9 SURPRISING FACTS About Jack Ma - #DidYouKnow

Hey guys, this is Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe, and I believe that all the world's major problems will be solved by entrepreneurs. So to help you on your path, today we're going to learn 9 surprising facts about Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Fact number 1: He used to guide tourists for free in China for 9 years to learn new ways of thinking.

For 9 years, every morning, almost whether snow, rain, sun, I went there looking for foreign tourists to become the free guide, and I made a lot of friends. This trained me the way of think different from the other kids in China in my generation. Because everything I learned from the, the tourists, foreign tourists, are so different from the things I learned from the, my, from the schools, my parents, because we thought China was like that, the world like that in our books, you know. But the thing that I learned from outside, there's, that's so different. So that trained my way of thinking different. When people talk about everything When everything people agree, normally I take 1 minute to think about, is that true? When everything disagree, I say, take about 1 minute, think about it. Hmm, is that true? So that was a training.

Fact number 2: His hero is Forrest Gump.

The hero I had is Forrest Gump. 14 years ago when I watched it. Watched it jobless? Yeah. You know he's a fictional character though, you didn't? I really like that guy. I've been watching that movie for about 10 times. Every time I would have fresh I watch the movie. And I watch movie before I came here again. For humility? Yeah, for coming to New York. Because I watch the movie again and telling me that no matter whatever changed, you are you. And I'm still the guy 15 years ago, you know, I only earn like $20 a month. And today I can do that much, you know.

Fact number 3, he has no technical background, started with $1 in his pocket, and beer was It was the first thing that he searched on the internet.

When I go to register a company called Internet, the registering officer said, "No, there's no such a word 'internet' in the dictionary. How can you register Internet?" So he said, "You have to register another name." I said, "What's the name?" He said, "Computer Consulting Firm." And I have no idea about what is computer. So my first company is An Tzu Hoop. 'Cause computer cannot infer. It was tough. Without knowing anything about technology, without knowing anything about computer. In the past 15 years, been working. I call myself like a blind man riding on the back of the blind tigers. Those experts riding horses, they all fail. We survive because we worry about the future. We believe the future. We change ourselves. We never complete the others.

Ma made it into college on his third try and became an English teacher. With no computing or engineering background, he's an unlikely tech titan. But he says he was captivated by the internet from the moment he first saw it in 1995 when he came to the US as a translator.

I never touch keyboard before. I never using computer before. And I say, what is internet? He said, Jack, you know, search whatever you want on the internet. I said, "How can I search? What does search mean?" He said, "Just type." I said, "I don't want to type. Computer so expensive in China, I don't want to destroy it." He said, "It's not a bomb, just type." So I typed the first word called beer. At that time, very slow. Come out the American beer, Japan beer, and German beer, but no China beer. So I was curious and I type China. No China, no data. Came back to Hangzhou with $1 in my pocket, scared, worried, and I came back and I said I want to do something called internet.

Fact number 4: His life is full of failures and rejections.

Tried to get into 3 colleges. Mm-hmm. Each time they rejected you. No, I tried— there is an examination that young people, if you want to go university, you have to take take the examinations, so I failed 3 times. I had a lot of fail. I failed for funny things that I failed a key primary school test for 2 times, and I failed like 3 times for the middle school, middle schools. And you would never believe in Hangzhou, my city, there's only 1 middle school. That last only 1 year. It was changed from primary school to middle school because our graduates of our school, no middle school accept us because we were too bad. They will become a middle school. When I graduate from universities and before I, for 3 years I try to fill in the universities, so apply jobs. 30 times, got rejected. I went for a police, they said, no, you're not good. I went to even the KFC, when KFC come to China, come to my city. [LAUGHTER] 24 people went for the job, 23 people accepted. I was the only one guy. [LAUGHTER] And we went for police, 5 people, 4 of them accepted. I was the only guy that I receive it. So to me, being turned down, rejected— oh, by the way, I told you that I applied for Harvard for 10 times rejected. I know I'll be rejected. I just want to say that. Sorry now. 10 times you wrote them and said, I'd like to come to Harvard. Yeah. And then I told myself, someday I should go teach there, buddy.

Fact number 5, he chose the name Alibaba because he liked the Open Sesame story.

Why did you call the company Alibaba? I like the spelling. I like the vision. Alibaba, open sesame. I believe the internet is open sesame and there is a password that to everybody that you can find great people, you can find great opportunities of business and improve people. That is open sesame story. I love the Alibaba. It saves me a lot of marketing dollars. When I started, I think internet is global, we should have a global name. And a name that interesting, like at that time the best name is Yahoo, right? I think, I can, so I've been thinking for many days, suddenly Alibaba is a good name. So I was happen to be in San Francisco that day. I have a lunch and the waitress come. I ask her, do you know about Alibaba? She say yes. What is Alibaba? She said, "Open sesame." Good. So I went on the street, asked about 10, 20 people. They all know about Alibaba, 40 thieves, and open sesame. And I think this is a good name. And start with A, whatever you talk about, Alibaba is always top.

Fact number 6, he learned English by watching TV because there were no other options in China at the time.

Since there's no way to learn English at that time, there's no teachers in our city who can teach people to speak English. So I listen to the BBC and Voice of America. And there, every evening, 9 o'clock, 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock, I open my video, you know, from the first Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I listen to the VOA. The first book I heard about is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Fact number 7: He performs mass weddings for his employees.

He has a curious way of making his employees happy.

The mass weddings.

He does. And you know, we were looking at the footage and we're talking about it as a team and what is he doing and why is he doing this?

At first when I heard about the mass weddings, I thought, well, that sounds a bit cultish.

I don't know of any business person in the US who marries their employees. I think it's fair to say there are none.

Really? Yeah. They should learn. They should learn? Yeah, they should learn and they should make their employees happy. If they want to do it, let's do it for them. The way it works I believe, is that couples get married in a variety of ceremonies. Then one day a year, they all go to a huge party that Jack stages at Alibaba headquarters. Why we do this? 10 years ago, because the SARS— Bird flu. All the employees in the company was quarantined. And I was locked in the room. For 10 days. But when I left the room, I said to myself, life is so short, so beautiful. Don't be so serious about work. Enjoy the life. [SPEAKING CHINESE] This year we got how many? 600 or 700 couples. And I'm announcing, guys, today you're getting married.

[SPEAKING CHINESE] Fact number 8: He wants to retire early, explore other interests, and die on a beach.

People say, oh, this is an uncertain world. Every day is uncertain. The only certain day was yesterday. I'm not sure about that in the future I can— I would dictate, I will be stupid. That's why I should retire early when I'm young. That is why I have a lot of things that I dream I want to do. I want to do philanthropy, I want to be a teacher, I want to go back to school, I want to do the environment. And the world is so wonderful, why should be the CEO of Alibaba all the time? I'm coming to this world not to work. I want to come to this world to enjoy my life. I don't want to die in my office, I want to die on the beaches.

Fact number 9: He once dressed up and sang The Lion King theme song to his employees.

I had worked as a vice president in his company for nearly 10 years. As our team survived the internet bubble, fought a war with eBay, and managed to build China's first global internet company. I settled into my seat and wondered, how would Jack address us on this important night? And then, just like any other billionaire in the same situation, Jack took the stage. [SPEAKING CHINESE] Well, it may not have been typical for a company chairman, but it wasn't surprising coming from Jack. People outside the company assumed he was crazy, but those of us inside the company knew better.

So thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know what was the most surprising surprising fact that you learned about Jack Ma in this video? Leave in the comments below. Really curious to see what you have to say. Thank you so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love.

I'll see you soon.