Musk and Jack Ma's two surprising coincidences in starting a business

Tesla founders Elon Musk and Jack Ma seem to have nothing in common, but their entrepreneurial trajectories contain all kinds of incredible coincidences and connections. In the Internet field, Musk has even more extraordinary experiences that are little known.

Musk founded Zip2 in 1995, a platform that helps traditional media publish content and information on the Internet, which also includes yellow pages and white pages functions.

Coincidentally, in 1995, Jack Ma also founded "China Yellow Pages". Therefore, not only were these two companies born in the same year, the model of "China Yellow Pages" also has similarities with zip2.

In 1999, Zip2 was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in cash (in addition, Musk also obtained a portion of equity). Musk was only 28 years old that year, and his net worth was about $400 million. The $400 million in 1999 should be much more "valuable" than the $400 million now.

But the young Musk did not use the money to enjoy life. Instead, in 1999, he immediately founded another company - x.com, preparing to engage in online banking business.

Coincidentally, in 1999, Jack Ma also founded Alibaba.

In other words, Musk and Jack Ma founded their companies in the same year, and the businesses they did were similar to some extent.

Soon, x.com was renamed PayPal, specializing in online payments. PayPal was later acquired by eBay and became eBay's standard payment tool. Later, eBay once became Alibaba's strongest rival in China.

From this, it can be seen that before Musk started Tesla and SpaceX, he was a typical Internet entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and had deep roots in e-commerce. But what is surprising is that he suddenly entered the automotive and aviation industries and reshaped these two traditional industries with his unique way of thinking and the Internet genes that are deeply rooted in his bones.

In addition, more than 20 years ago, Musk co-wrote a paper on search technology. Some of the ideas in the paper were surprisingly similar to those of Google later on. So Musk said that more than 20 years ago, he had a very good chance of starting a company similar to Google.

In 2014, Jack Ma led Alibaba to go public in the United States, becoming the world's second largest Internet company. Jack Ma began to intervene in the real economy through Ant Financial, Cainiao Logistics and other subsidiaries, embarking on a greater journey.

The two great men had such a coincidental initial paths. Perhaps it was due to the laws of Internet development, but fundamentally it was determined by their insight into the Internet and their endless desire to strive.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.