JD.com founder lines up next goal: beating Alibaba

Dark Horse

Kathy Xu is a long-term believer.

"Richard has proven he has vision and capability of execution," said Xu, Liu's first major investor. "I'm very happy he will make all the decisions in the future."

"When I first met Richard it was eight years ago," said Xu. "We met at 10 p.m. and talked until 2 am. I felt like this was a dark horse," she said, anticipating a strong future for the then unfancied entrepreneur.

Liu still eschews the celebrity trappings of some of the country's more flamboyant tech entrepreneurs.

"My personal life is very simple. I don't have a ton of friends," said Liu, who describes himself as single-minded and devoted to his work. "I don't have a social circle of entrepreneurs, a social circle of people in entertainment, a circle for media."

In the future, Liu intends for JD.com to remain focused on its core business: e-commerce. This is another strategy that sets it apart from Alibaba, which has spent more than $3.4 billion since the beginning of the year on investments outside core e-commerce - including half a soccer club.

"I've never done movies, television and so on," said Liu, saying those sectors won't become investment targets. "We will continue to make some investments and do mergers and acquisitions. We mainly revolve around core services for all of e-commerce."

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