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As of November 2024, Zhong Shanshan was the richest person in China with net worth of $50.8 Billion followed by Ma Huateng’s net worth of $46.8 Billion. However, according to Forbes, Zhang Yiming, the co-founder of ByteDance, has become the richest man in China, with an estimated net worth of $65.5 billion. His wealth comes from his 21% stake in ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok.
Yiming, who founded ByteDance in a small Beijing apartment, wanted to use big data and machine learning to personalise content for users. The idea came to him after noticing fewer people reading newspapers on the subway, realising that mobile phones would become the primary source of information.
Zhang, who is a software engineer, studied software engineering at Nankai University, where he repaired computers and built websites for extra income. After graduation, he briefly worked at Microsoft but left after six months, saying he was “bored.” Before launching ByteDance, he created a real estate platform.
Zhang no longer manages the company’s daily operations but continues to shape its AI strategy. Known for his private nature, he once admitted that he lacked management skills and preferred analysing market trends over leading people.
In a 2017 interview, he expressed hopes of making ByteDance as influential as Google while acknowledging the cultural hurdles of expanding overseas.
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