Beijing/Mumbai: Zhang Yiming, the founder of 'ByteDance', the parent company of short-video app TikTok, has dethroned India's prominent business tycoon Mukesh Ambani to become the second richest person in Asia. According to the latest Forbes rankings, Zhang Yiming's assets have reached $92.8 billion, while Mukesh Ambani stands at third place with $86.9 billion. In this list, India's Gautam Adani remains the richest person in Asia with a total net worth of $117.4 billion.
The Journey from a Small Apartment to a Billionaire:
Humble Beginnings: Zhang Yiming started his career as a software engineer from a small four-room apartment.
Revolutionary Algorithm: In 2012, he founded ByteDance. First, he created a news app named 'Toutiao' and then launched 'TikTok', changing the world of social media forever. The algorithm developed by him has the capability to understand the user's preference within seconds.
Global Dominance: The popularity of TikTok can be judged from the fact that tech giants like Facebook and Instagram (Meta) also had to introduce the 'Reels' feature, copying TikTok.
Distance from Limelight: Despite such a huge success, Zhang Yiming stays away from the media and limelight, to the extent that he even stepped down as the CEO of ByteDance in 2021 to work on long-term strategies.
