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Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

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Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#71

Post by Loque »

roymurdock wrote: post #23
deterselect wrote: post #5

He claims that out of 25 people, he was the only one rejected for a job at KFC. That to me is more inspirational. On the other hand, could he be lying about some of these hardships to make him seem more relatable?

"I applied for jobs 30 times - got rejected. I went for the police, they said 'No, you're not good.' I went to even the KFC, when KFC came to China, to my state - 24 people went for the job...23 people were accepted, I was the only guy. And when I went for the police, 5 people - 4 of them accepted, I was the only guy who did not receive it." Much more motivational than being turned down by Harvard...I seriously doubt…

It could be that he wouldn't have been good at any of those things too, and this was apparent to the people interviewing him.

I had real troubles with school, and jobs where I had no interest in, luckily I tripped into an industry I enjoy working in!

Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#72

Post by doczoidberg »

scott_s wrote: post #33
ilamont wrote: post #13

Colleges such as Harvard that base admissions decisions on grades, standardized test scores, traditional social/leadership signals (club x, sports team y), alumni connections, geographic/ethnic background, and writing/storytelling skills (i.e., the “personal essay”) are going to miss a lot of brilliant, innovative people and future leaders. The 17-year-old Steve Jobs (free spirit), Barack Obama (slacker), and Jack Ma…

Barack Obama went to Columbia, which is literally in the same league as Harvard. He also went to Harvard Law after undergrad, so I don't think he fits your narrative. We don't need to include how an elite university selects their students to claim that they are going to miss a lot of brilliant and innovative people. The mere fact that they admit only thousands of people a year make this necessarily so.

George W. went to Yale. I think they could do better.

Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#73

Post by visakanv »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

It is an interesting claim. I think Harvard would still reject him, he doesn't seem to fit in with what a "Harvard Man" is. The mistake is thinking that Harvard wants all the successful people in the world to go there, as far as I can tell they don't. Every private University recruits from their "tribe" whether it is 'quirky' at Reed or 'cosmopolitan' at Harvard, while not discriminating on race, religion, Etc they d…

> Every private University recruits from their "tribe" whether it is 'quirky' at Reed or 'cosmopolitan' at Harvard, while not discriminating on race, religion, Etc they do pick people who create a community "like them".

This is about building generations and generations worth of brand loyalty, as far as I can tell

Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#74

Post by vlunkr »

mrdrozdov wrote: post #27

There is so much more to this video than Jack Ma's rejection from Harvard. His company, Alibaba, is second only to Walmart in e-commerce business. He talks about Alibaba's success internationally (places like Russia and Norway). He also talks about the company's relationship with government regarding technology projects and privacy.

Thank you. That's really a small part of the video. I get the sense that most of these comments are coming from people who didn't watch it.

Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#75

Post by arihant »

kaitai wrote: post #70
arihant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are classes where a lot of people get A's. But I have a first hand experience to tell you that it's not easy. Just because majority got an A in a very small number of classes, does not disregard equal number of classes where majority fights for a C. It also does not say that people getting A's did not work their asses off. Grade inflation does happen in some courses. But it's not easy and is far from a joke. In…

People are fighting for As, and maybe working their butts off, but they could be doing a lot less, getting their straight Cs, and not get kicked out. It is easy to be mediocre and stay in Harvard if you already got in. (What gets people kicked out is a major depressive episode that results in DNFing all their classes for a while, not handing in mediocre homework consistently.)

True, but nobody is trying to get a C. Mediocrity is possible everywhere. Zuckerberg could have just made a university-specific social network and have gotten by. Bill Gates could have just made software for altair and gotten by. Larry Page could have just let Google work for libraries and would have made good money. Elon Musk could have stopped after selling PayPal.

When talking about people just trying to get by, you're naturally ruling out people who can start a company. The argument here is refuting the assertion that college is useless for a wannabe entrepreneur. I say it's not, for the person who wants to use it. All great CEOs did use college effectively. Some started companies there, some found talent there, some learned lessons, some learned hard work, some got inspired, and some learned skills.

Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#76

Post by zerr »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

It is an interesting claim. I think Harvard would still reject him, he doesn't seem to fit in with what a "Harvard Man" is. The mistake is thinking that Harvard wants all the successful people in the world to go there, as far as I can tell they don't. Every private University recruits from their "tribe" whether it is 'quirky' at Reed or 'cosmopolitan' at Harvard, while not discriminating on race, religion, Etc they d…

> he would have been fine at MIT I suspect

Why? Because he is Asian and must be good with numbers?

Chuck, what you describe, does indeed exist in American universities, but it is a discrimination. We should fight such atrocities.

Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#78

Post by chrisBob »

yuncun wrote: post #50

I grew up in a Chinese household, and I swear, Chinese people are way too obsessed with university branding. It's not even about quality of education, it's a cultural status phenomenon. If you take 10 mothers, the dick size of each one is directly proportional to the US News (yes, specifically US News) ranking of the university of her child. And if Timmy, some random kid in school, had a 2380 SAT, then as a fellow Ch…

>or parents discouraging their kids from playing sports to chase a 4.4 GPA.

Sounds like they could use a class on how to get into a good school. Grades alone aren't it.

Re: Jack Ma: 'Harvard rejected me 10 times' [video]

#80

Post by roymurdock »

On being asked what he worries about:

I worry today that a lot of young people lose hope, lose vision, and start to complain. We also had the same problem - it's not a good feeling being rejected by so many people. We were also depressed. But at least later, we find that the world has a lot of opportunity, how you see the world, how you catch the opportunity.

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