[News Figures] Born in 1983, China's Richest... 'TikTok' Founder

For the first time ever in China, a person born in the 1980s has risen to the position of the richest individual. The protagonist is Zhang Yiming (41), chairman of ByteDance, the creator of TikTok.

According to the "2024 China Rich List" released by the Hurun Research Institute, Chairman Zhang Yiming's net worth was estimated at 350 billion yuan (approximately 67.7 trillion KRW). This represents an increase of 105 billion yuan (about 20.33 trillion KRW) compared to the previous year. The growth in assets is attributed to TikTok's global popularity. TikTok is a short-form video platform launched by China's ByteDance in September 2016. On this social media platform, users create and share videos around 15 seconds long. The user base spans over 150 countries and reaches 1 billion people. Although Zhang Yiming stepped down from company management in 2021, he is known to still own about 20% of the company's shares.

Born in 1983 in Longyan City, Fujian Province, China, Zhang Yiming grew up hearing stories about overseas business through his parents' conversations. He was also known among his friends as an avid reader. During his school years, he read 20 to 30 newspapers daily. Leveraging his passion for mathematics and computer science, he enrolled in the Software Engineering department at Nankai University in Tianjin. Even during university, he spent much of his time in the library reading books. Through print, he developed a perspective to understand the world. After graduating, he gained practical experience at various companies. Zhang recalled being shocked when Apple released the iPhone in 2007. While working at Chinese internet search company Kuxun, he predicted that websites would soon fit into people's pockets. He also worked at Microsoft, where he learned about trends in the technology industry.

In 2008, he co-founded the Chinese food delivery service app Meituan-Dianping with Wang Xing, and created the Chinese version of Twitter called Fanfou. Although it surpassed 1 million users within months, the website was shut down in 2009 due to Chinese government regulations.

In 2012, he founded ByteDance again and launched the news application "Jinri Toutiao" (hereafter Toutiao). He believed that an era had arrived where all information could be accessed while walking. Thinking that traditional editing was artificial, he created a service that recommends news tailored to users. This method analyzes personal information such as gender, age, occupation, and location, as well as frequently searched content, to select news that users might be interested in. By June 2018, Toutiao had captured the second-largest share of the Chinese mobile news market. Tencent, the operator of the mobile messenger WeChat, offered to acquire it for $8 billion, but he declined.

TikTok reflects his philosophy of providing a new content experience centered on users. Unlike the considerable time required to shoot and edit videos, TikTok allows users to create short 15-second videos using simple editing tools provided by default.

TikTok is the most downloaded app worldwide. Its usage surged especially among teenagers and people in their twenties following the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also popular in the United States, where about 150 million Americans use TikTok. Brian Nowak, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, stated, "American users spend 53 billion hours annually on TikTok." ByteDance became the world's first "hectocorn" company (a startup valued at over $100 billion) thanks to TikTok's popularity.