i didn't have a rich father not from uh you know well educated i said i tried it three times for
university all failed for the last time i went to the teachers college which was considered
the third or fourth class of my city i applied for harvard for 10 times all filled they don't
want to see me you know terrible so i applied jobs for 30 times got rejected i went for a police they
said no you're not good i went to you know even the kfc when kfc came to china come to my city
24 people went for the job 23 people accepted i was the only guy and we went
for police five people four of them accepted i was the only guy that i received received
people like me i was born in a very poor family i never got a great education
i realized i don't have money i don't have technology i don't have a lot of good backgrounds
we have a rich uncle or something no it was so difficult at that time i was so frustrated
because i taught in the university my pay was ten dollars a month was not easy but i
believe that something something is waiting for me there and i have to work hard to prove myself
so that was the tough experience and i never thought i was smart honestly people say you're
smart you have a big vision 1994 since you saw the internet that was not true
i just want to find a job because i could not find a good job so i do myself
nobody believed that i could be successful because everybody say well this guy
think differently thinker crazily you know they think about something never work
we talked to over 30 or 40 venture capitalists everybody said no forget it so we gather
000 us dollars from 18 founders we started a lot of people said alibaba is a terrible model with
a problem here and there the founder is terrible yes that's right i'm a 100 made in china i learned
my english by myself and i tried to teach myself how to programming on computer i still don't know
why how it works but that is not important i think this thing could be big but
i never thought it would be that big like today the only thing i tell you guys for the first
three years we do not have even one dollar revenue from our business i just feel that i'm
enthusiastic about what we are doing at the beginning for the first five years i just want
to survive but later i think wow so many people's life changed i was so excited you know for the
first three years we made a zero revenue zero revenue but we we are so excited to continue to
work you know what happened i remember many times when i go to restaurant have a dinner
somebody came i when i was trying to pay the bill the owner of the restaurant came to say
sir your bill is paid by someone and a small note saying hey mr mar i'm your customer of alibaba
group i made a lot of money and i know you don't make any money i pay the bill for you for that
i worry about it today young people a lot of young people lose hope lose vision because i
we also have the same because when i got it's not a good feeling being rejected by so many
people we also depressed the only thing we never give up the only thing like we like a four is to
go we keep on fight we keep on changing ourselves we don't complain whether you were successful not
successful i find that one per people when they finish the job if they make the mistake
of the film if they always complain the others this guy will never come back if the guy only
checked himself yeah something wrong with me here something with me there this guy has the hope
so i tell myself and told my young people before 20 years old be a good student
before 30 years old follow somebody go to a small company normally in a big company it
is good to learn processing you are a part of a big machine but when you go to small company
you learn the passion you learn the dreams you learn how to do a lot of things
one time so before 30 years old it's not which company you go it's which boss you
follow it's very important a good boss teach you differently make enough mistakes any mistake is an
income it's a wonderful revenue for you don't worry you fall you stand up you fall you step
and before from 30 to 40 years old you have to think vertically when you're working for yourself
when you're 40 to 50 years old you have to do all the things that you are good at don't try to
drop into the new area it's too late you may be successful but the the rate of dying is too big
so 40 to 50 think about how can focus on things that you are good at but when you are 50 to 60
years old work for the young people because young people can do better than you so rely on them
invest on them making sure they're good when you are over 60 years old spend time for yourself
on the beach sunshine it's too late for you to change normally
i was the first i know nothing about technology i know nothing about management i know nothing
but but the only thing is that you don't have to know a lot of things you have to find the
people who are smart you are for so many years i always try to find people smarter than i am and
when you find so many smart people my job is to make sure the smart people can work it together
and then if smart people can work it together it's easier the vision you believe because if
stupid people can work in together easily smart people can never work together
you guys remember if you want to be successful learn from the other people's mistakes don't learn
from the successful stories successful stories they make there are a lot of reasons behind it
don't listen to that learn from the mistakes the other people no matter how smart you are you will
encounter these mistakes you learn from mistakes not because you will be able to avoid mistakes
when these mistakes come this suffer comes you know how to deal with it how to face it the book
i want to write is alibaba 1001 mistake this is the most treasurable things that in my life
in my life is not how much we achieved it's how much we go through the tough days and mistakes
and by the way everybody is the same because we are stuck from the same line the best the best
assets you have is that you are young don't complain let the other people complain
those people complain those people who still and do not always say well i don't have think about
how you can make things different use your own brain to think i saw a lot of people young people
have fantastic ideas every evening but in the morning they go to the office theme again make the
move make the action and believe one thing this is also another last advice i want to give you
you have to work very hard right either work for the others or work for yourself and i choose the
way work my for myself but working for myself that means working for the society if you really want
to work for yourself think about the others making sure you help others because only when the other
other people are successful when the other people happy you'll be successful you will be happy