Chinese technology entrepreneurs are a special breed and Justin Tang, chairman and founder of online travel company ELong, is a typical specimen. Casually dressed, urbane and well-spoken, Mr Tang is a member of the exclusive group that has built the Chinese internet business from scratch. But his experience is different in one crucial aspect. At the height of the dotcom era he sold his fledgling internet company for US$68 million and then, in the post-bubble carnage, bought it back for just US$1.5 million.
'I was lucky,' he says, with a wry smile.
The 35-year-old entrepreneur was born and grew up in Nanjing where he attended university before transferring his finance and accounting degree to Concordia, a small college in Minnesota, in 1991.
'After Tiananmen Square the regulation was you had to work for five years for the government when you graduated before you could go abroad and I didn't want to wait that long,' he says.
His first job took him to Wall Street as a financial analyst for Merrill Lynch but after six years he decided to return to China where he established ELong in 1999.
The site was based on the US site Citysearch, providing restaurant guides, travel and community information for Chinese cities.
