ByteDance founder now richest in China’s internet sector

Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, has been ranked by Forbes as China’s richest person in the internet sector.

Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance / Photo credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images

With a net worth of US$59.4 billion, the 38-year-old entrepreneur ranks 20th among the world’s wealthiest individuals and is the second-richest in China, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaires list. Zhong Shanshan, founder of bottled water company Nongfu Spring, secured the top spot among Chinese billionaires with a net worth of more than US$60 billion.

Pony Ma and Jack Ma, founders of the country’s two largest internet conglomerates, Tencent and Alibaba, came after Zhang in the rankings for China. Both saw their net worth shrink significantly as Chinese tech companies faced regulatory crackdowns over anti-competitive business practices, data security, and fintech operations.

In the past six months, Pony Ma has lost over US$15 billion, pulling his net worth down by more than 20% to US$49.7 billion. Jack Ma also saw his fortunes tumble by nearly US$6 billion and drop to US$42.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Zhang’s net worth has increased by over 65% since April to reach US$59.4 billion. In May, Zhang issued an internal letter that announced he would step down as ByteDance’s CEO by the end of 2021.

After China rolled out a slew of regulations targeting the internet giants, ByteDance slowed down its operations that earned the company the reputation of being an “app factory.” ByteDance downsized its operations in the edtech and finance sectors earlier this year, and its online gaming and commercialization business also had shake-ups recently.

See also: How can ByteDance’s food delivery play succeed?

This week, some ByteDance employees posted on social media saying that they are about to be laid off. Over 100 ByteDance employees based in Wenzhou were asked to resign within two days, Chinese media outlet The Economic Observer reported on Tuesday.

The staff members who were cut were mostly part of the commercialization department, which is responsible for selling ads on apps like Douyin and news aggregator Toutiao. More than 20 people were laid off from the company’s online gaming platform Ohayoo, an anonymous user said on social media Zhihu, and almost all employees who were fresh graduates were let go.

ByteDance said the layoffs are part of the company’s restructuring but did not elaborate further, according to The Paper. One of ByteDance’s major investors, Susquehanna International Group (SIG), is looking to sell about US$500 million worth of the company’s shares, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

This report was first published on KrAsia.