Alibaba to Hold the Largest IPO Ever & Other News You Can't Miss Today

ROADSHOW – The Chinese Internet giant Alibaba starts its roadshow today for what will likely be the largest IPO ever, both by amount raised – the goal is $24.3 billion – and valuation – up to $162.7 billion, about as much as its Western rival Amazon. Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma will speak to investors throughout the US for the next 10 days before trading starts later this month. Ma's philosophy, he wrote ina letter to investors, is "Customers first, employees second, and shareholders third." While that's not what Wall Street typically likes to hear, it has worked for Amazon. Jack Ma is of the long-term school of CEOs, with an avowed goal to build a company that will last into the next century. "Ma would rather accept a potentially lower market valuation and retain control of his company," writes Influencer Steve Tappin in a must-read post analyzing the upcoming IPO. Of Ma's leadership style, he adds:

Ma has a social conscience, commenting, “We do not do business for survival, we are trying to positively impact the world. Society has given me so much, too much. What I can do is repay society.” His humble origins shape his guiding mission, as he reflects, “Others can imitate my management model, but they can never endure the hardships I have experienced, nor have my passion persistently to push forward.” (Read the full post.)

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YES PLEASE – What to outside observers might have seem a quaint, distant political squabble got very real over the weekend, as for the first time a poll showed Scotland voting yes to independence on Sept 18. The YouGov survey showed the Yes vote winning 51-49, with a 4 percent margin of error and 8 percent of undecided voters, so secession is by no means assured. Still, the Yes vote has gained considerable ground in August, as this YouGov graph shows.

The pound sterling fell to its lowest level since November on the news. The future of the currency has been a big part of the debate: Scotland's first minister has said the country, if independent, would keep using the sterling, while the three main political parties in London have said they wouldn't allow it.

"This is a huge deal when you consider the size of the financial services industry which is a large part of their economy and their biggest bank RBS is backed by the Bank of England (founded by a Scot no less!) and owned by the U.K. government," Angus Campbell, a senior analyst at FxPro, a trading platform, wrote in a note last week. (As quoted by USA Today)

The Guardian's Katie Allen looks at all possible options here and her colleague Larry Elliott looks at the economic prospects of an independent Scotland.

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NO THANKS – Free-pizza-for-your-signature won't convince them: more than six out of 10 millennials don't have a credit card, according to a new Bankrate.com study. That's nearly double the rate of adults over 30. Let's look at the study: one reason could be that you're looking at a disparate age group, 18 to 30, and that 18-year-olds rarely are financially independent or even think about these things. But another big reason is that millennials are wary of debt (pardon the generalization). Having grown up or graduated in the financial crisis and the student loan crisis, they saw their parents lose sleep, or even their home, to unmanaged credit and – who can blame them? – have a deeply seated mistrust of institutions, especially banks. So they prefer the safe haven of debit cards, which ensure you don't spend more than you should. While the strategy seems wise, it also means these Millennials are not building a credit history, which they'll need in the future to get a small business loan or a mortgage. That is, if they even want one – homeownership is too an outgoing value.

Have you given up on credit cards? Want to share your view from Scotland? If you have insider knowledge of these or other topics in the news today, write your own post explaining what's happening. Share the URL here in the comments mentioning me or tweet with the mention "Tip @LinkedInPulse."

Photo: JD Lasica/Flickr