Start Small and Grow Big Jack Ma,Founder and Chairman of e-commerce  giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.,is one of those self-made billionaires in the technology field.His rags-to-riches journey is just as spectacular as his Internet Empire. Jack Ma,whose Chinese name is Ma Yun,was born in a normal family in 1964.Like most Chinese parents back then,Ma's father beat him growing up.He was poor at math but loved English.Starting at age 12,he awoke at 5a.m.to walk or bicycle to Hangzhou's main hotels so he could practice his English with foreign tourists.He did this for nine years and acted as a free tour guide to many,befriended several and later visited one family in Australia.Those experiences opened his eyes. After twice failing the national college entrance exams,Ma entered what he called"Hangzhou's worst college."Graduating in 1988,Ma married his college sweetheart and taught English at a local college for five years,earning 15a month.During that time,he also applied for jobs at a local KFC,a hotel and the city police,and failed to land. Determined to enter business,Ma set up a translation company,but he still had to peddle goods on the street to get by.During a short trip to the US as an interpreter in 1995,Ma first experienced the Internet.He believed in the Internet's business potential when few other people did.In 1999,with the help of more than a dozen friends who pooled their resources-just 60,000-he started Alibaba in his Hangzhou apartment.At that time,e-commerce was unheard of in China."I called myself a blind man riding on the back of blind tigers,"he once said,according to The Guardian.His unusual ideas earned him the nickname"Crazy Jack Ma". Since its foundation,Alibaba has grown from 15employees to more than 30,000.The company floated on the New York Stock Market in September 2014for 25billion-the largest public offering in history.The company now makes more profit than rivals Amazon.com and e-Bay combined.Alibaba has directly and indirectly created 40million jobs for China.Ma hopes to keep expanding Alibaba outside of China (the company is already big in Russia and Brazil) and is aiming for 2billion consumers and 10million small businesses to use the company abroad. Ma's lifestyle is very simple and modest.Ma enjoys meditation  in the mountains,playing poker with friends and writing his own kung fu novels.Forest Gump is Jack Ma's hero. "Forest Gump never gives up and believes in what he is doing,"said Ma.He also quoted the phrase"Life is like a box of chocolates because you never know what you're going to get." The passage is mainly about  .
the development of Alibaba Group Jack Ma's personal life the journey of Jack Ma's success Jack Ma's work experience.