At a year end event in China, Alibaba founder Jack Ma recently spoke about his departure from the world of teaching, and how he got wrapped up in the world of startups.
Excerpts from his speech:
In 1994, I was 30 years old, and I had been teaching for six years. I had graduated from Hangzhou Normal University and was the only one of my classmates teaching at a college. Our school president told me, Jack Ma youll be teaching at a college, you shouldnt leave there for at least five years. When I finally made it to my sixth year, it felt like having completed a prison sentence.
That year I went to America and discovered the internet. After I came back I began preparing to do a startup. I didnt know how to do a startup and I didnt have any experience. After coming back I told our school president I was getting ready to do a startup on this thing called internet. He was a Stanford grad who had studied computers, but after explaining it to him for quite a while he still didnt get it, and I didnt really get it either.
He said: Jack Ma, dont go. But I still wanted to, and I figured I could take ten years to try to do something. The next week, I asked 24 friends over to discuss it, all my night school students, and 23 of them said dont do it. When I turned in my resignation, the president told me that I should come back if it didnt work out. I said Id retire and come back in ten years, regardless of how it went. Thats how I got started.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here. https://www.techinasia.com/jack-ma-e...tarted-startup
Source : http://www.business-standard.com/art...2000531_1.html
Excerpts from his speech:
In 1994, I was 30 years old, and I had been teaching for six years. I had graduated from Hangzhou Normal University and was the only one of my classmates teaching at a college. Our school president told me, Jack Ma youll be teaching at a college, you shouldnt leave there for at least five years. When I finally made it to my sixth year, it felt like having completed a prison sentence.
That year I went to America and discovered the internet. After I came back I began preparing to do a startup. I didnt know how to do a startup and I didnt have any experience. After coming back I told our school president I was getting ready to do a startup on this thing called internet. He was a Stanford grad who had studied computers, but after explaining it to him for quite a while he still didnt get it, and I didnt really get it either.
He said: Jack Ma, dont go. But I still wanted to, and I figured I could take ten years to try to do something. The next week, I asked 24 friends over to discuss it, all my night school students, and 23 of them said dont do it. When I turned in my resignation, the president told me that I should come back if it didnt work out. I said Id retire and come back in ten years, regardless of how it went. Thats how I got started.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here. https://www.techinasia.com/jack-ma-e...tarted-startup
Source : http://www.business-standard.com/art...2000531_1.html