Chinese name: Ma Huateng
Alias: Father of QQ, Penguin Emperor
Nationality: China
Birthplace: Chaoyang, Guangdong
p>Date of birth: 1971
Occupation: Business, entrepreneur
Graduation school: Shenzhen University
Main achievements: Founding Tencent
No. 7 on the 2009 Forbes China Rich List
Constellation: Scorpio
One of the main founders of Tencent, he currently serves as the chairman and CEO of the company's holding board. As an entrepreneur born and raised in Shenzhen, he majored in computer science and applications at Shenzhen University and obtained a bachelor's degree in science from Shenzhen University in 1993. Before founding Tencent, Ma Huateng was in charge of the research and development of Internet paging systems at Shenzhen Runxun Communication Development Co., Ltd., a Chinese telecommunications service and product supplier. He has more than 10 years of experience in the telecommunications and Internet industries. In 1998, he and his friend Zhang Zhidong registered and established "Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems Co., Ltd." In 2009, Tencent was selected into Fortune's "50 Most Admired Companies in the World". In the "2010 New Fortune 500 Rich List" released by the financial magazine "New Fortune" in 2010, Ma Huateng ranked fifth with a net worth of 33.42 billion yuan.
Ten details about 'Ma Huateng'
1 Ma Huateng's Huiduo station back then was called Pony-soft. Pony is the English name Ma Huateng gave himself during college. The English name means little. Ma Ju, Tencent employees like to call him "Little Ma" in private conversations, but call him pony in person.
2 Ma Huateng is from Chaoshan. He came to Shenzhen from Shantou with his parents when he was 10 years old. His family conditions are very good. His father once took charge of Tencent's finances for a period of time. Every time Ma Huateng's father comes to When we were in the company, we all drove a Mercedes-Benz 500. It was black and very stylish. Now it costs at least more than 1.2 million. Back then, it was even more expensive than this. Ma Huateng has a sister who works at Shenzhen Telecom and is now said to be the deputy director in charge of data.
3 Ma Huateng has a very expensive hobby, astronomy. There are also several astronomy enthusiasts in Tencent. When he is free, Ma Huateng will communicate with these colleagues about his interest in astronomy. With Ma Huateng’s current wealth, , what degree should the telescope he was playing with be. Some media say that Ma Huateng gave up his astronomy hobby because he likes computers. This is nonsense, and they don't look at the astronomy magazines on Ma Huateng's desk, as well as foreign language versions.
4 Ma Huateng started playing with computers very early. When he naturally chose the computer major at Shenzhen University, Ma Huateng’s PC skills impressed his teachers and classmates. He can become a killer of various viruses and help the school. PC maintenance provides good solutions, but at the same time, it often does pranks of locking the hard drive, making the school computer room administrator dumbfounded.
5 Ma Huateng came into contact with the Internet very early. Before the Internet became truly popular, many Internet fans were already on FidoNet (which was born in the United States in 1984 and is not the Internet in our current sense). Ma Huateng is one of those who experienced the fun of the Internet early. In February 1995, after being idle on Huiduo.com for half a year, Ma Huateng invested 50,000 yuan without any hesitation, bought 4 phone lines (some say 5) and 8 computers at home, and took on the responsibility of Huiduo.com Shenzhen. The role of the webmaster (the previous statement about Ma Huateng being the first private BBS based on the Internet was wrong, please correct it here), for a long time to come, the Shenzhen "Ma Station" will have extremely high popularity on Huiduo.com . Ding Lei and Qiu Bojun were also hanging out on BBS at that time. Ding Lei and Ma Huateng have a good relationship. The two often drink together and discuss how to start a business in the future. The story of two people inspiring each other and helping each other is a great story.
6 Ma Huateng did not buy a car when he started his business. The first car he bought was at the end of 2001 and at the beginning of 2002. It was a Volvo S80 in champagne color and cost over RMB 700,000. This is a safety model. The model is renowned for its performance and fits Ma Huateng’s personality.
7 Ma Huateng likes to play games. When he started his business, there were no particularly popular online games. CS was popular at that time. Every day after get off work, Ma Huateng and his colleagues would divide into two teams to compete in Capture the Flag. Most of them would win. It's Ma Huateng. Ma Huateng has considerable talent in playing games. In addition, he is a strategic player. Therefore, even if his opponents desperately try to stop him, it will be difficult to do so. When Legend was popular, Ma Huateng also played Legend. It is said that his level was very high. After that, Tencent entered online games on its own, and Ma Huateng played his own games. Employees in the game department also have the most contact with Ma Huateng. In March 2007, the number of online users of QQ casual games exceeded 3 million. Ma Huateng personally attended the internal celebration cocktail party and clinked glasses with everyone.
8 Ma Huateng is technically very strong. There has been an internal discussion about who is stronger between him and CTO Zhang Zhidong. The conclusion is that Zhang Zhidong is stronger. Zhang Zhidong is a master of computer science from South China Institute of Technology. He worked in Shenzhen before starting a business in Tencent. The very famous Liming Computer Work, Zhang Zhidong is proficient in both software and hardware, very powerful. Ma Huateng has a better feel for products than Zhang Zhidong. His advantage is that he can simplify many things.
9 Ma Huateng is actually Tencent’s largest product manager. He spends a lot of time positioning his role as Tencent’s chief product designer. He will try out all Tencent’s products or services and then ask questions. In this regard, he It feels good and is a genius. Ma Huateng is a big smoker and smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. When he smokes, he is mostly thinking about problems and user experience.
10 Ma Huateng is a very gentle person. I have never seen him blushing with anyone, and I have never seen anyone pat the table for him or him. He is a person with a good personality and he is generally not embarrassed. Who, but it is not easy for Tencent employees to have meetings with Ma Huateng. Ma Huateng doesn't talk much and listens a lot. But once he speaks, he is very to the point and asks very detailed questions. It is difficult to deal with it casually.
11 Ma Huateng is a relatively shy person, and he blushes when talking to girls. Once the company held a cultural party, the female host asked Ma Huateng to hug Ma Huateng. Although Ma Huateng hugged him, everyone saw his He blushed and looked very embarrassed.
12 Ma Huateng got married relatively late. He and his wife met in Beijing, and they are Internet friends, but it is not an online relationship in the full sense. More interactions and acquaintances are conducted offline. There is news on the Internet that Ma Huateng spent 60 million on a wedding, which is not in line with Ma's style. Ma's wedding was very low-key. It was held in Shenzhen. Only some old employees and old friends were invited, and no outsiders knew about it.
13 Ma Huateng is very low-key and does not like to engage in activities within the company. When the company was listed, he did not even hold a cocktail party. The company only went to Qingyuan to play together when it exceeded 100,000 users. There is no greater celebration than this. This is related to Tencent's values: integrity, responsibility, cooperation, and innovation. It seems to have nothing to do with showmanship.
1 4 Tencent is a typical enterprise dominated by engineer culture. In 2004, the organizational structure was built based on technology. After 2004, it was also product-oriented, all under the leadership of engineer culture. Ma Huateng likes others to regard him as an engineer. Many companies in Shenzhen have a typical engineering culture. Huawei, Mindray, and Han's Group all emphasize this. This is related to the temperament of the city. Xunlei, another successful Internet company in Shenzhen, is also a company dominated by engineer culture.
15 Ma Huateng is very low-key, does not like to talk, is simple and direct, and is very efficient. Now he is much better because of constant interviews, but compared to other Internet company leaders, he is really low-key. However, it is said that many female reporters like Ma Huateng’s type. As for why, I’ll leave it at that.
[Edit this paragraph] Difficulties and Opportunities
Like other Internet companies that have just started to start a business, funding and technology are Tencent’s biggest problems. "First there was a lack of funds, and when the funds were available, the software could not keep up." In February 1999, Tencent developed the first "Chinese-style" ICQ, namely Tencent "QQ", which was welcomed by users and the number of registrations increased rapidly in a short period of time. It increased to tens of thousands within a day. As the number of people increased, the server had to be continuously expanded. At that time, the server hosting fee of one to two thousand yuan was too much for the company. "We can only use other people's servers everywhere. At first, it was just an ordinary PC, put it in a computer room with broadband conditions, and then secretly put the program into other people's servers to run."
"At that time, if you thought you couldn't afford it, just sell it," Ma Huateng said happily when he mentioned the situation: "But we ran into trouble when selling QQ. I talked to many ICPs (content providers), and they all asked for exclusive purchase. Stop." This made Ma Huateng, who wanted to make money by selling QQ software to several more companies, very hesitant. The most suspenseful thing was the negotiation with the Shenzhen Telecommunications and Data Bureau. The other party was prepared to offer 600,000 yuan, but Ma Huateng insisted on selling it for 1 million yuan, but the negotiation could not be reached and had to fall through.
The software could not be sold, but the number of users was growing rapidly. The investment required to operate QQ was increasing, so Ma Huateng had to raise money everywhere. When I went to the bank, the bank said that I had never heard of anyone being able to get a mortgage loan based on the "number of registered users." When I talked with domestic investors, they were mostly concerned about how many computers and other fixed assets Tencent had. In the second half of 1999, the Internet began to "fever" from the United States to China. Inspired by the overseas financing of his old netizen Ding Lei, Ma Huateng took six versions of a business plan with more than 20 pages and began to look for foreign venture capital, and finally came across it. Arrived at IDG and Yingke Digital. "They gave QQ US$4 million, accounting for 20% of the company's shares. When QQ developed to 10,000 users, the money had not been used up."
With this funding, the company bought 20 10 Gigabit IBM server. "When I put it on the table, I couldn't help but feel how beautiful it was." Ma Huateng recalled the scene and couldn't help but be happy. Ma Huateng: The rise of Chinese Internet companies requires "innovation". Ma Huateng said that the Internet industry is characterized by high knowledge intensity, high added value and high industry-driving ability. Not only that, this industry also has the characteristics of low energy consumption and low environmental pollution. It can be said that the Internet service industry is not only a high-end service industry, but also an environmentally friendly and green service industry.
In his speech, Ma Huateng believed that the Internet industry is very new, changes very quickly, and has a very short history.
Ma Huateng believes that the main reason for the rise of local Internet companies in China is local innovation. Local companies can fully understand the characteristics and development methods of Chinese users and develop applications and services that are truly suitable for Chinese netizens. This is the most fundamental factor. In the future, international giants can also do very well. For example, Google can recruit many very good talents, but it also needs to be localized. In the future, we can see that more and more high-end service industries will open up and enter the capital market. In terms of corporate management mechanisms, including talent attraction and incentive systems, if there is no reform, there will be no way to compete with the international market. , more professional service-oriented companies to compete.