Did Pony Ma just crowdsource Tencent's future R&D direction?
- Ma’s questions come at a turning point for Tencent, which recently announced it was reshuffling its business to focus more on the industrial internet
Tencent Holdings’ low profile founder Pony Ma Huateng has posted questions on Zhihu, China’s answer to Quora, asking about future internet development – perhaps looking for inspiration after the video games giant recently pivoted towards the industrial internet and away from a reliance on the consumer market.
The billionaire chairman and chief executive of Tencent, which has lost US$220 billion in market value after China cracked down on gaming this year, publicly asked what kind of basic sciences will impact the internet industry in the coming decade and what changes will result from the combination and innovation of the industrial and consumer internet.
The responses range from brain-computer interface and new materials to quantum computing and data storage.
The questions, posted on Zhihu late Tuesday night, were viewed 1.4 million times and received 830 answers as of 4pm on Wednesday. Ma has not been a regular on Zhihu and the previous time he posted, six years ago, he asked at what stage of human development the internet was at and what upgrades could be expected.