"Standing today and looking at yourself ten years ago, you will feel great, and standing today and looking at yourself ten years later, you will feel very small. ”
Some time ago, there was a wind claiming that Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, was about to become China's first richest man in the world.
The world's richest man in 2023, the "Godfather of World Luxury", has a wealth of more than one trillion yuan, while Zhang Yiming's wealth is about 200 billion;
Zhang Yiming, founded Toutiao at the age of 29, founded Douyin at the age of 33, was less than 40 years old, started his business 5 times, and is now worth 100 billion! He spent the first 30 years narrating "If you don't make a sound, it's enough", and the rest of his life is already destined to be a blockbuster.
In 2001, Zhang Yiming was admitted to the Department of Computer Science of Nankai University. In Nankai, he proclaimed himself the "moral champion". He only does three things: writing code, fixing computers, and reading books. Writing code allowed him to exercise his patience and logical thinking, repairing his computer allowed him to make many friends and partners, and reading books allowed him to expand his knowledge and horizons.
In 2005, Zhang Yiming graduated from Nankai and started 5 entrepreneurships one after another.
In the whole book of "Jobs", Jobs cried 157 times, an average of 1 cry on 3 pages. Among them, he fell to the ground 25 times, cried and screamed 34 times, and burst into tears 42 times.
Elon Musk: I work 120 hours a week, and I often spend three or four days in the workshop. All day and all night, no children, no friends, nothing but work.
But Zhang Yiming's entrepreneurship does not have the painful experience of the bigwigs, in his words, this is a happy process.
First Venture:
In 05 years, the wave of Internet technology entrepreneurship is flourishing, Ali's development is in full swing, buying half of the Internet; Baidu is listed; Jingdong Liu Qiangdong's love career is a double harvest;
Zhang Yiming is also optimistic about Internet technology, as soon as he graduated from university, he set up a team of 3 people to develop an IAM collaborative office system for enterprises to use, because he just graduated, did not understand the market and industry, did not study the market positioning, and finally ended in failure.
This entrepreneurship also made Zhang Yiming realize that a good direction and market can make him stand out in the Internet industry.
Second Venture:
In 06, Zhang Yiming went to Kuxun and began to work as a search R&D engineer. However, in the two years I have worked in Kuxun, most of them have master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Stanford. Zhang Yiming's skills are not very good, and he has no great experience. If the performance is outstanding, then Zhang Yiming's most outstanding performance may be diligence.
At that time, he worked like a Super Saiyan, and it was a common thing day and night. Others seem to be studying and Xi hard, but for Zhang Yiming, they are very happy.
For him, the more he takes the initiative to do, the more exercise he can get, and the more knowledge he can learn.
Therefore, in a short period of time, his annual salary has increased from hundreds of thousands to millions, accumulating his first pot of gold.
In '08, when he found the management chaos unsustainable, he turned around and went to Microsoft. After spending some time at Microsoft, I wanted to learn Xi the management experience of large enterprises, but the large and heavy enterprise operation mechanism made him very depressed and turned away.
Third Venture:
In September 08, when Zhang Yiming's fellow countryman Wang Xing (now CEO of Meituan) founded Fanno and Inanet, Zhang Yiming joined Fanno as a partner, responsible for Fanno's search, message distribution, hot word mining, anti-cheating and other technical work.
This time, Zhang Yiming's talent on the Internet was discovered. Through Fanfu and the domestic network, he has his own unique views on information distribution.
But in less than a year, it was forced to close, and Zhang Yiming also got out early.
Fourth Venture:
In October 09, Zhang Yiming started his first independent business and founded the real estate search engine Jiujiufang. Began to get involved in the development of mobile terminals, in the environment of the mobile Internet at that time, reached 1.5 million users, at this time Zhang Yiming quickly entered the state, successively developed several mobile phone applications, and once became the No.1 real estate application.
Two years later, Zhang Yiming quit Jiujiu Room and began to start Toutiao.
Fifth Venture:
In 12 years, Zhang Yiming started his fifth business. He moved into the residence of Jinqiu Homestead on Zhichun Road in Beijing with a team of less than 10 people and founded ByteDance.
In August 2013, Toutiao was launched. 10 million subscribers in just 90 days. Relying on algorithm mechanism and artificial intelligence technology, Toutiao can quickly obtain news from other websites or media, and push it to users according to customized needs. This is Zhang Yiming's second breakthrough, he used his algorithm to change the way information is distributed, and he has won the recognition and love of users with his own products.
In 2015, Zhang Yiming led the team to hold an annual meeting in Okinawa, Japan with the theme of "The Age of Great Change", and ByteDance began to prepare to enter the short video market. He firmly believes that short video is an important form of information distribution in the future, with huge market potential and social value.
In September 2016, Zhang Yiming launched Douyin. He used his innovation to create a platform for national participation, national entertainment, and national expression, and in only 6 years, it became a national-level application, and became popular with countless grassroots stars such as Li Ziqi and Li Jiaqi.
In September 2017, Zhang Yiming launched the overseas version of Douyin: TikTok. This is a short video social platform customized for overseas markets, which combines local culture, language and Xi to provide more diverse content and functions that are closer to user needs. TikTok quickly became a huge success worldwide, becoming the top download list in many countries and regions such as the United States, Japan, and India. This is Zhang Yiming's third breakthrough, he used his own vision to grasp the new outlet, with his own strategy to achieve an international layout.
From 12 to 17 years, in just 5 years, under Zhang Yiming's company ByteDance, a number of popular products such as Toutiao and Douyin have opened Zhang Yiming's brilliant road to wealth.
The decision-making process again and again fully reflects the characteristics of Zhang Yiming's life: setting goals, selecting a good reference dimension, tolerating the bottom line, and then comprehensively scoring to obtain the optimal solution. After calculating the gains and losses and getting the answer, don't look back, don't get entangled, and look forward. In his own words: entrepreneurship has not taken a detour. He is a good learner and Xi and has a strong goal orientation.
On February 26, 2020, Zhang Yiming ranked 115th in the "2020 Shimao Shenzhen-Hong Kong International Center Hurun Global Rich List" with a wealth of 97 billion yuan.
In April 2021, with a wealth of $35.6 billion, he ranked 39th on the "2021 Forbes Global Rich List". On May 20, Zhang Yiming announced that he would step down as CEO of ByteDance, and Liang Rubo would take over. Zhang Yiming said he lacked the skills needed by some ideal managers and preferred solitude and thinking about possibilities, so he decided to change roles and focus on long-term strategy. Zhang Yiming used his self-knowledge and humility to make the best choice for the development of the company and the growth of the team.
In October 2021, Zhang Yiming ranked second in the "2021 Hurun Report" with a wealth of 340 billion yuan. 2nd on the 2021 Forbes Chinese mainland rich list.
On January 27, 2022, Zhang Yiming established a private investment fund in Hong Kong, Cool River Venture, which is a private company limited by shares, with Zhang Yiming as a director. It is reported that the fund will mainly invest in innovative projects in the fields of Internet, artificial intelligence, and education. This is a transformation, Zhang Yiming used his wealth and resources to provide help and support to more entrepreneurs.
In November 2022, Zhang Yiming ranked second on the "2022 Forbes Chinese Mainland Rich List" with a wealth of 49.5 billion US dollars.
On April 5, 2023, Zhang Yiming talked about his vision for ByteDance for the next ten years in an interview with Time magazine. He said that ByteDance will be committed to becoming a global, platform-based and warm company, which not only provides users with high-quality content and services, but also provides more opportunities and value for creators, service providers and social contributors.
In this era of being easily addicted to entertainment, Zhang Yiming, who is always sober and calm, is undoubtedly the biggest winner in the audience by breaking out of his own sky in the midst of giants.
Zhang Yiming's life tells us that in this era of great changes, we cannot stagnate, we cannot rest on our laurels, and we cannot be satisfied with the status quo. We must have the courage and wisdom to be reborn in Nirvana, constantly challenge ourselves, and keep improving ourselves. He is a symbol of entrepreneurial innovation and iterative spirit, and his achievements have inspired countless people, showing us the infinite possibilities of the Internet, as long as we dare to iterate ourselves, the road to nirvana will never end.