Jack Ma” China richest man was rejected by Harvard 10 times and failed 30 company interviews. He even applied a job at KFC with 29 others, and all of them were selected except him.
Finally, he created Alibaba and became the richest man in China with a $38 billion fortune.
Here is his Life’s crazy inspirational story proving ‘Persistence always Pays’
He learned English as a child but not from School.
– Jack Ma grew up in a modest family. His parents were traditional Chinese storytellers. He was academically poor but fascinated by English.
– So, he stared listening to radio broadcasts and offered free tours to foreigners at the Hangzhou Hotel in exchange for English lessons. He would travel 40 minutes to reach tourist’s hotel to give tours and learn english.
– One of the foreigners he met gave him the nickname Jack which he is still using.
– 2. His first job was as an English Teacher.
– After he graduated from Hangzhou University with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1988, Ma was the only one chosen out of 500 students to be a university teacher.
– It was a stroke of good luck, and it was probably an honour. During his stint as an English teacher, he was earning somewhere between $12 to $15 a month only .
– He spent a total of five years teaching before he moved on to other things, including but not limited to starting his own businesses.
3. He never stopped even after rejections.
– He applied over and over again to the Harvard university until he was rejected a total of 10 times. However In 2002, he gave a speech in Harvard where he was called a “mad man” for his way of managing Alibaba.
– After leaving his Teaching job, One of the 30 jobs he set his eyes on was a local KFC branch, but he was rejected by the fast-food restaurant. and he was the only applicant who was rejected out of 24 candidates.
– After that, he went on to pursue his own business, which was a small-time translation and interpretation company.-
4. He finally started his first own business (not Alibaba).
– In 1995, Jack visited the United States and a friend of his showed the internet to him then, and the first search inquiry he made was on Yahoo for the keyword “beer.”
– During that time, he found out that there wasn’t any data of China on the internet, and so he got the idea to launch his first big business called China Yellow Pages after seeing the potential of the online space.
– Jack returned to China and founded China Pages, which struggled to gain traction. Undeterred, he continued to pursue his vision of leveraging the internet for business, leading him to explore new ideas and opportunities in the emerging tech landscape.-
– 5. He Was once Kidnapped and almost Killed.
– During Ma’s first visit to the U.S., he was sent to retrieve a debt for a friend from an American businessman but things turned sour when the American allegedly pulled a gun on Ma, held him in his house, and tried to strong-arm him into cutting a deal.
– After some time, the two went to Las Vegas where the businessman had an appointment with some other businessmen from China. There, Ma got lucky on the slot machines with what little money he had left and won $600. He then used his winnings to purchase a plane ticket back to Seattle.
6. He finally started working on Alibaba.
– He went with his model of Alibaba to about 40 Investors and got rejected, Finally he got some funding and started working. Alibaba was not able to earn even a single dollar in the first 3 months.
– The focus was put towards improving the product and continuous learning cycles. Today, the company serves more than 79 million members from more than 240 countries and territories.
– Alibaba was named after the story – “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” of hidden treasures. He said “People from India, people from Germany, people from Tokyo and China … They all knew about Alibaba.” Here is his first speech and pitch he made for Alibaba :
Truly it’s inspiring how after so many failures, a ton of them where most people would quit. He never backed out and today is – one of the richest people in the World.
7. He has been practising Tai Chi Martial Arts since 1998.
– Jack even applies tai chi, with a mix of Taoism and Buddhism, to the way he manages his company.
– He says, “In Taoism, the best leadership is not leading at all … No teachers want their students to fail. So I never steal the spotlight from newly hired young people. If someone warns me about an employee who is trying to overstep me, I reply that I’m a teacher and that’s the way it should be.”
– He’s even starred in a movie called Gong Shou Dao<, which translates to “the art of attack and defense.” In the film, he’s working with big names such as Jet Li and Donnie Yen, and he showcases his tai chi there.
8. He loves to sing and dance and does it by heart.
– At Alibaba’s company celebration events throughout the years, Ma has dressed up in outlandish costumes and performed by singing and dancing to pop songs.
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