A Tale of Triumph against all Odds

A poor boy who was weak in studies, faced several failures and rejections for more than a decade. He graduated at age 25. He founded Alibaba group at age 31. And became successful at age 42. He changed his fate from a rejected boy to a powerful entrepreneur by rising like a phoenix after setbacks. Jack Ma was born as a Ma Yun on September 10, 1694, in China and comes from a humble family. He faced a difficult childhood and struggled academically that led to a lot of failures and rejections. Jack Ma failed in his primary school examinations 2 times and failed 3 times during his middle school exams. He even applied to Harvard University 10 times and got rejected every single time. Jack tried and failed to get a job after applying to them 30 times.

When KFC came to China, 24 people applied for a job. 23 people were accepted. Jack Ma was the only guy who was rejected. 5 people applied for a job in the police and Jack Ma was the only one rejected for not being good. He worked as a tourist guide in the early 1970s to practice his English communication and earn some money. He failed 2 times before he was accepted by what was considered as a third grade university in his city. After spending 3 years getting into a university, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in english. Jack Ma started working as an English teacher with a pay of only 12 dollar per month. In 1995, he had his first encounter with the internet when he went to the United States with his friends and he was fascinated. He saw the lack of Chinese websites as an amazing business opportunity for him. So, with no experience in coding or in computers, he founded an internet company for China.