How Tsai Went From Yale Lacrosse Fields to Alibaba Mega-Deals

At 4:30 a.m. on a May morning in Hong Kong, Joseph Tsai gathered with three other executives of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. With the U.S. stock market just closed, it was time to submit the Chinese e-commerce giant’s prospectus for an initial public offering -- likely to be the largest ever in the U.S.

As bottles of champagne awaited, each executive typed a word of the company name on a computer. All four then hit the send button, submitting the 340-page document that officially began the IPO process that will culminate in a few weeks.