Jack Ma, being the face of Alibaba, has become one of the most successful and well-known businessmen. It is to be noted that he is the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur who appeared on the cover of Forbes.
Here are the top ten craziest facts about Jack Ma that you probably don’t know yet –
1. Learned fluent English while guiding the foreign tourists:
From the age of 12, Jack Ma wanted to learn English. That’s why he started to guide tourists from foreign countries for free and learned English speaking by conversing with them. He continued doing this for 8 years.
2. He was an English teacher in the first stage of his career:
When he was assigned as an English teacher, he did not know much about computers except sending and receiving mails.
3. Jack Ma got to know the internet while building websites for Chinese companies:
The day when Jack Ma discovered himself into web, he invited his friends and TV people to drank, watch TV, and play cards. He could discover this when he started creating websites for Chinese companies.
4. Jack Ma increased the initial round of funding for Alibaba within 2 hours:
In 1999, 18 people gave their money to Jack Ma after meeting and listening to his words for two hours. Thus he collected almost $60,000 to start Alibaba. They again increased the second round of funding from Goldman Sachs after 6 months.
5. He had three reasons for success:
According to Jack Ma, they had to spend every dollar very carefully and there were three reasons behind it. They didn’t have anything among money, technology, or plan.
6. He was kidnapped on his first trip:
Jack Ma’s first trip was in 1995 to the U.S., and there he was sent to retrieve a debt for a friend from an American businessman. But that man deliberately pulled a gun on him and locked him in his house for two days.
7. Jack Ma was the only candidate who faced rejection from KFC:
Do you know that Jack Ma failed the college entrance exam twice? Also, he was rejected by Harvard almost ten times. And when he applied at KFC for a job, he was the only one who was rejected out of 24 applicants.
8. Jack Ma was one of Taobao’s first customers:
Taobao had no customers when it was first launched. So for getting things rolling and gaining confidence, the founder of Taobao and Jack Ma together bought and sold their own things.
9. Jack Ma is into martial arts, singing, and dancing:
Jack Ma has defeated some notable action stars, Donnie Yen and Jet Li using his martial arts skill. And apart from that, once he performed singing and dancing to pop songs at Alibaba’s company celebration.
10. Experimented with the name “Alibaba” in San Francisco:
On the streets of San Francisco, Jack Ma asked random people if they knew about Alibaba. All of them knew the story of Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, so it was not an uncommon name for them. Then Jack Ma thought that it would be good to keep this well-known name and also this name would be always on top as it was starting with “A”.