Friday morning, Alibaba officially began trading $92.70 a share, a fair amount more than its IPO price of $68 a share placing its market cap at nearly $230 billion. That value puts the company at a significantly higher market valuation than the company that it draws the most compaisons to, Amazon. It also puts in on par with Facebook, which also famously joined the $200 billion club in early September.

The $21.8 billion that the company raised in its public offering makes Alibaba the largets U.S. IPO of all time and further establishes the company as a giant in the stock market and the world of business. It can be found on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock ticker title, "BABA-US."

Jack Ma, the founder behind the Chinese ecommerce giant, was on hand for the historic stock exchange moment. Ma showed the thumbs up sign to onlookers as he kicked off the first day of trading for his company. Ma was formerly an English teacher before he became the richest man in China through the Internet while he was in Seattle almost 20 years ago.

Ma was all jokes and smiles to start the day, telling a CNBC reporter that one of his greatest heroes was Forrest Gump. When a bewildered reporter asked him if he knew that that was a fictional character he laughed and said, "I've been watching that movie for about ten times. Every time when I'm frustrated, I watch the movie. And I watched the movie before I came here.

When it came time to ring the bell signaling the start of the trading day, Ma chose to avoid the spotlight and watch from the sideline, allowing eight customers to rin the bell instead.

Alibaba topped a number of significant companies with its public offering of $21.8 billion. Facebook raised $16 billion and Visa raised $17.8 billion on their IPO. Before Alibaba, Visa's exchange put them at the title of biggest IPO in the history of the U.S.

Now the plan for the company is to use some of its IPO proceeds to lead its global expansion into the United States and Europe. Yahoo will also benefit from Alibaba's growth as they now have a 22.4% stake after an investment of $1 billion in 2005. Yahoo should be looking to make big acquisitions in the coming months.

Alibaba was founded under humble beginnings in 1999 by Ma and 18 friends in Ma's one-bedroom apartment. His goal was to change China through the Internet and offer a new platform for small businesses to earn a profit abroad.