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Ben Franklin was a man of prolific talent. Beyond his inventions and scientific inquiry he sought to be an active member of his community and involved in shaping the future of his home. Starting in his youth with his persona Silence Dogood he commented and reflected upon life in the American colonies and the changes they were undergoing due to successful commerce and a growing autonomy.

Leader and Diplomat

During the French and Indian War, Ben was part of the Albany Congress. The colonies were at the forefront of facing down the French interests in North America, tasked with coming up with the funding and quartering for their own militias and the British army. This congress was called to discuss the defense of the colonies from the French and French-allied tribes. Ben proposed the Albany Plan of Union which laid out a system of singular government that would oversee the coordination of the separate colonies.

Ben proposed that through this Plan of Union, the colonies would be able to present a united front and work for the advantage of all of them, not singular colonies getting in each other’s way. At the time, the plan was rejected by the colonial assemblies and the British crown. Despite the setback, the document drafted by Ben in the 1754 at the Albany Congress would find itself being echoed in the Articles of Confederation after American Independence.

The road to American independence had its roots laid in that Albany Congress of which Ben was a part. Seeds of dissent were sowed during that conflict where the British military exerted its power and, in the aftermath, the British Crown began its unilateral taxation of the colonies. During the French and Indian War, and through to the 1770s, Ben spent time in London on a diplomatic missions.

Messenger to England

His first mission began in 1775, when he was sent by the Pennsylvania Assembly to contest the influence of the Penn family on the colony. Pennsylvania was a chartered colony, meaning that the proprietors had more direct control than a Royal colony. As descendants of the founder, William Penn, the Penn family still had a great deal of clout in Pennsylvania politics. They often overturned legislation they did not like coming from the assembly. They also were exempted from paying taxes to support the colony. For five years, Ben toiled at Whitehall to no avail, returning to Pennsylvania to found an “anti-proprietary” political party. He became Speaker of the Pennsylvania House in May 1764.

He pushed for a change to royal government, but lost his seat by October, due to concerns that Pennsylvania would lose many of its religious and political freedoms. His political party sent him back to England to try again.

It was while he was in England this second time that things changed drastically in the political relationship between Great Britain and the American colonies. In 1765, the infamous Stamp Act made its debut. Ben had opposed the Act, but was unable to stop it. Upon its passing, Ben made an unfortunate political gaffe by recommending a friend to the post of stamp distributor. This outraged his fellow Pennsylvanians so much that they threatened to destroy his house in Philadelphia. Ben immediately became interested in the extent of his fellow colonists dislike of the Stamp Act and took it upon himself to become the spokesman for the colonies to the British government. His testimony helped get the act repealed.

Ben Franklin arguing on American’s behalf in British Court against the Stamp act

No Taxation without Representation

Furthermore, he began writing essays on behalf of the colonies. Many other colonies made him their agent to the Crown.

From his house in central London, Ben began to get involved in radical politics as a Whig. He became friends with men in power through his connections at his social club. In 1756, he joined the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce which met in Convent Garden coffee shops. Through this group he continued to discuss science and grew his circle of influential friends. Interesting friends and accomplishments abounding, Ben continued his experiments, inventions, and political maneuvering.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin

He began to travel using London as a base. He traveled to Scotland 1759 and gained another honorary doctorate in law from the University of St. Andrews. It was with this first honorary degree that he began being called Doctor Franklin. By 1762, Ben had been awarded with an honorary doctorate from Oxford University for his scientific accomplishments.

While touring in Ireland he was the first American to be invited to sit with the Irish Parliament. Ireland was under the same rules and regulations as the American colonies and the widespread poverty he saw made Ben worry for his own people. He wondered if America could suffer in similar ways should the British continue their exploitation. The search for information that could help his fellow Americans was something Ben would continue to pursue as he traveled throughout Europe as well. His reputation as a scientist opened many doors and provided many ears to listen to his political thoughts in regards to America and its future.

The Pen is mightier than the sword

By 1773, Ben had published one of his most famous satirical essays, “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One”. In this essay, he has a veiled warning, should an empire not treat those at its edges with respect, they may lose their loyalty entirely. He says, “…a great empire, like a great Cake, is most easily diminished at the Edges.”

He doesn’t hold back on a cutting indictment of colonial governors that have more interest in position and wealth than governing. Alongside this essay, Ben had acquired the personal letters of the governor of Massachusetts which encouraged the Crown to be more fierce in their attempts to control fringe elements in Boston. He leaked them to the Boston Gazette, causing a wave of protests against the governor and the British in the colony.

  The unwelcome guest

From that time forward, the British government became more wary of Ben, since he had proven himself a troublemaker. When he was humiliated in the Privy Council in January of 1774, the British had lost any loyalty Ben felt for them. He was an American rebel from that day on.

He returned to Philadelphia on May 5, 1775. The Battle of Lexington and Concord had been fought and won showing that a group of colonials could have a chance. Ben was elected to be a Pennsylvania delegate at the Continental Congress and was appointed to the committee that was responsible for the Declaration of Independence. He was not present for all of the meetings of the draft, but he claimed to have made some “small but important” changes.

Ben continued to be at the forefront of the American diplomatic presence during the Revolutionary War. He was named a commissioner to France in December 1776. Before his arrival, the American party was not making much headway with getting a clear sense of ally ship with the French. However, when Ben arrived in France he was an instant celebrity.

Benjamin Franklin in french court, he was quite popular among the also the french ladies

Forging a deciding alliance

His reputation as a scientist and his “discovery” of electricity got him many invites to high-ranking French households. He threw himself into the French social scene, also being active as a Freemason and advocating for religious tolerance. He created a persona of rustic genius which charmed people in power. By 1778, he, along with the rest of the American delegation, had managed to secure a military alliance with Great Britain’s oldest enemy.

After the War for Independence was won, Ben Franklin was still not finished in his role as Founding Father even though he was seventy-nine years old when he returned to the United States in 1785. He became an abolitionist and became a part of the Philadelphia Convention which produced the United States Constitution. Ben would be the only Founding Father to have signed all four major documents that led to the birth of the United States of America – the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance, the Treaty of Paris, and the United States Constitution.

Ben Franklin lived his ideals throughout his entire life, writing about them and sharing many of them in his autobiography that he wrote between 1771 and 1788. Through this and his other writings it is easy to make a portrait of a man who was always curious, always thinking, and always working to achieve his goals. Throughout his life he made great strides for his country and changed the course of the world forever.

The post Ben Franklin the diplomat (Part 4 of the Biography) appeared first on inspirationx.

Politics is a game of chess

Beyond his accomplishments in science Benjamin Franklin had a keen mind for creating. Not only instruments based on his scientific studies, but also institutions. This talent would make him an even more prominent figure among his contemporaries and solidify his role as one of the key minds of the American Revolution. Practicality and logic, self taught and tested, became a hallmark of his activities. Which were leading up to the Declaration of Independence and beyond.

Benjamin Franklin playing Chess with Lady Howe and loses. All the while Mr. Howe attempts to bribe Ben Franklin and fails.

  Considering Chess still an upper class activity during this time. The idea of tactics and planning was thought to show keen minds. As well as to prepare gentlemen of the upper classes for positions of responsibility. Business deals and politics happened over chess boards. Ben, of course, became an avid chess player. He became renown for it around 1733. This made him the first known player in the American colonies. The game helped him learn more than just tactics and diplomacy, it was also useful in learning languages. Ben learned challenged a friend to a game of chess to learn Italian. The winner decides what parts of the language to be learn.

During his time spent in England throughout much of his life he was able to practice the game against skilled opponents. In fact, he made many important connections over the chessboards in London and Paris, sowing the seeds of connection that would assist him through several diplomatic events. In 1786, at the age of eighty, he published an essay on chess which was widely translated. The essay, “The Morals of Chess”, praised chess and the codes of behavior expected of a player. He was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 1999.

Benjamin Franklin playing Chess and Politics in British court

  Scientific Melodies

The music of the eighteenth century was a popular endeavor amongst the upper class and well-to-do of the time. Ben himself could play several instruments including the violin, the harp, and the guitar. His interest in music drove him to try his hand at composing music, most notably a work for a string quartet. In addition, he developed an improved version of the glass harmonica, an instrument that involved the musician moving their fingers over stationary water glasses. Ben’s version involved the glasses rotating while the player held their fingers steady. This became a popular version of the instrument in Europe and is still used occasionally in orchestras today.

A reproduction of Benjamin Franklins Glass Harmonica

Chess and music were ways that Ben signalled himself as a “gentleman of leisure”, a person who was successful enough to be able to engage in his own pursuits. It was primarily due to his popular publication of Poor Richard’s Almanack which allowed him to also pursue his great scientific achievements. In 1747, he was able to retire from the printing business by forming a partnership with his foreman.

Through this arrangement he would continue to receive half the profits from the press for the next 18 years. This freedom gave him the ability to pursue the experiments and ventures that would make him famous.

Organizing Change in Society and Science

While he had developed the concept of a library in his early years, it was not the last institution that would become invaluable to a fledgling America. Ben was a part of creating one of the first volunteer firefighting companies in America in 1736.

Ben Franklin in the first firefighters uniform

In a time when structures were all made of wood and close together, organization of such a task force was paramount otherwise an entire town could be lost.

During that time, Ben also created a paper currency for the colony of New Jersey. Using anti-counterfeiting techniques that he had devised. In 1729, he had published an essay on the usefulness of paper money, something he would advocate for his entire life. Then, Ben put his printing press to work. So he can make paper money for the middle colonies for monetary experiments to stop deflation without increasing inflation.These experiments were successful and in 1766 he spoke to the British House of Commons about using paper money throughout the British holdings.

By the time he reached his late thirties, Ben became more and more interested in politics and public affairs. As a successful businessman and inventor, he was able to branch out into other means of making a difference in his society. In 1743, he began pitching the idea of a public education and charity schools. The idea didn’t get much traction at first, but by 1751 the Academy and Charity schools were opened allowing more youth in Pennsylvania to attend school without the need for tuition, something that had stymied his own education as a child.

College of Academy and Charity Schools today UPenn’s Engineering school

A start in Politics

While working on his electrical experiments, Ben also found time to start the American Philosophical Society so that scientists throughout the colonies could come together and discuss their scientific research. He would continue to be a part of this institution for the rest of his life, sharing ideas and growing his reputation. He moved into politics in 1748, when he was elected as a councilman for Philadelphia.

Several subsequent political appointments followed, with the most notable being his appointment as deputy post-master general of British North America in 1753 after being postmaster for Philadelphia since 1737.(I include a link to his post office here. You can visit it next time in Philadelphia. It’s one of the coolest real-place museums I ever visited.) He began a reform of the postal system and it would be one of his most significant achievements of domestic policy. In 1753, British North America spanned from Newfoundland in modern day Canada and down to Georgia in the modern day United States.

The post of deputy postmaster was split, with Ben in charge from Newfoundland to Annapolis, Maryland, with William Hunter overseeing the southern colonies from Virginia. One of his first acts was improving the accounting system of the postal service. With that in hand, he began working on the speed of delivery between New York, Philadelphia and Boston. By 1761, the colonial postal system turned a profit for the first time.

After the French and Indian War brought New France under British control, the newly formed British province of Quebec was added to Ben’s responsibilities. He got to work immediately, expanding the postal service to improve the postal movement between Montreal, Quebec City, and New York.

Remote Statesman

This work become all the more impressive since Ben was doing it via correspondence from England. There, he was making connections and talking up the American colonies to influential British citizens at the same time. The British court dismissed him in 1774. Because he was holding this passion for his home. On the eve of American revolution.

Despite that setback. His role with the post office led him to be named the first Postmaster General of the United States in order to create a new system that would be needed on the eve of American independence in 1775.

In between the start of his political ambitions in North America and become one of the Founding Fathers, he was also involved in the creation of what would become the first hospital in the United States, the Pennsylvania Hospital. He worked alongside Dr. Thomas Bond, a surgeon, to get a charter from the Pennsylvania legislature.

The Pennsylvania Hospital founded by Benjamin Franklin, if this looks familiar to you, it’s the heavily guarded building in Assassins Creed 3.

It was within this momentum that Ben joined with several other prominent intellectual members of society to design a new model for colleges. Essentially, this new style of college focused on professions as opposed to religious philosophy. This was a rather revolutionary idea, because churches ran many colleges of the time. It set the stage for other American colleges and universities of the future, a focus on skills taught by experts, as opposed to divinity and religious exams in Latin.

A Patriot, defender of his fellow Americans

Ben Franklin’s focus on education and independent thought was what helped him become the statesman he is remembered for being. From the 1750s and 1770s, he became a spokesman of sorts for the American colonies and defended his countrymen’s interests. It was during this time Ben saw a great change. His people in the American colonies were becoming culturally different from the people of Great Britain. While he may not have been able to predict the nature of the conflict that would arise. Benjamin certainly seeing the foundation laid.

Ben Franklin arguing on American’s behalf in British Court

As an artist, musician, philosopher and self-made man. Ben Franklin set forth a model that other Americans sought to emulate both in his own time and today. I admire the discipline Ben Franklin used to accomplish whatever he set out to do. To better himself, to better his community, his nation and ultimately our world.

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The world is full of examples of people who have combated challenges and emerged out victorious. Kirk Kerkorian, the American billionaire and one of the prominent names in the history of Las Vegas is one such example.

Today the world knows him to be the multi-billionaire casino mogul who ranked 41st among the list of richest people in the world in 2008. Before Kerkorian died at the age of 98, he also had amassed enough wealth to become the second oldest billionaire of the world, with just David Rockefeller ahead of him. However, what many people do not know is that Kerkorian was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. As a matter of fact, he had to face a lot of financial struggle during his early years.

Early life – the days of the rags

Born in Fresno, California in 1917 to parents who were immigrants from Armenia, Kerkorian had done a lot of things before getting tagged as one of the richest people of America and the world. He was an 8th Grade dropout who didn’t find studies to be very encouraging. After leaving school, Kerkorian became interested in boxing and became quite passionate about it. He was under the tutelage of his elder brother and had the honor of winning the Pacific Amateur Welterweight Championship as well.

Kirk Kerkorian with famous lawyer and fellow boxing champion Jake Ehrlich

However, getting stuck to something was not the trait of the budding billionaire. Soon after he gave up boxing, he turned towards flying and got a chance at the Happy Bottom Riding Club, where he learned to fly. His flying instructor was Pancho Barnes, the pioneer aviator who had the credit of breaking America Earhart’s air speed record. As Kerkorian did not have a wallet heavy enough to pay for the flying lessons then, he had to milk and look after the cattle of Barnes as a fee for the flying lessons he got from Barnes.

(Note: I highly recommend reading up on Pancho Barnes in the Wikipedia Link above, she’s something inspiring too. Amazing Woman!)

The journey towards the riches began

Once he gained the commercial pilot’s certificate, Kerkorian joined the Royal Air Force and served during the Word War II. It was during this time that the billionaire of the future had started saving his wages which summed up to a handsome amount pretty soon. His first major investment was on a Cessna plane which he bought by spending $5000.

It was in 1944 when Kerkorian visited Las Vegas for the first time. He spent a good time gambling there and in 1947 he purchased a small air-charter service called Trans International Airlines that catered to people flying from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to try their luck with gambling. Soon enough, Kerkorian gathered enough wealth to buy 80 acres of land in Las Vegas.

Kirk Kerkorian with Trans International Airlines Model Plane

He spent a whopping $960,000 for this purchase. However, he always had the right calculations as he knew that this amount would get multiplied pretty soon and opened the floodgates of income for him. He was not wrong. The owners of the famous Vegas hotel, Caesar’s Palace rented the land from him for the building of the hotel. This deal made Kerkorian earn a whopping $9 million in 1968. This was just the beginning.

Kirk Kerkorian in Las Vegas at the MGM construction site

In 1967, Kerkorian bought another piece of land in Las Vegas that measures 82 acres. He used this land to build the International Hotel, the largest hotel of the world at that time. Kerkorian was in the spree of buying by this time. In 1969 he purchased the Metro Goldwyn Mayer movie studio and opened the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. This hotel had the pride of being the largest hotel in the world at the time. Beating the Grandeur of the International Hotel by great extent.

The poor young man, who once used to be an amateur boxer on the streets of Los Angeles, had the habit of buying and selling properties. He bought and sold the MGM movie studio thrice in his life time. Purchased United Artists, and even made several attempts to buy Columbia Pictures. While many people think that he was a movie buff, people who know him would confirm that he never cared for movies in particular. All the business-minded entrepreneur was interested in was making money and he did not let any single opportunity go loose ever in his lifetime.

He turned towards the automotive industry in 1995 and made a failed attempt to take over the Chrysler Corporation. He owned 9.9% stakes in General Motors. Since 2008 he started buying stocks for Ford Motor Company. After spending a jaw-dropping amount of $1 Billion on 6% buying 6% stakes in the company, he quit the buying and started selling the stocks off. The reason behind this was the rapidly decreasing value of the Ford shares that point of time. By the end of 2008 he had sold off all the stakes in Ford.

He was rich but he was simple

Even though he had turned the wheel of fortune in his favor, Kerkorian never let himself forget about the days when he was in rags. Being able to afford a motorcade of limousines and Cadillac cars, the rich businessman still preferred driving a Ford Taurus for a bigger chunk of his life. In 2008, Kerkorian was ranked 41st in the list of richest people in the world. With a net worth of his properties hitting $16 billion. However, owing to the stock market recession, by the end of 2012, his wealth got tumbled down to $3.2 billion only. With little recovery post the debacle, He ended 412th on the list of richest men in the world at 2013, with the net worth of his property being at $3.9 billion.

Kerkorian was one of those noble rich people who never forgot their roots. It was this trait that paved the path from rags to riches for the man who never completed high school when he was a student. He never used his name in any of his ventures. The charitable foundation, The Lincy Foundation, which he had formed for the betterment of Armenian people, was also named after his two daughters Tracy and Linda. Though this foundation, Kerkorian had donated millions of dollar for the betterment of mankind and people of Armenia. Time Magazine also had named Kirk the 10th largest single donor in the US in 2000.

He always knew that unless he gives away, he would never get the chance to get more.

  Get inspired by Rags to Riches stories? Read about the success story that is Alibaba’s Founder Jack Ma here.

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Ben Franklin’s success really grew with his publication Poor Richard’s Almanack. The book full of witticisms and advice, both original and borrowed, was so popular that he soon had time to branch out to other ventures. He continued to publish, producing early American magazines and other essays. Throughout his life he would often sign his correspondence, B. Franklin, Printer, to show his roots in the printing industry. He was so successful with his publishing endeavors that he had become a “gentleman of leisure” by his forties, which gave him plenty of time to dabble in music, art, the sciences, and politics. Many of his inventions are used in various forms even today. Trying to find more practical ways of doing things was at the heart of a lot of Ben’s experiments and inventions.

Taking charge, changing his life circumstances with groundbreaking inventions

Ben’s interest in philosophy and science stemmed from his self-education from his youth. Since he only had a few years of formal schooling he read as much as he could. An extremely curious person, he engaged in a lot of different types of inquiry throughout his life. He made many contributions to science, merely by observing the world around him and looking for ways to understand or make use of it.

Ben Franklin is the personification of pro-activity.

For example, the invention of the bifocal came from trying to work through an affliction he suffered from himself. The need for spectacles that could work for both up close and far away were revolutionary at the time. In a writing to a friend he expressed that his invention “…make[s] my eyes as useful to me as they ever were.” There is some evidence that Ben may not have been the first to invent the bifocal, but he did create his version independently and was among the first to wear them.

While in England, he was working on a hot day in 1758 trying to figure out a method of cooling using evaporation. Along with John Hadley, a British chemist, they continuously wetted the ball of a mercury thermometer with ether. Every time the ether evaporated by use of a bellows, the temperature was lowered, finally reaching a temperature of 7°F (-13° Celsius!) .

Writing up his discovery, Ben noted that it was possible to freeze on a summer’s day using the methods of evaporation. While he has been credited with inventing the concept of air conditioning, the experiment of whether cooling via evaporation was the extent of it.

That is not to say, though, that Ben did not find an interesting way of keeping cool on hot days. He was fond of “air bathing” which meant opening all of the windows in the house and walking around in the nude. This may have actually kept him healthier as stale air was often a problem in colonial households.

Benjamin Franklin’s Stove explained in his own sketch.

While his “air baths” were more of a manner of living, he also sought to improve the interior conditions of the households by designing the Franklin stove. It was invented in 1741 and was essentially a metal-lined fireplace. It provided more heat and less smoke than other stoves at the time by using an inverted siphon to draw more heat from the flames. The use of cast iron in the walls of the device would allow it to maintain warmth even as a fire got low, warming a room with less fuel. In the days when acquiring and chopping wood was a necessary part of life, efficiency made a world of difference.

Electrifying Curiosity

His “discovery” of electricity is one of the things he is most famous for, even during his own time.

(It is a popular misconception though. He didn’t discover electricity. As you will find out below, his actual discoveries are just as impressive.)

He began inventing and trying different experiments. Electricity began to interest him in 1746, when he learned of Archibald Spencer’s use of static electricity in illustrations. At the time electricity was referred to as “electrical fluid” and the idea was that they were different kinds of “fluid” that was responsible for different electrical phenomenons. As Ben began working and experimenting, he worked from the thesis that there were not different types of electricity, but that it was instead the same “fluid” under different environmental pressures.

In 1748, he developed a kind of battery using glass and lead plates suspended with silk string and wires. During his experiments with his “electrical battery”, he was the first scientist to speak of positive and negative charges, and subsequently discovered the concept of charge conservation. This principle is that electric charge can be neither created nor destroyed, while its properties can be reversed the net amount of electricity is always the same.

During this time he also sought to prove that lightning was electricity. In 1750, he proposed an experiment that involved flying a kite with a key during a lightning storm. However, he is credited with performing the experiment in 1752, where he was successful in extracting electric sparks from the cloud. It was said that to avoid the an electrical shock he stood on an insulator and under a dry roof.

Scientific Recognition

While the popular image of Ben flying a kite in a thunderstorm is romantic, it is highly unlikely he performed the experiment with that method. When he wrote about his experiments he spoke about the danger from lightning. This helped him develop the concept of “grounding” where the electricity can be safely diverted into the ground. All of this research eventually paved the way for the lightning rod that Ben developed.

He experimented with the rods first on his own house, but later installed them also on the Academy of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania State House. His work with electricity made him one of the few Americans of his time to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. He earned the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1753. This also earned him his first honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale.

Although his work with kites was most famously attached to his lightning experiments, he also worked to use kite form and function for pulling people and ships across waterways. He inspired others to continue this research. His interest in ships would also lead to work in oceanography later in life.

Jack of all trades

Physics was not the only science that Ben was interested in either. In the 1730’s and 1740’s one of Ben’s projects was to look at the population of the American colonies. The apparent rapid growth of America intrigued him. He took notes and began to notice that the American colonies had one of the fastest population growth rates. Ben linked this phenomenon with the availability of food and farmland. In 1755, he published Observation on the Increase of Mankind, to describe his observations over the two decades. He hypothesized that America’s population could potentially double every two years, which meant that it would exceed England’s population within a century. The first draft of this work had been published in 1751, and had circulated to other prominent thinkers looking at populations. Thomas Malthus, contemporary political economists, would later use Ben’s work as a jumping off point to further improve the study of demographics.

  Over his life, Ben Franklin’s works show a dedication and work ethic that created an astounding body of work. Many of these discoveries came simultaneously with works of invention in other areas such as music and philosophy. Every day he set out to make a discovery and with a seemingly indefatigable spirit he was able to make progress in the world where he could. He went looking for questions and then sought the answers.

  Sources: Benjamin Franklin’s letters about Cooling and Evaporation Benjamin Franklin’s Bifocals

Benjamin Franklin’s account of his kite experiment The Kite Experiment’s Wikipedia Page

Benjamin Franklin’s Bibiography and collections of works at the Gutenberg Project

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Jack Ma is now arguably if not officially, the richest man in China. The founder and owner of the E-commerce giant that is Alibaba has an estimated net worth of about $25 Billion. Apart from Alibaba, which is huge in its own right, Jack Ma has holdings in Alipay (Alibaba’s sister company), stakes in a movie studio, stakes in Yahoo! China, voice and messaging apps, taxi-hailing apps, different video streaming sites, online clothing retailers and a host of other venture capital funds and businesses.

It is hard to believe that China’s most influential and world renowned figure was once just a struggling entrepreneur like many out there right now. This is a story of Jack Ma’s success and perseverance.

The story of Jack Ma

In our culture, we often strive to identify with people we believe to be heroes. These are people who defy all the odds to becoming triumphant despite all the disadvantages and obstacles that lay before them. These are the figures that give us hope; figures that lead us to believe that even we can achieve great heights of success if we just work hard and more importantly, work smart. Jack Ma is one such figure.

Failing through to success

If you ask any entrepreneur what the one constant in their life is they will tell you that it is failure. Almost every single successful entrepreneur has failed at something before. That is the hallmark of great people, they try new things and in most cases, they fail at first. What makes the difference is the fact that they learn from their failures and they NEVER, EVER give up. Ma Yun, now known as Jack Ma is no stranger to failure.

Jack Ma’s education

When he was in primary school, Jack Ma failed his examinations twice. He did not stop there, he went ahead and failed his Middle School exams three times. After High School, Jack Ma persevered through three entrance examinations before finally joining Hangzhou Normal University. Despite all this failure, he still had the guts and courage to apply to Harvard University 10 different times. He got rejected each and every single one of those times.

After trying for three painful years to join Hangzhou Normal University, getting in and ending up as an English teacher and student council representative of his city, he finally graduated and started job hunting. That is when most of his rejections started. He applied to more jobs than he can remember and got rejected from every one. In one of his famous interviews, Jack Ma is quoted as having said that out of 24 people who applied for a KFC job, 23 got accepted and he was the only one who got rejected. You can watch the interview in the video below:

This easy going serial entrepreneur went on to apply to join the police force and out of the 5 people who applied alongside him, 4 got accepted and he was told that he was not good enough for the job.

After all this, you would think that Jack Ma would be so dejected that he would wallow in his sorrows and take any opportunity that came his way. He, instead, went on to try and start three different businesses, which all failed before he started Alibaba. And even then, the initial steps were not paved with gold, nor success. That too is a story of Success and perseverance.

The birth of Alibaba and Jack Ma’s success

After failing for years to secure a stable job, Jack Ma relied on his ability to speak English to make a living. He started teaching English in his Alma Mater. It is here that he even had the idea to start offering translation services. In 1995, he had the opportunity to visit the US as a translator attached to a Government project. It was here that he was introduced to computers and the internet for the first time.

One of the very first things he did when he logged in online, he, as any man would, looked up beer. As the myriad of results popped up on his screen, he noticed that there weren’t any result options from China. He even went ahead and specifically Googled China and after no results appeared for the billion strong country, he realized that there was a gap in the market.

He immediately saw just how much potential business the internet could bring to many of the small businesses in China. If they could communicate and do business with the rest of the world, the potential for earnings was incredible.

The failure of ‘Chinapage’

The first inkling of Alibaba was a website called ‘Chinapage’ which Jack Ma created with the help of a few friends. Within a day of creating that website, he received an encouraging number of emails from businesses around the world that wanted to partner with this new Chinese connection. With that success, Jack Ma decided to partner with a Governmental entity that was supposed to pave the way to greater successes and Governmental support. This entity only ended up creating a myriad of red tapes and stifling Ma’s creativity. He even pitched the idea of using the internet to sell Chinese made products to the rest of the world and it was rejected!

After realizing that this was now a very inefficient way of doing business, Jack Ma decided to quit Chinapage and joined the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation as an employee. This is where he made some of his amazing connections, including Jerry Yang (a founding member of Yahoo! China who would, later on, invest $1 Billion in Alibaba)

In 1999, Jack Ma left his Government job and decided to seriously pursue his idea of using the internet to sell Chinese made products to the rest of the world. He gathered a group of 18 people, including his wife, and pitched them the idea. That is how Alibaba was born.

Even after that, he still faced great rejection when he tried to get funding for Silicon Valley. His business idea was deemed unsustainable by many. He eventually got funding from Goldman Sachs as well as Softbank who invested $5 million and $20 million respectively. After that, it was all systems go. But his Success and perseverance persisted as he struggled to capture the market. Thanks to several ingenious ideas, he managed to kick eBay out of China and win the Chinese market. The rest, as they say, is history. Now China’s richest man is smiling all the way to the bank with an idea that was rejected at every turn. Goes to show you how much you can achieve if you just believe and persevere.

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