Perhaps now the most famous Chinese man in the world who has already left far behind the now rarely starring Jackie Chan and is selected by recognition to comrade Xi. To finally gain a foothold in our minds, last year he starred in a kungfu film as a master of Taijiquan. Jackie Ma created the world's largest e-commerce company with a market capitalization of about $ 231 billion. On September 8, 2018, he announced that he was retiring and would now engage in teaching and charity work.
early years
Ma Yun was born, this is the real name of Jackie Ma, on October 15, 1964 in a poor family of musicians in Hangzhou in southeast China. He has an older brother and a younger sister. He did not study very well; several times failed exams in primary and secondary schools and entrance exams to college.
Ma's childhood came at a time when the United States began to cooperate with China. In 1972, US President Richard Nixon visited his hometown. The country began to open up, foreigners began to come a lot, and a boy at the age of 12 decided to learn English. Over the next eight years, Ma took a bicycle almost every day and drove up to the central city hotel to offer her services of a free guide to foreign tourists. For him, the main goal was to practice English with native speakers. One of the tourists with whom he became friends and named him Jackie Ma.
After graduation, he wanted to continue his education, because for a Chinese from a poor family this is the only way to arrange his fate. He failed twice in exams at the institute and only the third time, after hard training, was able to pass exams and enter a pedagogical university in his native city, where he studied English.
First job
After graduating in 1988, Jackie Ma sent his resume to 30 different companies that had vacancies and were rejected everywhere. At that time, he had not yet decided who he wanted to become, so he responded to more or less suitable positions, even seriously considering the possibility of becoming a policeman. One of the vacancies for which he applied was the position of assistant manager at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. Of the 24 candidates, 23 were accepted, and only Ma was refused.
As a result, he got a job as a teacher at his native university, however, the salary was very small - 12-15 dollars a month. He turned out to be a talented teacher and loved his job. In many of his interviews, Jackie Ma said that someday he would return to teaching again.
Introducing the Internet
The 1995 year in Jackie Ma's biography became significant - he got acquainted with the Internet during a trip to the United States as an interpreter serving the Chinese trade delegation. The first request to Yahoo that he made was the word beer. He was very surprised that there were no Chinese manufacturers in the search results. Other attempts to find something from China were unsuccessful. And then Ma firmly decided to found an Internet company.
He was completely unfamiliar with either computer or programming, nevertheless his wife and friends believed in him and raised a starting capital of 2 thousand dollars. They opened a website called China Yellow Pages. Subsequently, he recalled that he had waited three hours with friends when half a page would load. During this time, they managed to drink, watch TV and play cards. But he was still proud, because he proved that the Internet exists. Due to the extremely shy financial condition, the company’s office was located in the apartment of its founder, Jack Ma. Three years later, the company's turnover was already 5 million yuan (about 800 thousand dollars).
Opening Alibaba
After working for a year at a state-owned e-commerce development company in 1999, he resigned from public service to pursue business. 17 friends and just good friends gathered in his apartment, whom he was able to convince to invest in a new project of an online trading platform called Alibaba. The site made it possible for manufacturers and suppliers to post their offers of goods that anyone could buy directly. In total it was necessary to collect 60 thousand dollars.
According to corporate history, Jack Ma coined the name at a coffee shop in San Francisco. He used an analogy: in an Arabian fairy tale, a magic phrase helps open the way to treasures, and so the company was to become an entrance to the global market for small and medium-sized businesses.
First earned dollar
For business development it was necessary to attract financing. By October 1999, the company received venture investments in the amount of $ 5 million from the American Goldman Saks bank and $ 20 million from the Japanese telecommunications company Softbank, which is engaged in investments in high-tech projects. Jackie came to Softbank to ask for $ 5 million, but after 5 minutes of presentation, the owner of the Japanese company Masayoshi Son stopped him and said: "I will give you $ 20 million."
The company continued to be unprofitable until a system was developed that allowed American customers to buy Chinese goods on the site. In 2002, Alibaba’s profit was only one dollar. On the day the company made its first profit, Jackie handed out serpentine spray cans to all employees and threw a party.
Stunning success
In the early 2000s, after the success of the Taobao service, which managed to oust its American counterpart eBay from the Chinese market, and the ensuing take-off of shares, Ma refused to sell this resource. He managed to negotiate with Jerry Young, one of the founders of Yahoo, on investing in Alibaba in exchange for a 40% stake in the company. Yahoo earned $ 10 billion on the deal after an IPO.
Having achieved impressive success, Jackie Ma decided to stay in the company only as chairman of the board of directors, having resigned as director in 2013. In 2014, Alibaba held an initial public offering, which became the largest in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. The company planned to raise $ 1 billion for a 13% stake, and raised $ 25 billion. On this occasion, a grand celebration was held at the headquarters in Hangzhou
