In April 2021, the Forbes Global Rich List was released again, and among the top 500 richest people in the world, a Chinese name attracted everyone's attention.
Compared with other business tycoons, his life experience can be called ups and downs, and he took a magnifying glass to read this experience carefully and saw the changes of an era.
As a trendsetter in the business world, he was once the idol of a generation, and he was also a bankrupt boss who was rejected by thousands of people.
This person is a rich man who is accompanied by controversy and glory, and his name is Shi Yuzhu.
A playful and stubborn genius boy
Personality factors are more or less influencing behind anyone's success and failure, and the most important stage of a person's character formation is childhood.
Shi Yuzhu's childhood can be said to be colorful, unlike those students who study hard in school, his interests are very wide.
Whether it's a villain book sold on the street or a flower butterfly flying in the air, any gadget can make him interested.
Shi Yuzhu's father is a police officer and his mother is a factory worker, and it is difficult to discipline this naughty child at all times.
Therefore, Shi Yuzhu was much more naughty than children of the same age in his childhood, and his academic performance could only maintain a midstream level.
But naughty children often have excellent hands-on ability, and Shi Yuzhu once imitated a "miniature bomb" by reading books when he was a child.
As he grew older, Shi Yuzhu's parents began to deliberately urge him to study hard, and under the supervision of his family, Shi Yuzhu focused on books.
Geniuses are not ordinary people after all, and when Shi Yuzhu decided to study hard, his grades began to improve by leaps and bounds.
At the same time, Shi Yuzhu's stubborn character also came into play. Every day he sets himself a study goal, and if he doesn't complete it, he doesn't even go to eat or sleep.
In 1980, when the college entrance examination results were released, Shi Yuzhu's name was impressively listed in the first place in the county.
With his excellent college entrance examination scores, Shi Yuzhu successfully came to the Department of Mathematics of Zhejiang University and began his campus life.
In the broader world, Shi Yuzhu came into contact with different classmates and saw a world completely different from the county seat.
In addition to attending classes, Shi Yuzhu spends the rest of his time playing cards, kicking football, playing guitar and other extracurricular activities, and his curiosity drives him to feel the diverse world with hunger.
Before going to university, Shi Yuzhu wanted to study hard in the direction of theoretical mathematics and become a famous mathematician in the future.
But after seeing other gifted young people, and the colorful world outside of school, this idea was shattered.
When Shi Yuzhu was assigned a research direction in his junior year, he decisively filled in the applied computer direction and began to get in touch with computer programming, and this decision completely changed Shi Yuzhu's future life.
From the first time he saw computer code, Shi Yuzhu became interested in this unique computer language.
The different programs that come out of a line of code make him obsessed with it. In college, he was already a well-known programmer in school.
In 1984, with the arrival of the graduation season, Shi Yuzhu accepted the assignment of the school to work in the Anhui Bureau of Statistics, and got the "iron rice bowl" that outsiders envied.
But Shi Yuzhu, who was restless by nature, made different results in his seemingly dull work.
From the first day he came to the unit, he began to propose to the leaders to purchase computers, which would certainly improve the calculation efficiency of statistical work.
You must know that the price of a computer at that time was as high as tens of thousands of yuan, and Shi Yuzhu's salary was only 30 yuan.
Under Shi Yuzhu's hard work, the leaders finally agreed to this proposal and spent a huge amount of money to purchase the first computer for the Bureau of Statistics.
When Shi Yuzhu returned to the unit with the computer, he immediately began his own programming work, and with the rapid tapping of the keyboard, Shi Yuzhu successfully developed a data statistics program.
When this program was run, the workload of more than 30 people in the office for one year was completed by Shi Yuzhu in 2 days.
This efficiency shocked all colleagues, and at the same time made it difficult for leaders. Because the work has been completed, the number of members of the department can only be reduced.
In desperation, Shi Yuzhu was transferred to another department. Shi Yuzhu, who came here, was still not idle, and continued to study the new procedure.
It wasn't long before he developed a data analysis program that not only collects data, but also classifies and filters it.
Using the data analyzed by the program, Shi Yuzhu also published an article on the income and consumption of rural households in Anhui.
After the paper was published, Professor Yang Jike of Shenzhen University noticed this "genius" young man and quickly got in touch with him.
With the help of Professor Yang, Shi Yuzhu actually obtained the qualification to go to Shenzhen University for graduate school, and after discussing with the leaders, Shi Yuzhu embarked on a new study journey.
After two years of graduate study, Shi Yuzhu's programming skills have improved dramatically, and the work of the Statistics Bureau has not been able to meet his ambitions.
Soon after returning to work, Shi Yuzhu made an incomprehensible behavior for his family, he took the initiative to quit the "iron rice bowl" and decided to go to Shenzhen to "go to the sea" to start a business.
Relatives and friends around him took turns to admonish Shi Yuzhu, but he was stubborn and didn't take anyone's opinion, and even directly said to his friends, "If I fail to start a business in the sea, I will jump into the sea!"
After overriding public opinion, Shi Yuzhu took the train away from home again with the only few thousand yuan of savings on his body, and at the same time opened a new chapter in his life journey.
The entrepreneurial journey of quitting your job and going to the sea
At that time, computers were only available in English, so all Chinese typing and printing needed to rely on typewriters, and the price of a typewriter was as high as tens of thousands of yuan.
During his graduate studies, Shi Yuzhu has been studying computer Chinese writing systems, hoping to completely change the market position of typewriters through new software.
In a round-the-clock attempt, Shi Yuzhu wrote more than 500,000 lines of code, and finally made the original M-6401 word processing system.
In the application process of the original unit, it successfully made everyone adapt to the mode of operation, and directly eliminated the previous typewriter here.
This time he came to Shenzhen to start a business, Shi Yuzhu wanted to promote this software to the whole country and earn his first pot of gold.
In order to save his living costs, Shi Yuzhu found a former alumnus and borrowed it to live in his classmates' dormitories.
After that, I contacted the teacher in many ways, obtained the qualification to use the teacher's computer, and continued to polish the immature product.
Finally, a few months later, Shi Yuzhu has thoroughly developed and perfected the software and can be sold on the market.
But problems also followed, Shi Yuzhu had no funds to advertise, and he couldn't even get the money to register the company.
Faced with this situation, others may have been helpless, but Shi Yuzhu chose to find another way.
He found a company in Tianjin and attached his products to someone else's banner, but the copyright still belonged to him, and he only needed to pay a certain "affiliation fee" every month.
In the next step, Shi Yuzhu used the method of "pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger" to successfully win the advertising space of "Computer World".
He approached the director of the magazine's advertising department and proposed to place advertisements first and then pay for advertising after half a month.
In order to win the trust of the director, Shi Yuzhu exerted his extraordinary eloquence and did not hesitate to use copyright as collateral.
Eventually, the director of the advertising department agreed to this "credit" payment method.
After everything was in place, Shi Yuzhu personally wrote the promotional copy of his products, and it was from this moment that his genius marketing ability began to emerge.
When the words "historic breakthrough in office automation" made headlines, many companies became interested in Shi Yuzhu's products.
Soon, the first order followed, followed by a steady stream of visitors who rushed to Shenzhen to order the M-6401.
In just three months, Shi Yuzhu earned the first 1 million yuan in his life, not only paid off all debts, but also improved his living standard instantly.
The doubts of his family have finally disappeared, and this stubborn programmer has become a famous rich man in the country in one fell swoop.
In Shi Yuzhu's view at that time, the life with a bright future and smooth sailing was already on paper, and the vast world was for him to travel.
But in the battle of the business sea, how can there be a moment that can make people stop, and the emergence of a competing product completely broke his dream.
The ups and downs of the business sea
When Shi Yuzhu was still immersed in the dream of success, a software called WPS quietly landed in the Chinese market.
The Chinese processing system developed by Qiu Bojun not only has more perfect functions, but also the operation method is more in line with the habits of the Chinese, and soon seized many orders from Shi Yuzhu.
Faced with the menacing attack of his competitors, Shi Yuzhu realized that he had to improve his previous product and launch a new Chinese character processing system as soon as possible.
For five months, Shi Yuzhu once again lived in a dormitory at Shenzhen University, surviving only on instant noodles.
After working day and night on programming, the M-6402 successfully retained its market share after the development was completed.
At this time, Shi Yuzhu also clearly realized that he would definitely not be able to achieve greater results by relying on his own strength.
So, in 1991, Shi Yuzhu decided to establish his own "Giant Company", and the M-6042 was renamed "Giant Hanka".
A steady stream of orders made Shi Yuzhu's company expand rapidly, and only a year later, Shi Yuzhu became the boss with a net worth of more than 100 million yuan, with 100 employees.
In the envious eyes of everyone, Shi Yuzhu won the title of China's Top Ten Reform Figures, and was also ranked 8th on the mainland's "Rich List".
At that time, Shi Yuzhu became the most successful idol in the hearts of a generation of entrepreneurs, and under the worship of tens of thousands of people, Shi Yuzhu himself lost his way forward.
With a huge amount of wealth, Shi Yuzhu began to worry about the company's development future, after all, once the technology is innovated, the "Hanka" he relies on is likely to be eliminated.
Therefore, Shi Yuzhu expanded the scope of business to other fields, in addition to computer financial systems, management system development, clothing, real estate, there is also an investment in health care products, at that time, "brain platinum" was the first business he fancied, and later "brain platinum" did bring him a lot of income.
In fact, there is nothing wrong with the diversified development of enterprises, but there will be hidden dangers if the pace of development is too large.
Because Shi Yuzhu has accumulated huge wealth before, even if some industries have lost money, there is no problem in the overall operation.
But at this time, Shi Yuzhu, who had infinite scenery, had been blinded by success, and a great decision made him completely fall to the bottom of his life.
A comeback after all the hardships
In 1992, Shi Yuzhu wanted to build an office building to meet the company's needs, and at the same time, he could rent out the excess space to other companies.
The proposal was quickly well received by the rest of the company, and Mr. Shi planned to build an 18-story building in Zhuhai at a cost of about 200 million yuan.
At this time, Zhuhai, as an important pilot area for reform and opening up, welcomes enterprises like Shi Yuzhu to come and settle in.
As a result, the local government granted about 40,000 square meters of land to the Giant Group at a very low price, and Shi Yuzhu also saw the government's ardent expectations for himself.
If everything had gone according to plan, then there would not have been so many changes, but Shi Yuzhu's growing vanity began to work at this time.
If you're going to build an iconic building, why can't you build it a little higher, 18 floors still doesn't look imposing enough.
As a result, the construction of the Giant Tower has gradually increased from 18 to 70 floors, and if completed, it will become the tallest building in Asia, and the cost has changed from 200 million yuan to an exaggerated 1.2 billion yuan.
At first, local banks knew that the project would require a huge amount of money, so they came to Shi Yuzhu to offer low-interest loans.
However, in Shi Yuzhu's view, his company's cash flow is very abundant and does not need to rely on the strength of others, so he rejected this suggestion.
As the project continued to advance, Shi Yuzhu suddenly discovered that the project was like a "bottomless pit", eating up all the liquidity in the company's account.
In order to reverse this decline, Shi Yuzhu adopted a pre-sale approach, starting to sell floors before the building was completed.
However, at that time, the mainland's economic development was overheated, and the state began to carry out macroeconomic regulation and control, and the real estate market was strictly controlled.
Shi Yuzhu's "big gamble" behavior did not achieve any results, and the Giant Group fell into a financial crisis that was difficult to turn over.
But he couldn't leave the company alone, so he thought of the money he had made from investing in health supplements, and maybe he could use them to ease the situation.
In 1996, Shi Yuzhu transferred all the funds in health care products to the Giant Building, and for a while, the health care products business was almost bankrupt because of the broken capital chain.
Under this practice of "tearing down the east wall and making up the west wall", Shi Yuzhu almost went bankrupt. A few years ago, Shi Yuzhu was still a billionaire worth more than 100 million, but now he has become a debt-ridden "negative tycoon" overnight.
In 1997, the hard-supporting Giant Group finally came to the end of the road, and after bankruptcy and liquidation, Shi Yuzhu was burdened with a debt of 250 million yuan and walked down the "altar" gloomily.
The world is hot and cold, and the cold and warm are self-aware. During that time, Shi Yuzhu finally woke up from the golden fog of success and saw the devastation after the carnival.
Life goes on, and life doesn't stop. The stubborn Shi Yuzhu was not completely defeated, on the contrary, began to reflect on this dreamlike entrepreneurial process.
Shi Yuzhu took the few remaining employees to Tibet to organize the team building, in addition to the intention of winning people's hearts, he also wanted to find a peace of mind.
During a difficult climb, Shi Yuzhu exhausted the last trace of physical strength in his body, even to the point of dying, but the desire to survive made him find his way down the mountain again.
This experience completely awakened Shi Yuzhu's sleeping soul in his heart, a person can be destroyed, but it must not be defeated.
Shi Yuzhu took the last entrepreneurial team and began to explore new business models again, and this time, he still set his sights on the health care products market.
After borrowing 500,000 start-up funds from a friend, Shi Yuzhu found a health care product factory and asked him to produce "brain platinum" for himself.
In order to make this product remembered by more people, Shi Yuzhu once again exerted his genius marketing talent.
The sentence "I will not accept gifts for the Chinese New Year this year, but only brain platinum will be accepted for gifts", which is deeply engraved in the minds of consumers like the spread of "virus".
Countless consumers bought this product in large quantities without knowing the efficacy, which allowed Shi Yuzhu to finally get the funds in his account.
It stands to reason that after the company's bankruptcy and liquidation, the previous debts will be written off, but Shi Yuzhu always remembers these funds owed to the workers.
As soon as Brain Platinum made money, Shi Yuzhu began to pay off his debts, and it didn't take long for Shi Yuzhu to accumulate a lot of wealth again.
But the infamy also followed, and the sound of controversy always surrounded him, but at this time, Shi Yuzhu had learned to keep a low profile and no longer argue with others.
Although the health care products industry has made Shi Yuzhu make a comeback, he still has not forgotten his profession in his heart, that is, the computer network industry.
At this time, it coincided with the rise of the Internet game industry in the mainland, and ordinary people also had surplus funds to buy computers.
Shi Yuzhu understands very well that the game industry will be a large "blue ocean", which can create unlimited wealth in the future.
In 2004, after recruiting a team from Shanda Network, Giant Group began to create a new game - "Journey".
Shi Yuzhu has the ability to grasp the psychology of consumers that others cannot match, and this game has many subversive ideas as soon as it comes out.
In the past, online games often sold "point cards", allowing players to spend money to buy "point cards" and then get the corresponding play time.
But Shi Yuzhu has completely changed this model, choosing to open all of them for free, and only set up recharge items inside the game.
In order to stimulate player consumption, Shi Yuzhu has set up countless ranking mechanisms and player interaction modes, and under the "comparison psychology", countless players have recharged in order to improve their combat effectiveness.
At its peak, the speed at which the "Journey" game made money for Shi Yuzhu even exceeded the speed of the money printing machine.
In 2007, when Giant Group successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States, Shi Yuzhu's worth exceeded 50 billion yuan, and he once again became the top richest man in China.
After the game "Journey", Shi Yuzhu did not carry out any more entrepreneurial activities and started his own rich life.
Over the years, he has appeared in variety shows and done charity, but he no longer hyped it up, just like his Weibo name, Shi Yuzhu has become a "big idler".
After thousands of sails, Shi Yuzhu's legendary life has written the best footnote for that ups and downs era.
The times create heroes, and heroes take advantage of the times, and those who are not easily defeated by fate can taste the sweetest gifts of life.