The story of Jack Ma is a sure rag to riches story. Jack Ma was born to parents who were really struggling to make ends meet yet from a very young age, the little boy had a belief that everything was possible. Growing up from a humble background he met several hurdles along the way to get to where he is today. Jack Ma’s story is one that is riddled with many hurdles that fainthearted people would find impossible to even imagine let alone fathom. His ultimate success can be attributed to commitment and dedication to what he believed in.
Who is Jack Ma?
Jack Ma is the brain behind Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, he also a stakeholder in Alipay, a sister company to Alibaba. Alipay is an e-payment portal that Ma holds nearly half of the shares in. At one time he was the richest person in China he has however, slipped to the second place in 2019. Alibaba made history with its biggest IPO filling with a record $150 billion but interestingly Jack Ma only holds a 7.8% stake in the company.
The humble beginnings of Jack Ma
Jack Ma had his early beginnings in communist China back in the 60s when poverty was widespread in the country. He grew up in China’s South Eastern town of Hangzhou. His father was a musician storyteller who made meager earnings from his work. Jack has two other siblings who he grew up together with.
Jack took advantage of the booming tourist industry at his hometown in which he worked as a tour guide in exchange for English lessons.
In school, he had to contend with failing his primary school examination not once but twice. Failure did not leave him even in his middle school endeavors as he failed three times! He managed to finish his high school education and enrolled for university but also failed his university three times. He tried to apply for enrollment at the Harvard University 10 times but was rejected.
In his third attempt at applying for university admission, he got accepted into a university that was regarded as the worst in his city. He would later graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English from the Hangzhou Teacher University. He was studying to be a high school English teacher. At one time he was elected to be the university’s students chairman and he later became the chairman of Hangzhou Student Federation.
Jack Ma ultimate success
Jack visited the USA in 1995 and for the first time he got introduced to the internet and computers. When he made searches for different countries, he was appalled to find big countries in his search results but not China, his home country. He realized that there was huge business potential for him on the internet bearing in mind that China had reached the 1 billion people population mark by that time.
He later went on to found Alibaba, an e-commerce platform where millions of products are sold not just in China but throughout the world. He is now one of the richest people in the world!
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Itzel Najar says
Thanks for sharing this!!!
cool post!
https://www.itzytrendy.com/2021/02/white-cowgirl.html
Tiffany says
What an amazing story! I really like that store too so it’s great to know the man behind it.
Carrie @ Curly Crafty Mom says
This is such an inspirational story, thank you for sharing!
Carrie
curlycraftymom.com