You would have heard many rags to riches stories. One of the most inspiring stories of modern times is China’s Alibaba owner, Jack Ma.
He is currently the richest man in China but not before an earlier life of lots of rejections and failures. Jack Ma has faced a lot of difficulties in his life. He applied as a waiter at KFC but was rejected. He applied for Harvard, was rejected and then applied for a police job only to be rejected there too.
Jack Ma came up with the idea of Alibaba and convinced his 16 other friends in a closed room about why the idea will be successful. The idea of Alibaba was based on empowering people online that would eventually grow Alibaba as a B2B company. The belief behind the idea was, we need to help people and in the process, we will grow too.
Now a decade later, Alibaba’s co-founder shares some great advice about life and business. Jack Ma believes you can only become successful when you help others. This was the prime philosophy followed at Alibaba.
Today we have close to 70,000 excellent, great young people. We have 700 million users and nothing belongs to me. Today, Alibaba has a 400 million market cap. We supported small business, we supported women and that is the reason why we succeeded.
Jack Ma also believes, the businesses need to support more SMEs, more young people and women. This is how the companies can sustain the supremacy and stay ahead of their competition in the long run.
When you have more than 100 million dollars, it is is not your money. That is the money of society as they have trusted you with their money to manage better.