People Were Not Ashamed to Be Businesspeople

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To Get Rich is Glorious
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http://media.asiasociety.org/video/chinaboom/JM-PeopleWere.mp4
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So, the change, to me, is that people were not ashamed to be businesspeople.

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<p>In 1992, when Deng Xiaoping spoke in Shenzhen. Move fast, develop the nation, and I was in the university that day. I was teaching at the university, because I promised my school president that I would stay there and teach for five years. A lot of people just changed jobs immediately when they signed on for the job, but I was assigned to teach at the university, and I promised my president, five years, I'm not going to change my job. In 1992, I was just in the third year. I was like, &quot;Oh my god, if I did not promise, I would probably get another job.&quot; My pay at that time was 10 dollars a month, but people offered me 120 dollars a month. And I said, &quot;No, a promise is a promise.&quot; But that was the period when I said, &quot;When I finish my five year promise, I'm going to do some real business.&quot; So, the change, to me, is that people do not feel ashamed to be business people. People think doing business is good. And people think, you can be rich, you can help other people be rich. At the beginning of my business career, I just wanted to change myself. I think everything I told my students, on the face, I learned from books. And I want to be a business person for ten years and go back to teach, share the real experience with young people. That was my thinking.</p>
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Jack Ma talks about how, in the 1990s, people came to feel that doing business and making money was no longer something to feel ashamed about.