, more people—especially Gen Z—are turning to entrepreneurship in hopes of becoming their own bosses. But according to Joe Tsai, cofounder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, anyone serious about launching a company should be prepared to sacrifice hobbies and family time.
“As a startup, you’re not gonna go home very much… this work–life balance is not gonna be something you should be focused on,” Tsai told students at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business earlier this month.
But the long hours won’t feel as difficult, he added, if entrepreneurs choose the right founding team—people you’d be OK spending “24/7 with.”
One simple test for evaluating a potential cofounder is whether you’d feel comfortable with them outside of the office. “Do you wanna go out and have a beer with this person after work? I think that’s the first test,” Tsai said.
Successful founding teams also need complementary skills, Tsai added. For him, that was being financially savvy. He served as chief financial officer for about 14 years, beginning in 1999. He later transitioned to become executive vice president in 2013 and company chairman in 2023.
Joe Tsai says he learned ‘a lot of things’ from Jack Ma about building the right team
The importance of working with the right people—those invested in both your personal growth and the success of the business—applies at every stage of a career.
“Find the people first,” Tsai said, advising job seekers to look for partners, mentors, and colleagues they can learn from—not just the right role or title.
He pointed to the most well-known Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma, as an example. Not only was he a close friend and business partner, but also a mentor who shaped Tsai’s early career.
“He’s taught me a lot of things, and I felt like I could learn a lot from him,” Tsai said.
Learning from his fellow cofounders became a defining part of Tsai’s early experience at Alibaba—especially because he entered the company as somewhat of an outsider.
Of Alibaba’s 18 cofounders, Tsai was the only one not from mainland China. Born in Taiwan and educated at Yale University, he joined the company as a lawyer and investor rather than a technologist or serial entrepreneur.
Because of that, Tsai said he didn’t see his C-suite role as needing to direct others in the early days. Instead, he focused on listening—a mindset he said is essential for anyone starting a new job.
“You have to bring a sense of humility to the work,” Tsai said. “There’s gonna be people—your colleagues, your partners—that are smarter than you are (and who) can teach you a lot.”
Fortune reached out to Alibaba for further comment.
Finding the right job will make work feel just like life—just ask Jack Ma and Warren Buffett
Tsai’s advice echoes a broader belief shared by many prominent business leaders: once you find the right job—and the right people—work feels less like it’s something that needs to be balanced.
Ma has argued that even demanding schedules can feel manageable if the work is meaningful. In 2019, he defended the rigorous Chinese “996” work schedule—on the clock from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., six days a week.
“If you find a job you like, the 996 problem does not exist—if you’re not passionate about it, every minute at work is torture,” Ma wrote in a post on Weibo.
A similar idea has been echoed by longtime Berkshire Hathaway leader Warren Buffett, who has said that career satisfaction depends heavily on the people you work alongside. Buffett famously spent decades running his company alongside his close friend, the late Charlie Munger.
“Who you associate with is just enormously important, and don’t expect you’ll make every decision right on that,” Buffett said in his final shareholder meeting last year. “You’re going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.”
