(Baonghean.vn) - Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, is currently one of the self-made billionaires admired by the whole world. How did he "overcome poverty" to build up today?
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| Jack Ma was born on October 15, 1964 in Hangzhou, Southeast China. He has 1 older brother and 1 younger sister. His family was not rich, if not poor. |
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| Since childhood, Jack Ma had a small, skinny appearance and a hyperactive nature, so he often fought with his classmates. Recalling this, Ma once said: "I was never afraid of opponents who were bigger than me." |
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| Alibaba’s founder’s birth name is Ma Yun, not Jack Ma. In 1972, after then US President Richard Nixon visited Hangzhou, it immediately became a famous tourist destination. At that time, Jack Ma was just a teenager but already realized the importance of English. He often went to the city’s big hotels to get to know foreign tourists and learn English from them. The nickname “Jack” was also given to him by a foreign friend. |
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| After graduating from college in 1988, Jack Ma was rejected from 30 different jobs, and was even the only one out of 24 applicants to be rejected by KFC. He then returned to Hangzhou University and worked as an English teacher for $12 a month. |
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| The turning point in Jack Ma's life probably began when he went to Seattle, USA in 1995. Here, he had his first contact with the Internet, his first search keyword was "beer" and Ma was surprised and disappointed when no Chinese beer appeared in the results. From there, Jack Ma had the idea of establishing an Internet company in China. |
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| Borrowing from friends and connections from his time as an interpreter, Jack Ma had about $2,000 in hand and started a company specializing in providing online directory services called China Yellow Page. After this initial success, he always thought of further goals and in 1999, Alibaba was born. |
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| In Hangzhou, he came up with the idea and convinced 17 of his friends to pool their money to establish Alibaba with $60,000. Soon, the company's services attracted members from all over the world. |
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| Jack Ma decided to use Alibaba as the company name because it was known to almost the whole world. He wanted users to feel like they were opening a treasure trove when they visited his website. However, the domain name Alibaba.com was already registered, Jack Ma had to spend 10,000 USD, a huge amount for him at that time, to buy it. |
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| Alibaba barely made a profit in its first three years. But Jack Ma was persistent in convincing investors to invest in what he believed was the right path. In 2003, he convinced a Japanese partner named Softbank Corp to invest $20 million to open Taobao.com, one of the largest online shopping websites in the world today. |
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| In 2005, Jack Ma decided to exchange 40% of his shares in Alibaba for a controlling stake in Yahoo in China. After the IPO, he once again successfully convinced Yahoo to sell all of its shares in the group. |
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| Jack Ma said that from the early days of his company, he always wanted to bring a comfortable but effective working atmosphere to his company. He encouraged his employees to plant banana trees to "come up with more breakthrough ideas". |
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| Jack Ma’s company often organizes talent shows and he always shows himself to be a “multi-talented artist”. At a company anniversary event, Ma even dressed up as a “real” rock singer and performed his heart out in front of 20,000 employees. |
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| Jack Ma loves practicing Tai Chi and often uses it as a philosophy in business. He says: “Keep calm, and you will soon find a way out. Competition has many interesting things. Business is not a battlefield.” He often sets aside a certain amount of time each day to meditate and practice Tai Chi to regain balance after stressful working hours. |
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| Jack Ma holds a 7.8% stake in Aliaba, but owns nearly 50% of Alipay – the online payment platform of Alibaba Group. Alipay currently holds 70% of the market share in China and has up to 400 million users with 70 million payments made every day. |
Peace
(Synthetic)
