Alibaba founder Jack Ma to Baidu’s Robin Li, Xiaomi’s Lei Jun and Liu Qiangdong of JD.com – at which universities did China’s richest tech entrepreneurs study?
The swift transformation of China from an emerging nation in transition to a booming market economy has helped spawn a record number of rich citizens. China now produces billionaires faster then any country in the world. Many parents of young children refer to the annual “Billionaire Ranking” compiled by the China University Alumni Association, listing Chinese colleges and universities according to the number of billionaires they have produced from alumni and faculty. Intrigued? Let’s look at the top list of Chinese billionaires and where they obtained their education.
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Jack Ma
A name well recognised across the globe, Jack Ma is co-founder of the Alibaba Group, one of the largest e-commerce businesses in the world (and owner of the South China Morning Post). The outgoing Ma had humble beginnings as a former English teacher. He attended Hangzhou Teachers College (currently known as Hangzhou Normal University), a public university in Hangzhou in the capital of Zhejiang province, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1988. Ma revealed in a video interview held in 2015 that he had applied 10 times to Harvard Business School but was rejected every time.
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Robin Li
Robin Li is the CEO and co-founder of Baidu, China's top search engine and one of the world's most popular websites. The self-made man enrolled at the prestigious Peking University where he studied information management and earned a Bachelor of Science degree. In 1991, Li travelled to the University at Buffalo in the US for a doctorate in computer science. He received his Master’s degree in computer science three years later after deciding not to continue with the PhD.
Lei Jun
You have probably used a product from Lei Jun's corporation at some point of time. Co-founder and chairman of Xiaomi, one of the world's most popular smartphone and lifestyle product brands, Lei graduated from Mianyang Middle School in Sichuan province and attended Wuhan University in the same year. He passed all credits within two years and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science. During his last year in college, he started his first company also known as Gundugoms.
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Ma Huateng
Also known as Pony Ma, Ma Huateng chairs Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings, which ranks among the nation's largest businesses by market cap. As of April 2020, he is the richest man in China, with a net worth of US$46.9 billion according to Forbes. Ma graduated from Shenzhen University in 1993 with a Bachelor of Science in computer science. Ma is known for his low profile personality when compared to Jack Ma's outgoing personality, largely due to his computer science academic background.
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Liu Chuanzhi
Founder of the Lenovo Group, 75-year-old Liu Chuanzhi recently announced his effective retirement to serve as the company's honorary chairman, senior adviser and member of the strategy committee of the board of directors. In 1962, Liu entered the People's Liberation Army Institute of Telecommunication Engineering, currently known as Xidian University. The institute is a public research university in Xi'an, with its computer science program ranked at 8th nationally and 22nd globally by US News & World Report 2020.
Liu Qiangdong
Referred to as the “Jeff Bezos of China”, Chinese internet entrepreneur Liu Qiangdong is the founder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com. With a keen interest in politics, he enrolled in Renmin University of China to study sociology but invested his spare time to learn computer programming after discovering that the latter subject will secure better career opportunities. He graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor's degree in sociology, and later earned an Executive Master of Business Administration from the China Europe International Business School.
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Yang Huiyan
With a net worth of US$20.3 billion as of April 2020, Yang Huiyan is ranked fifth richest person in China and the richest woman in Asia according to Forbes. She attended the Ohio State University and received her Bachelor’s degree in 2003. Having received a large stake in real estate developer Country Garden Holdings from her father Yeung Kwok Keung in 2017, Yang owns 57 per cent of the company. She also chairs Bright Scholar Education Holdings, a Chinese education company that went public on the New York Stock Exchange.
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With more billionaires emerging in China than anywhere else in the world, the China University Alumni Association’s annual ‘Billionaire Ranking’ lists higher education institutes by the number of super-rich they produce