The English teacher whose job applications were rejected and found ugly is the person who wrote the biggest success story of e-commerce: Jack Ma

Jack Ma (aka Ma Yun) was born on September 10, 1964 in Hangzhou, southeast China. He has an older brother and younger sister. They grew up in a time when Communist China was isolated from the West, and her family was poor at that time.

Ma was one of those children who were called emaciated. He was constantly fighting with his classmates. “My big competitors have never frightened me,” says Ma. He loved to collect grasshoppers and make them fight. Moreover, he could tell the type and size of a grasshopper simply by listening to the sound it made.

After then-US President Richard Nixon visited Hangzhou in 1972, Ma's hometown turned into a tourist attraction. During his adolescence, he would get up early in the morning and go to the hotel in the city center and guide the tourists around the city. His income from this job was to learn English. The nickname "Jack" was given to him by one of the tourists he was friends with. Chinese people who associate with Westerners usually have two names: one is their original Chinese name given at birth. And the Western names they chose later on when establishing relationships with Westerners.

Education was the only way out for Ma, who had no money or relationships. After graduating high school, he wanted to apply to university. But he failed the university entrance exam twice. After a period of hard work, he finally passed the exam for the third time and enrolled in the Hangzhou Teaching College. As soon as he graduated from this school in 1998, he applied for all kinds of jobs.

Dozens of job applications were turned down before he got a job as an English teacher. Among those who refused is KFC. As a English teacher Ma loved his students and was passionate about his job.

Although Ma did not know how to use a computer, he was fascinated by seeing the Internet for the first time in his life during a trip to the USA in 1995. He had just set up a translation company and the purpose of his trip was to find a solution for the Chinese company's problem. The first word he searched for on the internet was "beer". He was very surprised to not see any Chinese beer names among the results listed. That's when he decided to establish an internet company in China.

Although he was unsuccessful in his first two attempts, he gathered 17 of his friends and founded "Alibaba", an internet marketplace 4 years later. This site allowed customers to shop directly with exporters. In a short time, the site attracted worldwide attention and gained members. By October 1999, the company was invested 5 million dollars by Goldman Sachs, and 20 million dollars by SoftBank, a Japanese telecom company investing in technology companies. “We will succeed because we are young and we will never, ever give up,” Ma said one day when he met with his team.

There has always been a sense of humor at Alibaba. When the company first started making profits, Ma handed out a bottle of Silly String (a kind of jelly-like spray paint) to all of its employees for their own fun. When their rival Taobao was formed in the early 2000s, Ma wanted the entire team to keep their energy levels high by doing handstands during breaks.

In 2005, Yahoo invested $1 million in Alibaba for a 40 percent stake. This was a big deal for Alibaba – they were trying to fight eBay in China at the time – and it was a huge win for Yahoo after that investment. As a result, Yahoo made $10 billion from Alibaba's IPO alone.

Ma stepped down as CEO in 2013, continuing his job as chairman of the board. Alibaba went public on September 19. In an interview with CNBC, Ma said: "We didn't make any money today. We have won the trust of people today," he said. The company's $150 billion IPO was the largest in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. This event also made Ma the richest person in China with a fortune of $25 billion.

Ma may have gotten super-rich thanks to the IPO, but he still hasn't had any crazy spending yet and still has some pretty modest hobbies. His close friend Xiao-Ping Chen says: "I don't think he's changed much, he's still the same as before." He likes to read and write kung fu novels, does meditation and tai chi. He even teamed up with Jet Li to spread tai chi, and he takes his tai chi teacher with him on all his travels.

When Ma's wife's family suffered from a disease thought to be caused by environmental pollution, Ma became interested in environmentalism. He joined the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy. It has also made a significant financial contribution to the conservation of 27,000 acres of wildlife in China.

Ma kept his family life out of sight. He married Zhang Ying, whom she met at school, in the late 80s, after graduating. “He wasn't a handsome man, but I fell in love with him because he was able to accomplish many things handsome men could never do,” says Zhang. He has a daughter and a son who is a college student at UC Berkeley.

Ma has a great reputation in China, and crowds come to listen to his speeches. The company also puts on talent shows every year, Ma knows how to entertain people. At one of the company's anniversary events, Ma dressed as a punk and performed for 20,000 Alibaba employees.

Where did the name Alibaba come from?

Naming the name "Alibaba" came to Ma's mind while sitting in a cafe in San Francisco. In the story "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", there was a password that allowed them to access the vast treasure. Ma's company also unleashed the potential of small and medium-sized companies to expand into the world, somewhat like in this story.

Jack Ma's 6 failures

Ma learned from these failures and wrote a success story:

1) Ma was not considered a successful student. In fact, he almost didn't even start middle school.

2) He got 1 out of 120 points in mathematics in the university exam!

3) It's not surprising, of course, that he was rejected by Harvard 10 times. Of course, the fact that he chooses this university in the first place every time is another detail.

4) After graduating from university, he applied for 30 different jobs and was rejected from all of them, one after the other. He even applied to become a police officer. But refusing to even meet him, they said three words to him: "You're not good enough."

5) He was the only candidate KFC rejected. Among 24 job applications, 23 people were accepted for the job. Ma was the only one to be rejected. The reason he was rejected was because he didn't look good and was short.

6) Failed to convince Silicon Valley to fund Alibaba.

As Ma said, “If you don't give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the biggest mistake.”