他曾频遭挫折：高考两次落榜；数学极差，最低只得过1分；找工作屡屡被拒，做过搬运工和送报员；他曾对电脑和网络一窍不通，却开辟了中国互联网应用的新模式，造就了一批有影响力的中国企业。他就是中国创业界的传奇人物——马云。
When I was 12 years old, I got interested in learning English. I rode my bike for 40 minutes every morning, rain or snow, for eight years to a hotel near the city of Hangzhou’s West Lake district, about 100 miles southwest of Shanghai. China was opening up, and a lot of foreign tourists went there. I showed them around as a free guide and practiced my English. Those eight years deeply changed me. I started to become more globalized① than most Chinese. What I learned from my teachers and books was different from what the foreign visitors told me.
12岁时，我开始对学习英语感兴趣。杭州西湖区位于上海西南方向100公里处。每天早上我都会骑40分钟的自行车，到那儿附近的一家旅馆，八年的时间里，风雨无阻。中国正在不断地开放，许多外国游客都会到那里。我给他们当免费导游，带领着他们四处游览，同时练习英语。那八年深深地改变了我。比起大部分的中国人，我更能感受到全球化的脉搏。我从老师和书本那里学到的与那些外国游客告诉我的完全不同。
The other event that fundamentally② changed me was in 1979, when I met a family with two kids from Australia. We met and spent three days together and played Frisbee③. We became pen pals. In 1985 they invited me to go to Australia for a summer vacation. I went in July, and those 31 days changed my life. Before I left China, I was educated that China was the richest, happiest country in the world. So when I arrived in Australia, I thought, oh, my God, everything is diff erent from what I was told. Since then, I started to think differently.
发生在1979年的另外一件事从根本上改变了我。当时我接触到一个来自澳大利亚的一个有两个孩子的家庭。我与他们相识，三天的时间都跟他们在一起，还和他们玩飞盘游戏。我们成了笔友。1985年，他们一家邀请我到澳大利亚度暑假。七月份，我到了澳大利亚，在那儿的31天可以说改变了我的人生。在我离开中国之前，学校教育我们说中国是世界上最富有、最幸福的国家。可是当我到了澳大利亚，我在想，噢！我的天啊，这里的一切跟我所听到的怎么不一样呀。从那时起，我开始以不同的思维方式来看待问题。
I flunked④ my exam for university twice before I was accepted by what was considered my city’s worst university, Hangzhou Normal University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected⑤ student chairman and later became chairman of the city’s Student Federation. When I graduated, I was the only one of 500 students assigned to teach at a university. My pay was 100 to 120 Yuan (RMB), which is like $12 to $15 per month. I always had a dream that when I fi nished my five years, I would join a business—a hotel or whatever. I just wanted to go and do something.
在我被杭州师范学院，也就是那个被认为是我所在城市里最差的大学录取之前，我曾两次在大学入学考试中失利。我不断地学习，希望成为一名高中英语老师。大学期间，我被选为学生会主席。之后，我又成为杭州高校学生联合会主席。毕业后，我是所有500名学生中唯一一个分配到高校任教的毕业生。我的工资是每月100—120元人民币，相当于12—15美元。我一直梦想着当我五年的教师任职期满后，自己会进入某个商业领域，比如说酒店业或是什么的。我就是想做出点名堂来。
In 1992, the business environment started improving. I applied for⑥ a lot of jobs, but nobody wanted me! I was turned down for secretary to the general manager of a Kentucky Fried Chicken.Then, in 1995, I went to Seatt le as an interpreter⑦ for a trade delegation⑧ . A friend showed me the Internet there for the first time. We searched the word “beer” on Yahoo and discovered that there was no data about China. We decided to launch a website and registered⑨ the name “China Pages”.
1992年，商业环境开始有所改善。我申请了许多职位，但没人要我！我曾申请肯德基总经理秘书这个职位，结果被拒绝了。之后到1995年，我作为一名商贸代表团的随团翻译来到西雅图。一位朋友第一次向我介绍了因特网这个东西。我们在雅虎上搜索了“啤酒”（beer）这个词，结果在网上没有发现有关中国的任何资料。于是我们决定做一个网页并取名为“中国黄页”。
I borrowed $2,000 to set up the company. I knew nothing about personal computers or e-mails. I had never touched a keyboard before that. That’s why I call myself “blind man riding on the back of a blind tiger.”
我借了2000美元开办了这家公司。我对个人电脑还有电子邮件可谓一无所知。在那之前，我从来没有碰过电脑键盘。这就是为什么我把自己叫做“骑在瞎眼老虎身上的盲人”。
We competed with China Telecom for about a year. The general manager of China Telecom off ered to invest $185,000 to do a joint venture. It was the most money I had ever seen in my life. But unfortunately, China Telecom got five board seats. I got two board seats. Everything we suggested, they turned us down. It was like an elephant and an ant⑩ . I resigned. Then, I got an offer to come to Beijing and run a new government group to promote e-commerce.
我们与中国电信竞争长达一年的时间。中国电信的老总愿意出资18.5万美元与我们建立一个合资公司。这可是我当时所见到的最大一笔资金。但不幸的是，中国电信占了董事会的五席，我们只占了两席。我们提出的要求都被他们拒绝了。这就像是一头大象和一只蚂蚁在较量，于是我辞职了。之后，我来到北京，加入一个政府部门的新团队来推进电子商务建设。
My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision11. Everyone put their money on the table and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name. Alibaba is easy to spell and people everywhere associate that with “Open, Sesame12,” the command that Ali Baba used to open doors to hidden treasures in One Thousand and One Nights, the book of Middle Eastern folktales.
我的梦想是建立一家属于自己的电子商务公司。1999年，我召集18个人到我家，把我的想法同他们整整讲了两个小时。所有人都把它们的钱放到了桌子上。就这样，我们凑了6万美元，开始了阿里巴巴的创业之路。因为我想创建一个全球化的公司，所以我为公司选了一个全球化的名字。阿里巴巴的英文拼写非常简单，而且世界各地的人会由此联想到“芝麻开门”——在中东民间故事集《一千零一夜》中，是阿里巴巴为了藏宝物而用来叫开盗穴大门的咒语。
There were three reasons why we survived. We had no money, we had no technology, and we had no plan. Every dollar, we used very carefully. The office opened in my apartment. We expanded when we raised money from Goldman Sachs in 1999 and then Soft bank Corporation in 2000.
我们没有资金，我们没有技术，我们也没有计划，但是我们能“活下来”原因有三个：一是每一分钱我们都用得非常仔细；二是办公室就在我的家里；三是1999年和2000年，我们分别从高盛公司和软银集团那里筹集到了两笔资金，之后我们扩大了公司的规模。
We’re in China today because I believe in one thing: global vision, local win. We designed the business model13 ourselves. Our focus is on helping small and medium-size companies make money. We never copied a model from the U.S., like a lot of Chinese Internet entrepreneurs did. We focused on product quality. It has to be “click and get it.” If I can’t get it, then it’s rubbish14.
如今，我们的“根据地”仍然在中国。这是因为我始终秉承“全球的眼光，当地制胜”这一战略。我们创造了属于自己的商业模式。我们专注于帮助中小企业盈利，从来不像有些中国的因特网企业家那样去复制美国的企业模式。我们注重产品的质量，一切都应该是“轻轻一点，成就一切。”如果我们做不到这一点，我们的商业模式就是垃圾。
I call Alibaba “1001 mistakes”. We expanded too fast, and then in the dotcom bubble15, we had to have layoff s16. By 2002, we had only enough cash to survive for 18 months. We had a lot of free members using our site, and we didn’t know how we’d make money. So we developed a product for Chinese exporters to meet buyers in the U.S. online. This model saved us. By the end of 2002, we made $1 in profits. Each year we improved. Today, Alibaba is very profitable17.
我把阿里巴巴叫做“一千零一个错误”。我们规模发展得太快，于是在网络泡沫时代，我们不得不去面对发展停滞的状态。到了2002年，我们所拥有的资金仅够公司维持18个月的时间。那时有许多客户还在无偿地使用我们的网页，可我们就是不知道如何从中赚到钱。于是我们为中国的出口商开发了一个产品，使得他们能够在网上接触到美国的购买商。这个商业模式挽救了我们。截止到2002年年底，我们的利润为1美元，公司扭亏为盈。每年公司的状况都在改善，如今，阿里巴巴可以带来很大的利润。
看看马云为了学英语所付出的努力， 小编真的自愧不如， 沉默了， 赶紧去Trycan学英语吧！