Meet Zhang Yiming, the incredibly exclusive billionaire behind TikTok that is currently China’s wealthiest individual

  • Zhang Yiming has actually developed a $49.3 billion ton of money given that cofounding ByteDance, the Chinese technology titan behind TikTok.

  • Zhang is very exclusive and little is openly found out about his individual life.

  • He just recently ended up being the wealthiest individual in China. Right here’s a take a look at his job and life.

The prevalent appeal of TikTok has actually developed not just a brand-new generation of social media sites celebrities– it’s additionally aided mint China’s richest individual.

Zhang Yiming, the 41-year-old software application designer that established the application’s moms and dad business, ByteDance, currently has a total assets of $49.3 billion, according to the 2024 Hurun China Rich List, which records the nation’s wealthiest individuals.

Zhang is an extremely exclusive individual and little is openly found out about his individual life. He has just recently, nonetheless, been returned right into the limelight after being called on the checklist as the richest person in China.

After running ByteDance for almost a years, Zhang stepped down as chief executive officer in 2021, apparently informing staff members that he’s “not really social, choosing singular tasks like being on-line, analysis, paying attention to songs, and considering what might be feasible.”

” The reality is, I do not have a few of the abilities that make a perfect supervisor,” Zhang claimed at the time, according to Reuters, claiming he would certainly be a far better assistance to the business in a function that really did not include taking care of individuals straight.

Right Here’s what we understand concerning his job increase and life:

Zhang was birthed in 1983 in China’s Fujian district.

Zhang Yiming bytedanceZhang Yiming bytedance

Zhang is 41 years of ages. VCG/VCG through Getty Pictures

Zhang’s moms and dads functioned as civil slaves, according to Bloomberg.

His name is based upon a Chinese adage concerning “unusual everybody with an initial effort,” the South China Early Morning Article reported.

He wed his university sweetie.

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Nankai College lies in Tianjin, north China. Zhang Peng/LightRocket through Getty Pictures

Zhang finished from Nankai College in 2005, where he began researching microelectronics prior to changing his significant to software application design, according to the South China Early Morning Article.

Zhang’s initial task out of university went to an electronic guidebook start-up called Kuxun.

Yiming zhang bytedanceYiming zhang bytedance

Zhang states lessons he picked up from his initial task post-graduation aided him develop ByteDance. Inspirasiku TV/YouTube

Zhang claimed he was a designer in the beginning yet became accountable of 40 to 50 individuals by his 2nd year at the business, according to SCMP. He attributes that task with instructing him sales abilities that he later on utilized to expand ByteDance, consisting of discovering “what sales are excellent sales.”

Zhang discovered the worth of going after quality while still in his initial task at Kuxun, he informed ByteDance staff members, according to the record.

” During that time, I was in charge of the innovation, yet when the item had troubles, and I would proactively join the conversation of [the] item strategy,” Zhang claimed, according to the paper. “A great deal of individuals claim this is not what I must be doing. Yet I wish to claim: your feeling of obligation and your need to do points well, will certainly drive you to do even more points and to acquire experience.”

Zhang additionally operated at Microsoft prior to starting ByteDance, the South China Morning Post reported.

Zhang established TikTok’s moms and dad business in 2012.

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The head office of Beijing Bytedance Innovation Carbon Monoxide Ltd, in Beijing, China. Reuters/Stringer

The business has a number of social networking applications that run within China. It launched a WeChat competitor called FlipChat, and a video-messaging application called Duoshan in 2019.

Zhang and ByteDance’s initial item was an information collector application called Toutiao.

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An advertisement for Bytedance’s information feed collector application Toutiao. Zhang is not envisioned. Reuters/Stringer

Zhang wished to develop an information system whose outcomes were powered by expert system, different from China’s internet search engine Baidu.

” We press details, not by questions, by information referrals,” Zhang informed Bloomberg in 2017.

In spite of its concentrate on information, Zhang told Bloomberg’s Lulu Yilun Chen and Mark Bergen in 2017 that ByteDance does not have any kind of journalists on its staff like several various other socials media.

” One of the most vital point is that we are not an information company,” Zhang informedBloomberg “We are extra like a search company or a social networks system. We are doing really ingenious job. We are not an imitator of a united state business, both in item and innovation.”

Zhang released ByteDance’s most effective application– TikTok– under the name Douyin in September 2016.

TikTok logo on a smart phoneTikTok logo on a smart phone

TikTok released under the name Douyin. SOPA Images/Getty Pictures

TikTok is among one of the most preferred socials media amongst American teenagers and has greater than 170 million United States customers since September 2024, the business says.

Zhang was recognized for making his very own TikToks– and needing his elderly staff members to do so too.

Zhang Yiming, founder and global CEO of ByteDanceZhang Yiming, founder and global CEO of ByteDance

Zhang claimed he needed administration to make their very own TikToks and obtain a specific variety of sort otherwise he would certainly inquire to do push-ups. VCG/Getty Pictures

” For a long time, I was simply enjoying TikTok video clips without making any one of them myself, due to the fact that it’s an item mostly for youths,” Zhang claimed, according to theSouth China Morning Post “Yet in the future we made it compulsory for all administration staff member to make their very own TikTok video clips, and they need to win a specific variety of ‘suches as’. Or else, they need to do push-ups. It was a large action for me.”

Zhang’s management design is “soft-spoken yet charming, rational yet enthusiastic, young yet smart,” according to Time Magazine’s Kai-Fu Lee.

Zhang tipped down as ByteDance’s chief executive officer in 2021.

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming.ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming.

Zhang claimed he desired TikTok to have worldwide success. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Zhang stepped down as chief executive officer in 2021, claiming that he “absence[s] a few of the abilities that make a perfect supervisor” and would certainly be a better possession to the business in a non-management function.

Zhang desires the application to remain to expand abroad, claiming that he wishes his ByteDance will certainly be “as indeterminate as Google,” according to the South China Morning Post.

” We need to function harder, we need to additionally be even more nit-picker,” Zhang claimed, according to SCMP. “Similar to there was a global department of work in the commercial age, in today’s details age there’s additionally a global department of work. Chinese business owners need to additionally enhance their very own abilities as they go worldwide,” he claimed.

Nevertheless, TikTok’s possession by a Chinese moms and dad business and its expanding impact in the United States has actually increased issues amongst United States regulatory authorities.

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The regulation calls for that TikTok’s Chinese moms and dad business unload from it, otherwise the application dangers being outlawed in the United States. Celal Gunes/Anadolu through Getty Pictures

TikTok is currently fighting a law that would certainly need it to discover a brand-new proprietor in the United States by a January 19, 2025, target date or be outlawed in the nation.

Zhang has actually ended up being a billionaire because of the success of TikTok and ByteDance extra extensively.

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Zhang Yiming is China’s wealthiest individual today. Aesthetic China Team through Getty Pictures

Forbes initially proclaimed Zhang a billionaire in March 2018, approximating that Zhang deserved $4 billion.

On the yearly Hurun China Rich List for 2024, he was noted as the nation’s wealthiest individual, with an approximated total assets of $49.3 billion.

Check out the initial short article on Business Insider



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