He flunked his university admission exam. Twice.
One of the interesting facts about Jack Ma is that he didn't do well in school. He nearly didn't enroll in middle school, in fact. "I failed a crucial elementary school test twice, a middle school test three times, and a college entrance exam twice," the student said. Ouch. Most of us are fortunate enough to have avoided saying any of these things to our parents. Surprisingly, Ma is not by herself. There is a history of brilliant people who struggled in school early on but went on to do great things, including Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, and Abraham Lincoln (along with Forrest Gump).
Ma failed his university entrance exam twice, earning less than 1% in arithmetic, but he eventually passed and enrolled in the Hangzhou Teacher's Institute to study English. He applied for 30 jobs after receiving his degree but was unsuccessful in every one of them. Ma continued despite all of these setbacks and rejections. Ma established a translation agency based on his English proficiency and traveled to the US as a translator, where he first encountered the Internet. Ma, who has no experience with computers or coding, got intrigued by this new development at the moment.
Ma came up with the concept of starting an internet store after noticing the dearth of Chinese beer in online search results. This inspired him to launch his second web firm, "Chinapage," which featured listings for Chinese companies and goods. This triggered a deluge of emails from people looking to collaborate from all around the world. Ma made the decision to collaborate with a government corporation in order to grow and get additional money. Unfortunately, once the firm took over the endeavor, Ma's vision for the company was suppressed, which resulted in his departure from the company.
