Jack Ma once said that he regretted going ahead with the Alibaba IPO because now he didn't have any time left for himself. People thought it was said tongue-in-cheek, but he was dead serious.
Jack is not your ordinary PRC Chinese. He believes in social responsibility and using his clout to help small businesses grow, that's why Alibaba is structured around helping its partners, associates and vendors grow rich. Already more than 10 billionaires have been nurtured under the Alibaba umbrella.
It is this heavy sense of responsibility to lift his people up – also shared by the more upright Chinese political leaders – that weighs him down and makes running the business such a drag.
Western entrepreneurs are different: they IPO, cash out, enjoy life, then decide in later years to do some philanthropy to assuage their guilt. They're operating in rich, highly developed societies, so the sense of noblesse oblige is not there, unlike in an emerging economy which is trying to lift millions out of poverty into the middle class.