Alibaba Founder Jack Ma Has Inspiring Words For All, Says Success Depends On Handling Rejection

Today, Jack Ma is China’s richest man, valued at over $30.9 billion as of May 2017. However, the founder and chairman of the country’s e-commerce leader, the Alibaba Group, wasn’t born into money. His rags to riches story is truly inspiring, but Ma says he faced a lot of disappointment and heartbreak before he managed to claw his way to the top.

In a chat at a World Economic Forum event, Jack Ma talked about how his early career, and indeed much of his school life, was filled with failure.?

“I had a lot of failures, for funny things,” he said. “I failed a key primary school test two times, and I failed three times for middle schools.” He says he even failed his university exams two times, before finally being accepted into “what was considered my city's worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University.”

“I applied for thirty jobs [after college], got rejected. I went to join the police force and they said ‘No, you’re not good’. Five people went [for the test], I was the only one they did not proceed with. When KFC came to China, came to my city, 24 people went for the job – 23 people were accepted, I was the only guy who got rejected."

“I applied for Harvard, rejected. I knew I’d be rejected I just wanted to see,” he laughs.

“I don’t think there are a lot of people in this world being rejected more than 30 times. The only thing is that we never get up, we [be] like Forrest Gump, we keep on fighting,” he says.

“I find that when people make a mistake or fail, if they only complain about others, this guy will never come back. But the one who only checks himself, he has hope.”