Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok, became the richest man in China: file
29 October 2024 14:09
Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, the company that developed the TikTok video service, has become the richest man in China with a personal fortune of $49.3 billion. THE US. the 41-year-old entrepreneur, who stepped down as CEO of ByteDance in 2021, became the 18th person to be named China’s richest person in the 26 years of the Hurun China Rich List, reports "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to Reuters.
Despite the legal battle over the company’s U.S. assets, ByteDance’s global revenue grew by 30% last year to reach $110 billion, which contributed to Zhang’s personal wealth, according to the Hurun rating.
Zhang Yiming beat bottled water tycoon Zhong Shanshan, who dropped to second place after his fortune decreased by 24% to $47.9 billion.
The third place on the list was taken by the little-known founder of Tencent, Pony Ma, and Colin Huang, founder of PDD Holdings, fell from third to fourth place, despite the fact that his companies, which operate e-commerce platforms Pinduoduo and Temu, continue to show steady revenue growth.
The total number of billionaires on the list decreased by 142 to 753, a decrease of more than a third compared to the peak of 2021.
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Zhang Yiming
Zhang Yiming is a Chinese Internet entrepreneur born on April 1, 1983 in Longyan, Fujian Province, China. He is the only son in a family of civil servants. He graduated from Nankai University in Tianjin, where he studied microelectronic and software engineering, receiving a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering in 2005. During his studies, he met his future wife.
He began his professional career in 2006 as the fifth employee and first engineer of the travel website Kuxun, where he was promoted to CTO a year later. In 2008, he briefly worked at Microsoft, but left the company due to corporate restrictions. After that, he joined the startup Fanfou, which eventually failed. In 2009, he founded his first company, 99fang.com, which he ran for three years.
In 2012, he founded ByteDance and developed the news aggregation app Toutiao. His vision was based on using artificial intelligence to provide relevant content to users. In 2015, the company launched the video-sharing app TikTok (known as Douyin in China), which became extremely popular among young people around the world. In 2016, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for $800 million and integrated it into TikTok.
In November 2021, he stepped down as CEO of ByteDance, while retaining more than 50% of the company’s voting rights. His management style was modeled after that of American tech companies, particularly Google, including bi-weekly general meetings and the rejection of the traditional Chinese address “boss” or “CEO”.
For his achievements, Zhang was included in the Forbes China 30 Under 30 list in 2013, the Fortune 40 Under 40 list in 2018, and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year in 2019.
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