China’s second richest person changes ownership

For a long period of time, China’s rich list has been very stable, especially those at the top of the list, such as Tencent Group founder Ma Huateng, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, and the dark horse in the past two years-the founder of Nongfu Spring People Zhong Sui Sui.

However, after the Forbes real-time rich list was updated on October 20, an unusual figure appeared in the top three of China’s rich list-Zhang Yiming, the founder of Bytedance.

China’s second richest person changes ownership

According to data from the Forbes real-time rich list that day, Zhang Yiming’s net worth reached 59.4 billion US dollars, equivalent to more than 379.7 billion yuan.

Zhang Yiming, who was not well-known in the Internet field, became the second richest man in China by virtue of surpassing Ma Huateng’s wealth, second only to Zhong Suansui.

Zhang Yiming, born in the 80s in 1983, graduated from Nankai University and founded Bytedance in 2012. Compared with Tencent Group and Alibaba, Bytedance is clearly a rookie in the Internet industry.

But it is this rookie who now has the strength of a giant. Although the name of Bytedance’s company is still unknown to many Chinese, its Toutiao and Douyin are popular all over the country.

Post-80s gangsters get rich

Thanks to these two extremely popular products, Bytedance’s operating income and volume have grown rapidly.

According to public data, the actual revenue of Bytedance in 2020 will reach 236.6 billion yuan, which is almost equivalent to one-half of Tencent Group’s operating revenue in 2020, a 111% increase compared to 2019.

In addition, ByteDance has attracted 110,000 people worldwide to participate in the construction of this dark horse in the Internet industry.

It is worth mentioning that with the popularity of Tik Tok, the overseas version of Tik Tok, ByteDance has also been pushed into the spotlight of the global market, becoming the world’s largest unlisted technology innovation “unicorn”. The market value of the company is approximately between US$90 billion and US$100 billion.

Because of this, Zhang Yiming’s net worth has grown by leaps and bounds, surpassing Ma Huateng in one fell swoop, becoming the richest man on the Internet in China.

In addition, in the author’s opinion, the reason why Zhang Yiming or Toutiao has today’s status is also because he has enjoyed the domestic “anti-monopoly dividend”. I will not repeat the specific circumstances.

However, Zhang Yiming, who has made a fortune in a muffled voice, and Bytedance, who has become an Internet giant, will face more severe challenges next.

The first is corporate reputation. Whether it’s Zhang Yiming’s attitude to sell Tik Tok to American companies under external pressure earlier this year; or behind the proliferation of high traffic, low quality, and vulgar information, Zhang Yiming believes that “algorithms have no values. The concept of “has a certain negative impact on the image of Bytedance.

The second is the future direction. In addition to Toutiao and Douyin, Zhang Yiming also explored the fields of entertainment, games, semiconductors, and new energy vehicles.

These are the hottest outlets at the moment. As a new Internet giant, they will naturally grab the site, but this will also change the corporate positioning of Bytedance.

According to media reports on October 19, Bytedance began to shrink the battle line after its expansion, and the shutdown of related businesses and large-scale layoffs were successively exposed.

In my opinion, Zhang Yiming probably didn’t think about which way ByteDance would go. While the road ahead is confused, the problem of byte beating and loss has not yet been resolved.

According to financial data for 2020, Bytedance’s operating loss during the reporting period reached RMB 14.7 billion. In this state, Zhang Yiming will not have much feeling about the crown of the richest Internet man in China. Compared with surprises, it may be more pressure.

Write at the end

An Internet company with more than 100,000 employees and hundreds of millions of users, what direction it should go next is a very troublesome question before Zhang Yiming.

Perhaps because of this, he will resign the position of CEO of Bytedance.