Jack Ma is a one of the richest men in the world with a net-worth of 36 billion dollar which is approximately 13.9 trillion naira. Jack Ma didn’t gather all these money without stress, effort and failures. He was born on October 15, 1964, in Hangzhou, located in the southeastern part of China. He was born into a very poor family.
His real name is Ma Yun. Ma was not lucky as he struggled with life. He started school like every other kids in his neighborhood and also have hobbies. One of his hobbies when he was a kid was to collect crickets and make them fight. He was also able to distinguish the type and size by just their sounds.
Jack Ma was bullied in school but his notable character was his bravery. He recalled that he did get into fights in school and was not afraid of opponents bigger than him. During his high school days, president Richard Nixon who was the 37th president of U.S.A came to visit Jack Ma hometown- Hangzhou in 1972. This made his hometown famous during the time and soon it attracted tourist to the town. Jack Ma used the opportunity of the popularity of the town by waking up early to visit the city’s main hotel, offering visitors tours of the city in exchange for English lessons. From there, he learnt how to speak English. He was given the name Jack by a tourist who he dated back then.
He was able to gather money to go to college but unluckily for him, he failed his entrance exam twice. After studying hard the third time, he was able to pass his examination to attend Hangzhou Teachers Institute. After graduating, he began to search for jobs. This might be funny but it was unfortunate for him as he applied for over 30 job and went for over 23 interviews but was rejected. He also applied for Harvard 10 good times but was rejected. Jack said in one of his interviews,” I applied for Harvard, for 10 times, rejected.”
Not to forget, he also applied to KFC upon his degree but was rejected until he saw a teaching job at a local university that paid him twelve dollars a month. Ma had no experience with computer but was captivated by the internet when he used it for the first time during a trip to U.S in 1995. He revealed that his first search on the internet was “bear” but was surprised that no Chinese beer appeared in the search result.
This made him to found an internet company for China. Again, he failed in his first-two ventures. He later decided to gather seventeen of his friends and convinced them to invest in his vision for an online marketplace he called “ALIBABA”. The site allowed exporters to post product listings that customers could buy directly. Soon, big companies in the United States, China and Japan invested in his business. Among them is a big telecom company in Japan called Softbanks. With consistence and hard-work, he succeeded in the business and went further to found Alipay, Taoboa and many other companies.
Jack Ma story encourages the youths never to give up. Failure is a step you might have to pass through to succeed. I hope you are motivated with this touching story.
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