When one of China’s richest men, Jack Ma, took to the stage dressed as Michael Jackson and pelvic-thrusted to the king of pop’s song Dangerous at his staff party in September, his performance went viral.

Ma, the founder of China’s biggest e-commerce platform, Alibaba, was a bit awkward but his legion of screaming fans – his 54,000 employees – raised the roof. They loved it because it revealed their boss’s vulnerable and human side.