Born in Hangzhou, Jack Ma is one of those self-made billionaires with humble beginnings. He is the founder of the E-commerce giant Alibaba and is a stakeholder at Alipay, it’s sister company which is an e-payment portal.
In Jack’s early childhood, he always wanted to learn English. He spent his early mornings riding on his bike to a nearby park, giving English tours to foreigners for free. After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in English, he worked as an English teacher with a pay of $12 a month.
Jack Ma failed two of his initial ventures. But that didn’t stop him in any way of dreaming bigger. Overcoming the pain of rejections and treating rejections as opportunities to learn and grow was what Jack Ma made of it.
He persuaded 18 of his other friends to invest and join him in his new e-commerce startup – Alibaba. Initially, Alibaba didn’t had a single penny in investment from outside investors, but they later raised $20 Million from SoftBank and another $5 Million from Goldman Sachs in 1999. The company went on to grow rapidly, expanding all across the world, quickly growing out of its China shell.
Jack is now the richest man in China with an estimated net worth of $25 Billion, on the back of the recent world record $150 Billion IPO filing of his company. Given all of this, Jack Ma only holds a 7.8% stake in Alibaba and a 50% stake in Alipay.
Alibaba is now worth more than Facebook, and processes goods more than eBay and Amazon combined! Jack Ma has impacted the entire economy and internet industry of China.