Jack Ma: 14 Amazing Facts About Alibaba's Co-Founder
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He Was Rejected For A Job Application At KFC
Right after leaving behind his five-year career as an English teacher in 1995, Ma started his search for other opportunities.
One of the 30 jobs he set his eyes on was a local KFC branch in Hangzhou, but he was rejected by the fast-food restaurant. To add insult to injury, he was the only applicant who was rejected out of 24 candidates. In other words, the other 23 people who applied got in, and Ma was the only person who didn’t get hired.
After that, he went on to pursue his own business, which was a small-time translation and interpretation company.
He Started Out As An English Teacher, Earning $12 To $15 Per Month
After he graduated from Hangzhou Teachers University – now known as Hangzhou Normal 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 honor. During his stint as an English teacher, he was earning somewhere between 100 to 120 Renminbi a month. At the time, that was equivalent to roughly about $12 to $15.
He spent a total of five years teaching before he moved on to other things, including but not limited to starting his own businesses.
He Learned English By Giving Visitors Tours Free Of Charge For 8 Years
When he was 12 years old, Ma had a strong desire to learn the English language.
To do that, he would give foreigners tours for free, riding his bicycle during the early hours of each morning to a hotel in Hangzhou that’s at least 40 minutes away.
He would then improve his English by conversing with the visitors as they go through the tours. Not only that, but he also learned “Western people’s system, ways, methods and techniques.” In that, he developed a globalized view, which was in conflict with what his teachers and studies taught him.
This went on for eight years.
He Flunked His University Application To Hangzhou Teachers' University Not Once, But Twice
With billionaires such as Gates and Zuckerberg dropping out of Harvard University, it’s easy to mistake Ma as following in their footstep.
The thing is, his story didn’t go like that at all. He flunked his university admission exam at Hangzhou Teachers University two times. In an interview with Inc., he even said that the university could be considered as the worst in the city.
What’s more, he wasn’t really a good student to begin with.
"I failed a key primary school test two times, I failed the middle school test three times, I failed the college entrance exam two times and when I graduated, I was rejected for most jobs I applied for out of college,” he said.
Needless to say, Ma didn’t let his failures stop him or slow him down on his way to success.
He Was Rejected By Harvard 10 Times
During the World Economic Forum 2015, Ma revealed that he was rejected by Harvard University.
For most people, one rejection is enough to stop them, but that wasn’t the case for Ma. He applied over and over again to the university until he was rejected a total of 10 times.
"I applied for Harvard ten times, got rejected ten times and I told myself that ‘Someday I should go teach there,’" he said.
In 2002, he gave a speech in Harvard where he was called a “mad man” for his way of managing Alibaba by a CEO of a foreign company, whose mind was changed after Ma invited him for a three-day stay at his business.
Ma earned his Master of Business Administration degree or MBA from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business.
He Was Rejected For A Job Application At KFC
Right after leaving behind his five-year career as an English teacher in 1995, Ma started his search for other opportunities.
One of the 30 jobs he set his eyes on was a local KFC branch in Hangzhou, but he was rejected by the fast-food restaurant. To add insult to injury, he was the only applicant who was rejected out of 24 candidates. In other words, the other 23 people who applied got in, and Ma was the only person who didn’t get hired.
After that, he went on to pursue his own business, which was a small-time translation and interpretation company.
He's No Techie. He Saw His First Computer In 1995 When He Was 31 Years Old
Even though Alibaba is focused on technology, AI, and the like, Ma isn’t exactly literate in tech.
The first time he ever saw a computer was in 1995 during a trip to Seattle as an interpreter. 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.
His First Big Business China Yellow Pages Failed
After he returned home to China, he started China Yellow Pages, borrowing money from a relative and using his life savings to secure $2,000 to get it off the ground.
On the day his business was going to launch, he had friends and folks from TV stations over to his house to showcase his website. However, he had a dial-up connection then, and it took three and a half hours to load just half of the webpage. While it didn’t go completely according to plan, it was still an important event where he had proven to his peers that the internet was something that existed.
Even though China Yellow Pages was considered as the first internet-based company in China, it didn’t work out in the end.
He's Still No Techie
While it’s been years since Alibaba launched, Ma still isn’t that well versed in technology – at the very least, that dates back to 2010.
In September 2010, American TV journalist Charlie Rose interviewed Ma. Then, the Chinese business magnate revealed that he doesn’t know anything about technology, saying that he was trained to be a high school teacher.
“Actually now I’m not involved in technology. I’m involved in entrepreneurship … The only thing I can use my computer is to send and receive email and browse. That’s it,” he said.
From the look of things, that didn’t hinder the development of his technology-based company Alibaba, though.
He Was Kidnapped And Almost Killed During His First Trip To United States
Aside from traveling to the United States on business as an interpreter, he also went to Malibu, California, to recover money from an American businessman for a friend.
However, when he asked the businessman in question for the money, he was threatened with a handgun and was locked up for two days in the man’s home.
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.
It's Called Alibaba Because Of Ali Baba
If Alibaba sounds familiar, that’s because it’s from a popular children’s story, one that’s among the series of Middle Eastern folktales called One Thousand and One Nights.
The story Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves had a character named Ali Baba, who used the magical phrase “open sesame” to unlock doors and find an abundance of hidden treasures.
It’s said that the hero of the story inspired Ma to use the name Alibaba for his company, which has an international appeal.
“People from India, people from Germany, people from Tokyo and China … They all knew about Alibaba … Alibaba is not a thief. Alibaba is a kind, smart business person, and he helped the village. So … easy to spell, and global know. Alibaba opens sesame for small- to medium-sized companies,” he said.
His Wife Doesn't Think He's Handsome
Ma’s wife Zhang Ying met him while they were still in college studying to be English teachers. After graduation, they got married.
“Ma Yun [Jack Ma] is not a handsome man, but I fell for him because he can do a lot of things handsome men cannot do,” she said about her husband.
When Ma quit teaching and put his efforts to China Yellow Pages, Zhang continued to be a teacher. Eventually, she became Alibaba’s “political commissar.” She was tasked with cooking for clients and doing odd errands. Sooner or later, she became Alibaba’s general manager. After that, she stepped down and focused on taking care of their children after Ma asked her to.
One takeaway here is that the two of them have been together since the very beginning, all the way back to their university days.
He Told Her Wife How Much Money Alibaba Made In An Interesting Way
On an interesting note, Ma told his wife how much money the company had made in a peculiar way.
The conversation between the two went something like this:
When Ma’s wife asked him about it, he only raised a finger in response.
“Ten million yuan ($1.6 million)?” she asked him.
“No,” Ma said.
“A hundred million yuan ($16 million)?” she asked next.
“No,” Ma said again.
“One million yuan ($160,000) …” Ma told his wife to her disappointment, but then he added, “a day.”
This conversation happened after a couple of years when Alibaba was launched, which was on its way to turning into the huge company that it is today.
He's A Tai Chi Practitioner
Ma is a practitioner of tai chi. He has been studying this form of martial arts since 1988.
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.
More than that, the billionaire even applies tai chi, with a mix of Taoism and Buddhism, to the way he manages his company.
“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 Loves Showbiz And Dogs Most Of All, And He Also Loves 'Forrest Gump'
Ma’s parents were performers at heart, and it’s not surprising to see that he’s inherited that passion from them.
Case in point, Ma performed The Lion King onstage during Alibaba’s 10th anniversary. That’s not all either. During the company’s 2017 anniversary, he wore a Michael Jackson getup and performed to “Billie Jean” and Beyoncé’s “Formation” with a group of backup dancers.
He also has an Alsatian named Apollo, whom he loves very much.
Last but not least, he idolizes Forrest Gump. The two share something similar where they both didn’t do so well in school but managed to be successful in life.
"I've been watching that movie about 10 times. Every time when I'm frustrated I watch the movie. I watched the movie before I came to New York," he said.
