Who is China’s wealthiest man Colin Huang?

China’s wealthiest man Colin Huang speaks during the company’s stock trading debut at the Nasdaq Stock Market in New York, during an event in Shanghai, China July 26, 2018. Photo by Yin Liqin/CNS via Reuters

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of Aug. 16, Huang’s net worth is estimated to be US$51.1 billion, making him the 23rd richest person globally. Since August 9, he has surpassed Zhong Shanshan, the head of Nongfu Spring and previously the richest man in China since April 2021.

Huang was born to factory worker parents in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province in eastern China, per the Business Insider. He once shared on his now-suspended Medium blog that he attended an “ordinary” elementary school. After winning a prize in a math Olympiad, his teacher recommended he take an admission test for the selective Hangzhou Foreign Language School (HFLS).

Thinking that the school focused on teaching foreign languages, Huang was initially reluctant because he preferred “a school strong in Math, Physics and Chemistry.” However, changed his mind after the school’s principal persuaded him.

“In retrospect, [thank] goodness that I chose to go to HFLS,” Huang wrote on his blog, describing that the school was famous for its liberal approach.

At 18, Huang began his computer science degree at Zhejiang University in China. During his first year, he was chosen as a fellow by the Melton Foundation, which was established by Bill Melton, the founder of American multinational corporation VeriFone.

Each fellow chosen received a computer and internet data, which allowed them to explore the internet and communicate with other fellows. Additionally, fellows had the opportunity to travel to a member country each year. Huang attributes his international outlook, which he believes is broader than that of most people in China, to this experience.

While Huang considers himself “very lucky” for his educational and life opportunities, describing himself as a “phoenix soaring out of a chicken coop,” he also regrets being “too goal-oriented” and not taking enough time to “purely enjoy youth.”

“I was too goal-oriented and wasted too much time striving to be number one in class and a good student,” Huang wrote.

He received his first paid position at Microsoft, where he worked in both the Beijing and Seattle offices as an intern. During his time there, a mentor suggested Huang explore opportunities at Google.

Thus, after earning his master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S. in 2004, he joined Google as a software engineer and quickly transitioned to a product manager role.

At that time, Google was preparing to expand into China, and Huang was involved in the initial team tasked with this effort. In 2006, Huang moved back to China to assist in establishing Google China, as reported by Bloomberg.

However, he departed from the company a year later. “It was not until three or four years after I left Google, I started to realize how rare it was to come across and join a company like Google at the time,” he wrote on his blog. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (or at least once in 10 or 20 years) and I was extremely lucky.”

After that, he founded the e-commerce site Oukou, selling consumer electronics including mobile phones and home appliances. He sold the business three years later in 2010.

Subsequently, he established his second company Leqi, which assisted foreign brands in marketing their online stores on Chinese e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com. His next venture was Xunmeng, a gaming studio that developed web-based role-playing games.

In 2013, at the age of 33, Huang retired due to an ear infection and began conceptualizing Pinduoduo.

Pinduoduo was established by Huang in 2015 and described in its IPO prospectus as “a combination of Costco and Disneyland,” reflecting its “gamified” shopping app nature with fun features to encourage daily visits.

That same year, he secured US$8 million from a group of investors led by Banyan, followed by an approximate US$100 million the subsequent year.

In 2018, PDD Holdings, the parent company of Pinduoduo, began trading publicly on Nasdaq. However, Huang did not attend the opening bell ceremony at Wall Street. Instead, he remained in Shanghai to join a simultaneous bell-ringing event with investors and customers.

He told reporters that he wanted to involve customers in the event, and getting visas for everyone to travel to the U.S. would have been “a bit of a hassle.”

“Isn’t it better that consumers, investors, all of us myself included, be here?” he said, noting that he avoids long-haul travel to prevent his recurring ear infection from flaring up.

Huang resigned as chief executive of PDD Holdings on July 1, 2020, yet he continues to be its largest shareholder with a 26.5% stake, according to U.S. regulatory filings.

After he relinquished his leadership role at the company, he devoted himself to research within the food and life sciences sectors.

In Sep. 2022, PDD Holdings introduced Temu in the U.S. Established to rival other Chinese bargain fast-fashion sites like Shein, the cut-price shopping app gained significant recognition after it advertised during the Super Bowl in February this year.

Within just a few months, Temu surged to the forefront of the download rankings, securing its position as the top free application on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Temu functions solely as a marketplace. Sellers, primarily from China, list a wide variety of products on its website and app, including fast fashion, makeup, electronics, and homeware.

Following its success in the U.S., Temu expanded into Europe, Latin America, and other regions, garnering approximately 75 million monthly active users in Europe alone.

These successes have led PDD Holdings to report a 375% year-over-year increase in net profit for the first quarter of 2024, reaching 25.974 billion yuan (US$3.621 billion), up from 6.929 billion yuan in the same period in 2023.