Colin Huang: From the son of a worker to the Internet king of the country of billions of people

Not only is the youngest self-made billionaire in China, Colin Huang - Founder of e-commerce company Pinduoduo has just "passed" Jack Ma to become China's second-richest billionaire.

When talking about technology billionaires in China, many people immediately think of Jack Ma, Pony Ma ... but it would be a mistake to forget Colin Huang - the king of the Internet in this country of billions of people. Not only is the youngest self-made billionaire in China, Colin Huang - Founder of e-commerce company Pinduoduo has just "passed" Jack Ma to become China's second-richest billionaire.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 6 of the world's 10 richest self-made billionaires under the age of 40 are from the Asia-Pacific region, including four from China. Right behind Facebook CEO is Chinese businessman Colin Huang.

The son of a worker and chose to join Google

Colin Zheng Huang was born in 1980 in Hangzhou, his parents are ordinary workers, working in a factory in the area, not even finished middle school. However, since childhood, Colin was a smart boy. At the age of 12, he passed the entrance exam to the prestigious Hangzhou Foreign Language School, where the children of the local rich attended. The years of studying here changed Huang's life.

Later, Huang attended Zhejiang University, earned a bachelor's degree and interned at the Microsoft office in Beijing with a salary of 6,000 yuan, more than her mother's salary at the time.

Huang came to the US to study for a master's degree in computer science at the University of Wisconsin and left many outstanding impressions. It was his teaching professor who wrote him letters of recommendation to the tech giants Oracle, IBM and Microsoft in the early 2000s. Although Huang was offered jobs at all three, he turned them all down to accept jobs at Google in 2004.

When deciding to join Google, Huang hesitated a lot when faced with two options. Either join Microsoft - the company that owns the Windows operating system or join Google - an emerging search engine company but not yet IPO.

Between the two paths, the young man chose Google and became one of the first to write algorithms for the e-commerce industry. Google grew very quickly a few years later. Holding a small amount of company shares, but after Google went public, his fortune has reached several million USD.

After 3 years of dedication, Huang left Google and returned to the country, starting to enter the "gambling" of a startup.

Start-ups

In 2015, Pinduoduo was founded, combining the ability to sell online with "online melon trading" and after only 2 years, it reached $280 million and continued to grow strongly in 2018.

Colin Huang took only three years to accumulate 100 billion Chinese yuan. This is a terrifying pace as it can take decades, or even a lifetime, to reach this monstrous number. At the time Pinduoduo started to market, Colin Huang's human value even surpassed Liu Qiangdong - China's top e-commerce billionaire, co-founder of e-commerce site JD.com .

The idea for Pinduoduo came about when Huang realized that high mobile usage had changed the way Chinese people live, including allowing them to pay via devices.

Three years after its founding, in July 2018, Pinduoduo listed shares on Nasdaq with an IPO worth $1.6 billion. As the founder, holding 46.8% of the company's shares, Colin Huang joins the top 100 richest people in the world (according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates) with a net worth of up to $ 13 billion at the time. that point. Huang also became China's youngest self-made billionaire.

Decided to leave Pinduoduo at the peak of his career

As of the end of 2020, with more than 788 million users, Pinduoduo surpasses major competitors of e-commerce giants like Alibaba and JD.com in terms of user count. Pinduoduo's annual revenue is estimated at $9.1 billion.

"Dear child" is in the most outstanding stage of development, but, in early 2021, father Colin Huang suddenly resigned as chairman of the board of Pinduoduo. His replacement is Lei Chen - who is holding the position of CEO of the company.

Despite "retiring" early at the age of 40, Huang has left a strong mark, surpassing the standards of the Internet industry in China when creating a personal fortune of 55.5 billion USD (according to Forbes). and a company with a market value of $180 billion.

In a letter to employees, Huang "hopes that his departure as Chairman of the Board will help young people enter the stage of independent adulthood".

Talking about his future plans, Huang said he will focus on research on food and life sciences. Although Huang has no intention of becoming a scientist, he "feels fortunate to have the opportunity to become a research assistant and possibly a scientist in the future".

Sharing about past memories, the former Google employee feels lucky to have had the opportunity to study and train at many famous schools in the world, likening himself to "a chicken that has come to a place of worship." king" but he still feels regret.

"Looking back, I feel like I wasted so much time striving to be the best student in my class. Now I just wish I could go back and spend time naughty, rebellious and enjoying my youth. It's over," Huang said.

This is the reckless spirit that dares to constantly try new things, create challenges for yourself to continue to rise, continue to develop, is an important secret to making the company's resounding success. The man ranked in the top 2 of the world's richest self-made billionaires under the age of 40.

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